April 19, 1843 Tsunami: Nova Scotia, Canada

Reference #3935:

Source location: Off Cooks Harbour near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia . May be a distant earthquake. The exactepicentre location is not known at this time.

The tsunami was observed to suddenly cause sealevel to rise , "in the space of a few minutes, to a height of from five to seven feet, and immediately receded with equal rapidity, dragging some craft from their moorings", in Yarmouth Harbour; the event, "took place in about 20 minutes." At Bunker's Island and at the Cove, “the water rose ten feet . ”

[At Cooks Harbour] The man onboard reported , "there being little or no wind, and a smooth sea", at the time he was entering Cooks Harbour.

There is no doubt that this event seen at Yarmouth Harbour, Bunker's Island and the Cove, and at Cooks Harbour was a tsunami. It is not as clear if an earthquake was also experienced immediately before the tsunami. The Yarmouth report of the "Singular Phenomenon" makes absolutely no reference to an earthquake. Cooks Harbour is close enough to Yarmouth that an earthquake that was large enough to cause a tsunami at Cooks Harbour and to be felt at Cooks Harbour should have been felt at Yarmouth.

[Bradoford McGray's] report sounds like the effects of a very local earthquake which caused a local tidal wave. It is also quite possible that the first influx of the tsunami from a distant quake, in fact, did drive the boat over some rocks and that the "dreadful shocks" heard before the tide began to make the "loud roaring" sound as it gained velocity, was the sound of the ship grounding. Then as the tsunami drove the Schooner BEE in over more rocks, it "shook with great violence as if beating over large rocks" and once, "high and dry at the top of the beach", the crew, "found her keel and rudder split, one of her butts started, and a great part of the oakum wrenched out . "