Red Bay | |
---|---|
Town | |
Location of Red Bay in Newfoundland and Labrador | |
Coordinates: 51°43′55″N56°25′32″W / 51.73194°N 56.42556°W | |
Country | Canada |
Province | Newfoundland and Labrador |
Region | NunatuKavut (unofficial) |
Government | |
• Type | Municipal incorporation |
Area | |
• Total | 1.58 km2 (0.61 sq mi) |
Elevation | 10 m (30 ft) |
Population (2021) | |
• Total | 142 |
• Density | 90/km2 (230/sq mi) |
Time zone | UTC-3:30 (Newfoundland Time) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-2:30 (Newfoundland Daylight) |
Area code | 709 |
Highways | Route 510 (Trans-Labrador Highway) |
Official name | Red Bay Basque Whaling Station |
Type | Cultural |
Criteria | iii, vi |
Designated | 2013 (37th session) |
Reference no. | 1412 |
Region | Europe and North America |
Official name | Red Bay National Historic Site of Canada |
Designated | 1979 |
Red Bay is a fishing village in Labrador, notable as one of the most precious underwater archaeological sites in the Americas. Between 1530 and the early 17th century, it was a major Basque whaling area. Several whaling ships, both large galleons and small chalupas , sank there, and their discovery led to the designation of Red Bay in 2013 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. [2]
Red Bay is a natural harbour residing in the bay that gives it its name, both names in reference to the red granite cliffs of the region. Because of the sheltered harbour it was used during World War II as a mooring site for naval vessels. In the bay are Penney Island and Saddle Island, which were used by the Basques for their whaling operations. The location of the sunken vessel San Juan is near Saddle Island.
Between 1550 and the early 17th century, Red Bay, known as Balea Baya (Whale Bay), was a centre for Basque whaling operations. Sailors from southern France and northern Spain sent 15 whaleships and 600 men a season to the remote outpost on the Strait of Belle Isle to catch the right whale and bowhead whales that populated the waters there, according to Memorial University of Newfoundland.
In 1565, San Juan, sank on a whaling expedition to Labrador. Research by Selma Barkham in Spanish archives suggested that the San Juan had been lost in Red Bay and La Madalena had sunk in Chateau Bay in the same year. By 1974, Barkham was in contact with archaeologists working for Parks Canada. In 1977, an initial shore-based survey was made of some of Labrador's harbours of the Belle Isle Strait. Good evidence of Basque whaling expeditions was found; in Red Bay, this included many whale bones on the beaches, large numbers of clay roofing tiles (the remains of buildings put up by the whalers) and burnt animal fat associated with stone foundations. [3] : 2-8, 102-103
Underwater archaeological work started in 1978 and on the third day of diving, the wreck site numbered 24M was located north of Cox Hill on Saddle Island. It is about 30 metres (98 ft) from the shoreline. The centreline of the hull was aligned roughly north-south with the bow furthest from the beach. The site slopes; the stern was in 7 metres (23 ft) of water and the bow in about 12 m. It is likely that the ship dragged her anchor in a north-westerly storm at the end of the whaling season when she was loaded with barrels of whale oil and nearly ready to make the transatlantic passage back to her home port. The 24M site was ultimately concluded to most likely be the wreck of San Juan. [3] : 2–8, 102–103
The entire hull structure, artefacts and other finds were mapped in situ, excavated and then archaeologically recorded in detail on land. The hull components were disassembled, as necessary, to carry out this process, From the outset of the project, it had been clear that the funds were not available to carry out the large conservation effort needed to keep the structural components of the wreck on land. Therefore, they were returned to the water, being stored in a carefully designed environment which replicates the anaerobic conditions in which the wreck had remained preserved prior to excavation. A reburial process of this scale had not been previously attempted. This was carried out in 1985, the last year of the 24M fieldwork. The reburial site is regularly monitored to confirm the effectiveness of the continued preservation of the wreck timbers. [3] : 19, 149–152
Other, smaller vessels, such as chalupas, have also been recovered from the waters.
Another galleon was found 25–35 feet below water in 2004. It was the fourth trans-oceanic ship to have been found in the area.
A cemetery on nearby Saddle Island holds the remains of 140 whalers. Many of the people buried there are thought to have died from drowning and exposure.
Historians[ who? ] believe that a decline in whale stocks eventually led to the abandonment of the whaling stations in Red Bay. Today, an interpretive centre in Red Bay explains the history to visitors.
Local legends of Red Bay make reference to a hidden treasure buried in a body of water known as Pond on the Hill 51°43′43″N56°26′56″W / 51.72861°N 56.44889°W at the foot of Tracey Hill by the infamous pirate Captain William Kidd. An attempt was made to find the treasure by residents of Carrol Cove by draining the pond. The attempt failed.
Red Bay has been designated a National Historic Site of Canada since 1979, [4] and since 2013 it is one of Canada's UNESCO World Heritage Sites. [5]
In 2016, the Google Street View imaging service uploaded images of Red Bay. Red Bay is one of the few communities in Labrador with images on the service. [6]
In 2021, the local school, Basque Memorial School closed due to no enrollment. [7]
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Red Bay had a population of 142 living in 65 of its 69 total private dwellings, a change of -16% from its 2016 population of 169. With a land area of 2.31 km2 (0.89 sq mi), it had a population density of 61.5/km2 (159.2/sq mi) in 2021. [8]
The Gulf of St. Lawrence fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, possessions of France, in North America.
The Strait of Belle Isle is a waterway in eastern Canada, that separates Labrador from the island of Newfoundland, in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Conception Harbour is a town on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is in Division 1 on Conception Bay and can be accessed via Newfoundland and Labrador Route 60.
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.
Smeerenburg was a whaling settlement on Amsterdam Island in northwest Svalbard. It was founded by the Danish and Dutch in 1619 as one of Europe's northernmost outposts. With the local bowhead whale population soon decimated and whaling developed into a pelagic industry, Smeerenburg was abandoned around 1660.
Labourd is a former French province and part of the present-day Pyrénées Atlantiques département of Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. It is one of the traditional Basque provinces, and identified as one of the territorial component parts of the Basque Country by many, especially by the Basque nationalists.
Channel-Port aux Basques is a town at the extreme southwestern tip of Newfoundland fronting on the western end of the Cabot Strait. A Marine Atlantic ferry terminal is located in the town which is the primary entry point onto the island of Newfoundland and the western terminus of the Newfoundland and Labrador Route 1 in the province. The town was incorporated in 1945 and its population in the 2021 census was 3,547.
This article discusses the history of whaling from prehistoric times up to the commencement of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. Whaling has been an important subsistence and economic activity in multiple regions throughout human history. Commercial whaling dramatically reduced in importance during the 19th century due to the development of alternatives to whale oil for lighting, and the collapse in whale populations. Nevertheless, some nations continue to hunt whales even today.
A chalupa is a small boat that functions as a shallop, water taxi or gondola, such as those seen at the "floating gardens" of Xochimilco south of Mexico City, Mexico. Chalupa is also the name of the type of whaling boat used by the Basques in the mid-16th century in what is now Newfoundland and Labrador.
L'Anse-au-Loup (Town) is located on the banks of L'Anse-au-Loup Brook and the Strait of Belle Isle, in Newfoundland and Labrador province, Canada.
The Slaying of the Spaniards was one of the last documented massacres in Icelandic history. Some Basque whalers went on a whaling expedition to Iceland and were killed after a conflict in 1615 with local people in the region of the Westfjords.
HMS Sapphire was a 32-gun fifth rate of the Royal Navy, scuttled at Bay Bulls, Newfoundland, Canada in 1696. It is currently a protected archaeological site. She was the only vessel of any size sunk in the Anglo-French wars in North America.
Saddle Island is an abandoned settlement in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Basques were among the first people to catch whales commercially rather than purely for subsistence and dominated the trade for five centuries, spreading to the far corners of the North Atlantic and even reaching the South Atlantic. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain, when writing about Basque whaling in Terranova, described them as "the cleverest men at this fishing". By the early 17th century, other nations entered the trade in earnest, seeking the Basques as tutors, "for [they] were then the only people who understand whaling", lamented the English explorer Jonas Poole.
Selma de Lotbinière Barkham,, was a British-Canadian historian and geographer of international standing in the fields of the maritime history of Canada and of the Basque Country.
Commercial whaling in Britain began late in the 16th century and continued after the 1801 formation of the United Kingdom and intermittently until the middle of the 20th century.
Whaling in Canada encompasses both aboriginal and commercial whaling, and has existed on all three Canadian oceans, Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast have whaling traditions dating back millennia, and the hunting of cetaceans continues by Inuit. By the late 20th century, watching whales was a more profitable enterprise than hunting them.
The settlement of Basques in the Americas was the process of Basque emigration and settlement in the New World. Thus, there is a deep cultural and social Basque heritage in some places in the Americas, the most famous of which being Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Central America, Guatemala and Antioquia, Colombia.
Rose au Rue is an abandoned whaling town in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada that had a small population of 11 in 1891.
Albaola Maritime Culture Factory is a shipyard museum in Pasaia, Gipuzkoa, Spain. A scientific replica of the San Juan whaleship of the 19th century is being built in public, using the techniques and materials of the time. In 2015 the construction process of the whaleboat obtained UNESCO protection. In 2018 the museum received 63,000 visitors.