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An outport is the term given for a small coastal community in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. [1] Originally, the term was used for coastal communities on the island of Newfoundland, but the term has now been adopted for those on the mainland area of Labrador as well.
Outports are some of the oldest European settlements in Canada. Giovanni Caboto (known by his English sponsors as John Cabot) visited Newfoundland in 1497; news spread quickly that Cabot had caught cod by simply lowering and lifting a weighted basket. Gaspar Corte-Real of Portugal visited Newfoundland in 1500, and by 1506 the catch from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland encouraged the King of Portugal to impose a ten percent import tariff to protect local fishermen. The first recorded French fishing boat on the Grand Banks was in 1504, Basque whalers arrived in 1527, and Spanish fishermen followed by 1540. [2]
Many fishing boats, also known as dories, would sail in April or May and return in September. The seasonal fresh catch of "wet" fish were initially returned to Europe to be densely salted and air-dried for preservation until later use, but drying fish in Newfoundland outports allowed each boat to bring back a more valuable cargo of already dried fish from each voyage. The westbound Atlantic crossing carried an expanded crew including a shore party. While the normal crew fished from boats, the shore party felled trees to construct a small wharf or fishing stage and platforms of brush and small boughs upon which the fish would be dried about three feet above the ground. The boats returned to the fishing stage where they threw their catch to be gutted and split by the shore party, who then lightly salted the split fish and arranged them to dry on the platforms. The drying fish were covered with sailcloth every night and during fog or rainy weather, and rearranged periodically for several weeks until they hardened and could be stacked like boards. The dried fish were then stored in sheds until the expanded crew and cargo were loaded for the eastbound Atlantic crossing. [3]
During the fishing and drying season, members of the shore party were able to increase their profits for the voyage by trading with First Nations residents bringing furs to the outport. As Grand Banks fishing increased, the best outport locations might be secured for future use if part of the shore party would volunteer to winter-over in the outport and keep the fishing stage, drying platforms, storage sheds, and small boats in good repair. Surviving a winter in the outport was easier for men who found friendly Mi'kmaq to teach them to find and preserve the local berries to prevent scurvy. Some outport caretakers returned to Europe after wintering over, while others "went native" and remained in Newfoundland [4] Jacques Cartier was offered furs by indigenous residents of Chaleur Bay in 1534, indicating previous experience with European fur traders; [5] and Cartier found members of the Montagnais First Nation engaged in fishing for a French Captain Thiennot. On his return voyage in 1536, Cartier left one of his larger ships' boats at Renewse Harbor, Newfoundland, indicating the outport was already in use as a used boat exchange for fishing vessels needing boats for inshore fishing, but not wanting to transport them across the Atlantic. [6]
Both the First Nations and Europeans considered these outport communities temporary facilities of the fish trade. European populated outports initially depended upon the good will of the local First Nation; and historians often consider the outports as First Nations settlements until well after colonization authorized by European monarchs. The pattern of small isolated settlements was reinforced by actions of the Parliament of England to make permanent settlement of Newfoundland illegal. Seventeenth century English fishermen and fish merchants wished to avoid competition from a local population gaining control of the most productive fishing locations as the New England colonies had done in the Gulf of Maine. The questionable legal status of Newfoundland's clandestine settlements discouraged the type of infrastructure investments found in the Maritime Provinces. [7]
On the island of Newfoundland, residents of the capital city of St. John's are frequently referred to as townies, whereas those not from St. John's are referred to as baymen or bay wops, that is those living beyond Conception Bay. This usage originates from the time before reliable land transportation on the island, when most travel was by boat and settlements were located on the coast. [8]
The railway construction in the 1890s resulted in the creation of inland communities that relied on land-based natural resources. The outports began to see wholesale depopulation following cutbacks to ferry services and construction of roads throughout the island during and after the Second World War. Following Confederation in 1949, the government of premier Joey Smallwood pursued a policy of forced/encouraged resettlement of residents from outports to central inland communities where provision of schools, health care and other government services could be achieved more cheaply.
Farley Mowat was among the critics of the resettlement program [9] who noted that it resulted in what was likened to a "cultural genocide" as rural Newfoundland society became decimated. The cod moratorium of 1992 was another blow to the outport communities, whose entire economies were based on the ocean and its resources. Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, outports have voluntarily agreed to depopulate as government required 100% agreement among residents for resettlement, prior to agreeing to close a community. In March 2013, Newfoundland & Labrador Finance Minister Jerome Kennedy announced that households agreeing to resettle from some isolated communities will be given lump-sum payments of up to CAD $270,000. [10]
Only a small proportion of the provincial population remains in outports along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. With no highway access, limited economic growth due to declines in the fishery, and ongoing depopulation as young people move to larger urban centres, the outport is an endangered phenomenon.
A 1969 CBC radio documentary by Canadian pianist Glenn Gould called The Latecomers profiled Newfoundland outports.
The 16th century in Canada saw the first contacts, since the Norsemen 500 years earlier, between the indigenous peoples in Canada living near the Atlantic coast and European fishermen, whalers, traders, and explorers.
Fogo Island is the largest of the offshore islands of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The Town of Fogo Island encompasses Fogo, Joe Batt's Arm-Barr'd Islands-Shoal Bay, Seldom-Little Seldom and Tilting, with the unincorporated areas of Fogo Island. It lies off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, northwest of Musgrave Harbour across Hamilton Sound, just east of the Change Islands. The island is about 25 km (16 mi) long and 14 km (8.7 mi) wide. The total area is 237.71 km2 (91.78 sq mi).
Battle Harbour is a summer fishing station, formerly a permanent settlement, located on the Labrador coast in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Battle Harbour was for two centuries the economic and social centre of the southeastern Labrador coast. Mercantile saltfish premises first established there in the 1770s developed into a thriving community that was known as the Capital of Labrador. It fell into decline following reductions in the cod fishery and a major fire in 1930, and was abandoned as a permanent settlement following government resettlement activity in the 1960s.
A fish flake is a platform built on poles and spread with boughs for drying cod on the foreshores of fishing villages and small coastal towns in Newfoundland and Nordic countries. Spelling variations for fish flake in Newfoundland include flek, fleyke, fleake, flaik and fleack. The term's first recorded use in connection with fishing appeared in Richard Whitbourne's book Newfoundland. In Norway, a flake is known as a hjell.
Tilting is a community on the eastern end of Fogo Island off the northeast coast of Newfoundland. It was incorporated as a town before becoming part of the Town of Fogo Island through an amalgamation in 2011. The community has been designated as a National Historic Site of Canada, and has also been designated as a Registered Heritage District by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Conche is a community on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Its population in 2021 was 149.
Rose Blanche – Harbour le Cou is a small town on Newfoundland's southwest shore, about 45 km at the end of Route 470 from Port aux Basques. This community is located in a barren area on the east side of a small bay. In this bay there are 2 harbours that were mainly used to provide shelter for fishing vessels. Scenery includes the rugged granite coastline, and the white and rocky cliffs of "Diamond Cove". Its granite lighthouse was in operation from 1873 to the 1940s. After it was abandoned in the 1940s the building fell into ruins. The spiral stone staircase extends into the tower wall and kept the tower from collapsing while the remainder of the lighthouse fell to ruin. In 1999 the lighthouse was fully reconstructed and serves as a tourist attraction.
A fishing stage is a wooden vernacular building, typical of the rough traditional buildings associated with the cod fishery in Newfoundland, Canada. Stages are located at the water's edge or "landwash", and consist of an elevated platform on the shore with working tables and sheds at which fish are landed and processed for salting and drying. Traditionally, they are painted with a red ochre paint, though colours other than red are sometimes seen.
The stage is unique among British and North American outbuildings because unlike the typical uses of agricultural structures, both the slaughter and the processing of a harvested animal takes place within this space. While barns and stables were intended for year-round housing of live animals, the stage would be used only for several months during the summer, and not as a shelter for livestock.
The province of Newfoundland and Labrador covers the period from habitation by Archaic peoples thousands of years ago to the present day.
Grand Bruit is a designated place and former settlement in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is on the southwestern coast of the island of Newfoundland. Grand Bruit was resettled in 2010. The community was divided down the middle by a waterfall, hence the name "Grand Bruit" which is French for "great noise".
Lumsden, formerly known as Cat Harbour, is a community located on the Straight Shore of Newfoundland in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, near communities such as Musgrave Harbour and Newtown. Lumsden formerly consisted of two settlements, Lumsden North on the tip of a sandy peninsula and Lumsden South on the main road. Although the harbour in Lumsden is not ideal because it is not sheltered, Lumsden has excellent fishing grounds.
Fair Island, also called Vere Island, is a former community on the northeast coast of the island of Newfoundland. Together with other nearby communities it comprises an area called Bonavista North. These communities have a shared history in that they were settled by people from England, predominantly from the West Country - Dorset, Devon Somerset and Hampshire.
Salvage is a town located on the Eastport Peninsula of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The town had a population of 108 in the Canada 2021 Census.
Cod fishing in Newfoundland was carried out at a subsistence level for centuries, but large scale fishing began shortly after the European arrival in the North American continent in 1492, with the waters being found to be preternaturally plentiful, and ended after intense overfishing with the collapse of the fisheries in 1992.
Resettlement in Newfoundland and Labrador terms refers to an organized approach to centralize the population into growth areas. It is used in the current context when referring to a voluntary relocation initiated from isolated communities themselves.
Cod fisheries are fisheries for cod. Cod is the common name for fish of the genus Gadus, belonging to the family Gadidae, and this article is confined to three species that belong to this genus: the Atlantic cod, the Pacific cod and the Greenland cod. Although there is a fourth species of the cod genus Gadus, Alaska pollock, it is commonly not called cod and therefore currently not covered here.
Brig Bay is a local service district and designated place in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It was first mapped by Captain James Cook in September 1764. The name "Brig" was adopted by the French who occupied the bay prior to English occupation. It provided a safe and well-sheltered harbour.
Lodge Bay is a local service district and designated place in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is on the southeast coast of Labrador. Encompassing a population of less than one hundred residents, the community has uniquely evolved from both early European colonization of Labrador, and the inimitable patterns of land and resource use by the migratory Inuit population. The name Lodge Bay originated from the title Ranger Lodge, which was the name given to the area by trader and explorer, Captain George Cartwright in the late 18th century. "Ranger" was the name of the wooden-mercantile ship Cartwright used to trade, map and explore the Labrador coast, while "Lodge" was the name given to English hunting camps in Great Britain at that time.
Division No. 1, Subdivision G is an unorganized subdivision on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is in Division 1 and contains the unincorporated communities of Baccalieu Island, Besom Cove, Bradley's Cove, Burnt Point, Caplin Cove, Daniel's Cove, Grates Cove, Gull Island, Job's Cove, Kingston, Long Beach, Lower Island Cove, Low Point, Northern Bay, Ochre Pit Cove, Red Head Cove, Riverhead, Smooth Cove and Western Bay.
Caplin Cove-Southport is a local service district and designated place in Trinity Bay in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Caplin Cove-Southport is approximately 50 km from Clarenville.
