Legend has it that if you travel along the Grandique Ferry Road approximately one kilometre from Grand Anse, you will come to a clearing. There, framed by a border of tall black spruce standing so stock still that they seem to be holding their needled breath and waiting for something to crawl out of that darkness, is what the local folk will fearfully tell you is the Black Ground. The Black Ground is a sprawling field bisected by the nasty slashing scar of a long dirt road. There is a lake at one end of the field that some people believe to be bottomless. A series of wildfires have blazed through the field over the centuries and as a result the soil has blackened with ash. The blueberries and cranberries that grow in the field are known to be fat and juicy, but very few locals will dare to pick them. Many believe that the Black Ground is haunted by a Bochdan—an ancient beast that came across the ocean from its Scottish homeland, stowed away on a ship of early settlers.
