This annual migration of fishing vessels through the waters of the Gulf of St.

Lawrence meant that Marguerite was not entirely without hope of eventual contact with passing ships — though the specific routes the fishermen took, and the specific islands they visited, would have made any encounter with a castaway on a particular island a matter of chance.

The rescue, when it came, appears to have been through exactly this kind of chance encounter.

The fishermen who found her — Bretons, according to most accounts — were going about their ordinary commercial fishing when they came close enough to the island to spot evidence of human habitation and to make contact with its surviving occupant.