In 1936, a Rockefeller heir gave a Canadian island to a college for $1 on one condition: it had to remain a bird sanctuary

In 1936, John Sterling Rockefeller transferred a remote island in Canada’s Bay of Fundy to Bowdoin College for a symbolic price of $1. This was, however, accompanied by a condition that would shape its future: the college had to maintain the island as a bird sanctuary. Located several miles south of Grand Manan in New Brunswick, the 200-acre island had already been protected by Rockefeller for six years. According to Bowdoin College , he had purchased it in 1930 for $25,000 after naturalist Allan Moses persuaded him to help protect the island’s nesting common eiders. The donation became the foundation of the Bowdoin Scientific Station, which has operated on Kent Island for nine decades.

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