John James Audubon and his fellow explorers were aboard Ripley as she sailed across the southern end of the Strait of Belle Isle, along the western coast of Newfoundland, and entered St. George’s Bay on August 13, 1833. The Long Range Mountains run along most of the western coast of Newfoundland and then gradually drop off into beaches and mud flats around St. George’s Bay. As soon as the anchor was dropped close to present-day Flat Island, everyone aboard Ripley went to work to putting in rowboats to go ashore to hunt for caribou or other game, collect fresh water, or bring in lobsters. Audubon noted about the later, “The shores truly abound in this valuable shell-fish.”
Situated upon Flat Island was a mix of “miserable hovels” and “habitable houses” known as Sandy Point. Out of the mix, Audubon was able to hire for one dollar a day two members of the Mi’kmaq indigenous people to serve as guides for Audubon and his fellow explorers. While on the way east from Sandy Point to the town of St. George’s, Audubon found the Green Black-capt Flycatcher. The bird is known today as Wilson’s warbler. Audubon was most familiar with Wilson’s warbler “moving from bush to bush, and seldom flew farther than thirty or forty yards at a time” in such places as the Florida Keys and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston Bay. It was not until travelling along the eastern coast of Canada and around St. George’s Bay that Audubon could conceive of Wilson’s warbler switching from moving from bush to bush during the spring and summer to flying as many as “forty miles or more without alighting” during fall migration.