The summer that never was

From the Archives – Mary Anne Ducharme  (December 2010)

That spring in Hemmingford began with promise. At the end of May a storm system approached the St. Lawrence River Valley with mild temperatures, giving a “new spring to vegetation,” according the to Quebec Gazette, including a lush growth of grass in the pastures, and vigour to wheat and peas just emerging from the soil. By the beginning of June, however, every night brought severe frosts and there were storms of ice pellets, snow, and chilling gusts of wind. Blizzards delivered ten inches of snow with “banks of snow reaching the axletrees of the carriages,” according to a Montreal news- paper. A brief  “heat wave” in late June and the first week of July brought optimism for making up for lost time. At least the rye crops were doing well. Home gardens were replanted.

It was 1816, and optimism withered along with most of the garden and field crops especially Indian corn. In the severe cold of the remainder of July and August grazing farm animals suffered, including newly shorn sheep which died in the cold. Standing water froze to the thickness of a dollar coin. Trees looked strangely forlorn with blackened leaves, orchards were barren, and it was observed that many birds were seeking shelter in houses and barns, some falling dead in the fields. Thick woollen overcoats and mittens were once again an everyday necessity.

In September came a reprieve of three mild weeks. Those with cash resources bought hay at extortionist prices, some attempted to keep their stock alive by feeling them browse from trees. But most sent livestock to market because there was so little fodder for the winter. To the dismay of farmers, however, the glut of beef and pork in the market resulted in meat commodity prices falling to half of normal value. While bitter winter storms continued through October and November, food and cash were increasingly scarce.

Oddly, December ended with fine mild weather, followed by normal weather patterns that resumed through 1817. Robert Seller, in his History of the County of Huntingdon, recounts the alarm as Quebec housewives literally scraped the bottoms of every barrel, and children were sent to bed famished. New crops were still months away. What saved the families was the sale of lumber, and the good market price of potash, allowing them to buy enough provisions to survive.

The cause of the arctic blasts through the summer of 1816 was the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the year before. Volcanic ash clouds reached high into the stratosphere gradually encircling the earth, and dimming the sun. Lower temperatures combined with the coincidence of the sun also going through a period of low magnetic activity, the Dalton Minimum, adding to the loss of sunlight. Famine weakened vast populations world-wide, opening the way to a typhus pandemic which killed millions the following year.