SEA STAR TRAVEL LOG: September 2008

Petites Newfoundland

Outport towns.

That term is used to describe communities unconnected to the rest of Newfoundland by roads. They are too difficult to build over the high and rocky slopes or over ponds or lakes. It is/was a group of families bound together and dependent on each other by the activity of fishing.

To complicate the lives of these hardy people, they live on a coast buffeted by gale force winds on a regular basis and a place where fog appears in huge banks and lasts for days. This year the people we speak with agree there has been at most five summer temperature days and days without fog in June, July and August! Before this trip, I found it difficult to envision what an outport town was, and what happened when the Canadian government decided it was time to shut a town down.

The Newfoundland coast was settled because of the fishing industry. People depended on fishing for cod from the large schooners, working building and repairing boats, or working drying and packing cod for transport. The schooner would sail out to the Grand Banks, or the St. Pierre Banks in all months and in all weather and lower the small boats. The dory men would lay out the lines of 1500 hooks and tend them. There were hundreds of these fishing schooners. In the 1950’s the schooners were replaced by newer technology-the engine. The sails were removed and the engine made way for the trawler and the laying out of lots of nets. For a while the new technology made lives easier. More and more cod was caught, salted and sent out for export. In a short time the cod fishery was depleted. Many families had settled in the harbor towns along the coast and were making a good living by fishing.

Newfoundland became part of Canada March 31, 1949. Fishing, boat building and other ocean related jobs were available then. One by one the towns were abandoned as men looked elsewhere for jobs to raise their families. By 1965 many of these towns had been resettled, or offered government incentives to move to more thriving, larger communities.

When resettlement was necessary and offered, the subsidized ferry boat supply service and basic utilities were shut off. If a family wished to stay, they were on their own. From what we have heard, the family is allowed to rent the family home for five years at a time by paying the government a small payment, maybe $100 to $300 to use the house. Eventually the homes fall into disrepair, the sidewalks crack the weeds overgrow and very few people live in the community- and those hardy folks try to make out the best they can.

Unfortunately there is no more lucrative cod fishing on the southern coast of Newfoundland, nor are the fisherman hanging around the docks expecting the fishery to revive- but they are also angry at the government regulation. The people settled in the harbor towns were self-sufficient types- eventually forced to move to make a living. Some preferred the hardship the lack of basic services would cause, as the towns lost residents and the ferries an other supports were withdrawn. Some towns are still dying and resettlement still happening as we traveled in 2008.

The outport town of Grand Bruit with fewer than 70 families was about to vote on whether to resettle. There appear to be about 10 people as year round residents with more people arriving to enjoy the family home for a few months in the summer, perhaps as many as 70 people in the summer.

One of these towns we visited by dingy from our anchored boat a few days ago was closed five years ago.
The town of Petites is located on the south coast in Harbor Le Cou. The town has no road access. Access from the west stops at Burgeo. Access used to be government provided by the coastal ferry and private boats. This has to be one of the most beautiful places on the south coast and has an unspoiled beauty: harbors, fresh water, towering mountains, wildflowers and abandoned houses with absolutely no people- well actually three families are using their homes as camps and trying to make their homes livable. Because access to supplies is difficult and no one lives in them, the remaining folks might remove parts from the abandoned homes as they need them, or burning other parts in their fires. As we walked the concrete walks or wooden walkways through the town, we could see the hurriedness with which people left the town and their possessions behind. In one home a doll startled us looking out from a corner. In another house the rugs were perfect but the wires in the walls were removed through large gashes into the sheetrock. Clothing was strewn around a home as if someone was simply sorting the wash.

Dan and I couldn’t help but reflect on what the occupants may have felt at leaving this glorious scenery behind-even as they understood there was nothing more for them in Petites. They may not have starved as there are some fish if you have a boat and can afford the price of gas, or caribou or moose to hunt in summer, but there is no way to continue to make a living.

So we visited these outport towns in flux – most will not be there in 10 years. As anywhere, people cope differently. Some people move on. We heard many of the families have someone away working in the oil business on the offshore platforms and are paid well. If a person makes a certain amount of money in a seasonal job, they can collect unemployment for the time the climate makes the job unavailable. Some might move to a new town where they may have a family member and retrain for some job that the government provides. Their fathers and grandfathers were fishermen and they want to be on the water. It seems that many are doing a lot of wishing for the life that was once a possibility. There are gorgeous parcels of land and houses to be purchased for what might be considered cheap. The residents don’t see the value in all this oceanfront property because of the problem of supplies. We met a man who purchased a shed on harborfront land for $1200. There are innumerable offerings such as that- but you can’t help feeling badly for a past way of life that only the rich could now enjoy if they could stand the isolation, climate and inconvenience. The scenery is lovely enough for us to consider it and think about plunking a sailboat right out front.