A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF

THE SETTLEMENT OF

LARK HARBOUR and YORK HARBOUR

in the

OUTER BAY OF ISLANDS

NEWFOUNDLAND

by

Stuart L. Harvey

July 1997

S. L. H.

History does not occur in isolation. The Bay of Islands, though unknown and neglected for centuries, was always a part of Newfoundland, and consequently its people and events were influenced by people and events elsewhere in Newfoundland and the rest of the world. The first European residents of these small outports, unenfranchised and with no civil government, may have known little about world politics of their time, but they could not escape the effects of decisions made in St John's, London, Paris, Washington, Ottawa, and dozens of other places around the globe. Therefore any history of this region must be placed in the greater context of regional, national and international history.

Until the late eighteenth century, when settlement by people of European descent began in the Bay of Islands, specific knowledge of this area was contained in mariners' logs and was often sketchy. There was little recorded history since there were few human events to record. Even the native people seem to have had virtually no permanent settlement in this area when the first Europeans came. However most of the same factors that governed the settlement and growth of the East Coast of the Island were also influential here. The early pioneers came to catch fish, and then decided that this was a good place to stay, but they were helped or hindered by events which happened thousands of miles away. Some of those events, like the frequent wars between England and France, and the two World Wars, affected everyone; others, such as the Treaties of Utrecht, Paris and Versailles, dominated the economic development of the entire Island, but on the French Shore had even more devastating effects which may still be felt today.

This document attempts to demonstrate how such major events in the history of Newfoundland affected the lives of those who chose the West Coast and the Outer Bay of Islands as their home. An effort has been made to provide a useful resource for each of the several kinds of readers who may use it. Original sources have been quoted, since it is often revealing to know not only the substance of what a writer closer to the event had expressed, but also the way in which it was expressed. References have been supplied so that readers who so wish may investigate further and view the sources in their original context. In some cases, entire documents have been included in the Appendices; in others, extracts or summaries have been chosen. Less energetic readers are asked to select what they wish to read, and to omit the rest.

The camel has been described as "an animal designed by a committee": it has the reputation of being a very troublesome animal to handle. I hope this book, in trying to suit a wide range of readers, does not suffer from too many of the camel's difficult characteristics.

Finally, this book is one part of my thanks to the great and generous people of Western Newfoundland, especially those of Lark Harbour and York Harbour, for welcoming me and my family into their communities for the past many years. Their lovely birthplace has become our adopted home.

S.L.H.

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The Forgotten Bay, a Historical Survey of the Settlement of Lark Harbour and York Harbour
in the Outer Bay of Islands, Newfoundland

WHY "THE FORGOTTEN BAY"?

The Bay of Islands was the very last part of the Island of Newfoundland to receive permanent settlement. When the East Coast settlers began to venture further afield in search of improved fishing grounds and building materials, some of them travelled along the South Coast, establishing themselves close to those good fishing areas. Then, generation by generation as the fishing grounds became too crowded, they migrated further west, rounding Cape Ray, and moving up the West Coast past Codroy, and into Bay St George. Similarly, others ventured in a northeasterly direction, to Labrador, to take advantage of the excellent fishery there, and then migrated down the West Coast to Bonne Bay. Many of these migrations were at first seasonal and temporary, but gradually they became permanent. Those settlers, frequently a young couple with as yet few or no children, would establish themselves at the headwaters of a bay or cove like Birchy Cove, or in the estuary of a river such as the Humber. There they could be reasonably safe from the view of the French navy, or from the depredations of privateers who were not uncommon along the West Coast in those days. The two migration routes thus converged in the Bay of Islands, finally completing the settlement of the Island's coastline.

Later, as risk of privateers and harassment by the French navy grew less common and it became more obvious that Newfoundland was destined to belong to those who lived here, ensuing generations of those same families moved to the outer areas of the Bay and established permanent settlements. Lark Harbour and York Harbour were thus among the very last areas of the Bay to be settled, but as the French presence became less of a threat, and people realised that there was a good living to be made in the herring and lobster industries particularly, they moved out in increasing numbers.

The two small communities of Lark Harbour and York Harbour are located near the south side of the mouth of the Bay of Islands on the West Coast of Newfoundland. From the Gulf of St Lawrence a ship will first enter a wide bay some fifteen kilometres from north to south, surrounded by steep, sometimes vertical cliffs backed by mountains up to eight hundred metres high. As its name suggests, the Bay contains a number of islands, some as rocky and forbidding as the surrounding cliffs, while others are low and wooded. Across to the east, another fifteen kilometres, are deep fiords extending inland as much as forty kilometres. The entire area is heavily glaciated, yielding many prime examples of features such as cirques, hogback ridges, and striations. Marine charts show that the seabed within the Bay, likewise once scoured by glaciers, is frequently much deeper than that of the Gulf of St Lawrence immediately outside the mouth of the Bay.

Just within the Bay of Islands, on the south side, is a narrow channel perhaps half a kilometre wide which trends westward between steep cliffs backed by mountains until at last it opens into a circular anchorage enclosed with shelving beaches. On the shores of this little haven is situated the small community of Lark Harbour. A couple of kilometres further south as the crow flies, reached either by road through a mountain pass, or by water around a great domed headland, lies the even smaller sister community of York Harbour, behind a long sandy beach backed by a lagoon and a gentle slope covered with spruce trees. On a summer day, with the sun shining and a light westerly breeze blowing, with the hum of a motor boat heading out of the harbour and the calls of the seagulls as they circle around the wharf, there are few places on earth more beautiful than our little villages; by contrast, in winter, in a whirling southeaster laden with snow and rain from the Atlantic, or when a northwest gale roars in from the Gulf, few places more effectively illustrate the tenuous nature of human life.

In 1985, a resident of the state of Illinois is said to have described this area as "a little bit of Switzerland right there in Canada". ⁽¹⁾ Though this description may be true in many respects, it ignores the most important fact of life in these communities: while Switzerland is entirely landlocked, Lark Harbour and York Harbour owe their very existence to the ocean. The first settlers came here because they made a living from the sea; many of their descendants still do. There have been times when the sea has been generous to them; there have been others when it has been violent and destructive. But, regardless of its mood and through every season of the year, for those who live as close to it as we do, the sea is never out of sight or out of mind.

These words are found on a French map of Newfoundland dating from 1764, the year in which James Cook began his detailed survey of the coasts and harbours of our Island. ⁽²⁾ The history of the entire West Coast of Newfoundland has been, like its human settlement, sparse and uncertain, with the area around the Bay of Islands being perhaps the most uncertain of all. While the Avalon Peninsula had become a focal point of the Age of Exploration, a few hundred miles away to the west everything continued as it had done from time immemorial. From the early 1500s mariners were sailing all around the Island of Newfoundland en route to and from the St Lawrence River. Except for a few fishing expeditions, and the odd intrepid explorer, rarely did they visit the West Coast, and even less frequently did any of them enter the Bay of Islands, so when the maps show terra incognita, they reflect the true state of knowledge at the time.

Only in very recent years have there been uncovered any traces of occupation by prehistoric peoples. Archaeologists have however discovered five possible sites in the Outer Bay of Islands which might present evidence of Maritime Archaic occupation dating somewhere between about 3000 and 1200 BC. These aboriginal people inhabited the area from New England to central Labrador after about 6000 BC, and are known to have occupied parts of Western Newfoundland. One of the best-known sites representing the Maritime Archaic culture in eastern North America is a large cemetery at Port au Choix, some 200 kilometres to the north of our area of interest. This site has been explored and documented in detail.⁽³⁾ However the Bay of Islands sites, though promising, have received no more than a preliminary investigation, and have to date yielded no artefacts beyond a few flakes of chert, a flinty rock commonly used for arrows, spearheads, and cutting implements. It is not yet known whether any of these locations represent permanent occupation, transient migration, or brief hunting and foraging visits. The sites are at Little Port, Bottle Cove, the Big Brook neighbourhood of Lark Harbour, Governor's Island, and Woods Island.

Further evidence of prehistoric settlement exists in the form of a flint "point" or arrowhead found in 1974 by a local boy, Averil Childs, near Bottle Cove. This item has been identified as relating to the Little Passage Indian culture of about 1200-1500 AD. This again is an isolated find, and additional investigation is needed in order to answer the many questions about the nature of the occupation it might represent. ⁽⁴⁾

It is not known whether the Norsemen visited the Bay of Islands, or even the West Coast of Newfoundland but, given their intrepid nature and mastery of the sea, it would be surprising if they had never ventured westward through the Strait of Belle Isle and southwards. Claims have been made for their presence much further south than Newfoundland, so the Bay of Islands would have been easily within their reach. Expeditions from their Vinland settlement on the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula at L'Anse aux Meadows ⁽⁵⁾ into the Gulf of St Lawrence would have been comparatively simple, and very rewarding in the resources that would have become available to them. Evidence of any such voyages, if they were indeed made, has not been discovered.

Likewise there is so far no physical evidence of the Micmacs in the Bay of Islands prior to modern times. They visited the Island from Nova Scotia and established settlements in other areas, and in 1767 James Cook reported meeting a tribe of Micmacs in Bay St George. ⁽⁶⁾ Again, it is difficult to believe that these aboriginal people never spent time in the Bay of Islands, to take advantage of its comparatively sheltered waters full of herring and codfish, its ready access to the Humber River teeming with salmon, and its hinterland full of wildlife.

The first documented European contact with Newfoundland in more modern times was the 2 May to 6 August 1497 voyage of Giovanni Caboto ("John Cabot") in the Matthew from Bristol. While Caboto is credited with "discovering" Newfoundland, it is thought that fishermen may have been coming to these waters for some time before that, to the East Coast at least. It is widely believed, though not indisputably documented, that Caboto made land at Bonavista on the east coast. There is no record of his exploring the West Coast, and certainly not the Bay of Islands. As might be expected, fish was a major find, for a letter from a certain Raimondo de Soncino, in London on the service of the Duke of Milan, wrote to his master on 18 December 1497, after Caboto's return to England:

Messer Zoane Caboto ... hoisted the royal standard and took possession for the king here [Henry VII of England, who had granted him a patent for discovery in 1496] ... This Messer Zoane has a description of the world in a map, and also a solid sphere, which he had made, and shows where he has been ... They say the land is excellent and temperate, and they believe that Brazil wood and silk are native there. They assert that the sea there is swarming with fish, which can be taken not only with the net, but in baskets let down with a stone, so that it sinks in the water ...  These same English, his [Caboto's] companions, say that they could bring back so many fish that this kingdom would have no need of Iceland, from which comes a very great quantity of the fish called stock fish. ⁽⁷⁾

Another letter, written by an Englishman named John Day to the 'Lord Grand Admiral' of Spain (probably Columbus) who had requested information on Caboto's voyage, describes the resources of the land:

... they found tall trees of the kind masts are made, and other smaller trees, and the country is very rich in grass. ... All along the coast they found many fish like those which in Iceland are dried in the open and sold in England and other countries, and these fish are called in England 'stockfish' ... It is considered certain that the cape of the said land was found and discovered in the past by the men from Bristol who found 'Brasil' as your Lordship well knows. It was called the Island of Brasil ... ⁽⁸⁾

In 1500 a Portuguese explorer, Gaspar Cortereal, searching for a northwest passage to the Far East which would be shorter than the Cape of Good Hope route of Vasco da Gama, discovered "a land that is very cool and with big trees [which] he named Terra Verde". This appears to have been Newfoundland. The following year, 1501, he made a second voyage, and must have gone considerably north, because "they found the sea to be frozen. [Turning west after three months sailing] they caught sight of a very large country ... numerous large rivers flowed into the sea ... " Gaspar and his vessel did not return from this voyage, and the next year his brother Miguel set off to find him, but also failed to return. Finally a third Cortereal brother joined the search, and likewise found nothing. He did however return home. At this point the Portuguese seemed to be discouraged with exploration in this region, and gave up. But this period marks the beginning of the intense fishing effort that was to last for several hundred years. In fact, by 1506, less than ten years after the voyage of Caboto, the Portuguese fishing effort was so intense that a tax was levied on all Newfoundland fish brought into Portugal. ⁽⁹⁾

All of Western Europe now wanted a piece of the action. As well as the abundant cod fishery, the fabled wealth of the new lands attracted them, and there was still strong hope that a northwest passage would be discovered. So far, however, France had been the laggard. This would soon change. On his first voyage of 1534, Jacques Cartier was commissioned by the King of France "To discover certain islands and lands where it is said a great quantity of gold and other precious things are to be found". ⁽¹⁰⁾ Having passed through the Strait of Belle Isle and made his famous remark about "the land God gave to Cain", on 15 June 1534 Jacques Cartier set sail down the West Coast of Newfoundland. On 17 June, running before a storm, he sighted the Bay of Islands and two headlands, which he called Cape Royal and Lath Cape (North and South Heads). Of course, the modern names had not yet been assigned, but this seems to have been the first authentic documented account of the Bay of Islands.

Between these two capes are low shores, beyond which are very high lands with apparently rivers among them. Two leagues from Cape Royal there is a depth of twenty fathoms and the best fishing possible for big cod. Of these cod we caught, while waiting for our consort, more than a hundred in less than an hour. ⁽¹¹⁾

On his next voyage, Cartier circumnavigated Newfoundland, proving conclusively that it was an island, but it was still some considerable time before the world's cartographers incorporated that fact into their work. On that trip, as he passed through the Cabot Strait on his way back to France in the spring of 1536, off the south coast of Newfoundland Cartier encountered French fishing vessels from his home port of St Malo. The "great quantity of gold and other precious things" mentioned in Cartier's commission was, it seemed, not to be found in this part of the new world, at least not in the form expected, although fishermen from St Malo and other ports of Western Europe continued coming to Newfoundland and returning home with vast amounts of another form of wealth for the next four hundred years.

GROWTH OF THE COD FISHERY

In his classic work A History of Newfoundland, Judge D. W. Prowse quotes from a paper written by Rev.George Patterson:

Immediately after Gaspar Cortereal's first voyage of 1500 or 1501 fishing companies were formed in Viana, Aveiro, and Terceira, Portugal, for the purpose of founding establishments in Terra Nova ... At different times Aveira alone had 60 vessels sailing to Newfoundland, and in 1550 150 fishing vessels. Equal numbers sailing from Oporto and other ports, gave a large increase of revenue. ;⁽¹²⁾

Prowse provides some other statistics relating to the size of the fishing effort in Newfoundland in the 16th century. During the reign of Philip II of Spain, 200 ships with 6000 men were employed in the fishery, but by 1593, after the destruction of the Armada (1588) only 8 Spanish ships were present in a fleet of 80 or more English and French ships. In 1541-2, 60 French ships were involved, and during January and February of 1544 about two ships left every day for Newfoundland. In 1561 thirty vessels of 150 tons each set sail. As the century progressed, the Spanish and French fleets declined in number, but the English fleet grew. By the next century, although France, Spain and Portugal still fished the waters of Newfoundland, England was the dominant nation, having shifted much of her effort from the older Iceland fishery to the New World. ⁽¹³⁾ All these nations continued fishing the waters of both Iceland and Newfoundland right down to modern times.

From this time onward, voyages to the northwest Atlantic became increasingly frequent, and slowly, as more information was gathered, on the maps of the time the outline of Newfoundland began to assume the shape we know today. As well as the profitable fishery, great interest was generated in Europe over the fabled wealth in precious metals and spices of the New World, and many joined in the effort to find a sea route beyond the Americas to the Far East. Hundreds of ships and thousands of men were engaged in these various enterprises, but little if any of the effort ventured as far as the West Coast and the Bay of Islands. A thriving whaling industry was by this time established by the Basques at Red Bay on the southern coast of Labrador, but even though whales must have been plentiful then, as today, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and the Bay of Islands would have served as an excellent base of operations, no such industry was attempted until the abortive effort to establish a whale processing factory at Lark Harbour in 1911.

MAPS OF NEWFOUNDLAND

By the middle of the sixteenth century the social pattern that would last until the dawn of the twentieth century had begun to be established: while the East Coast of the Island had become familiar to many European mariners, and its bays and headlands had received names which were recorded on the maps, the West Coast was neglected. A glance at almost any of the many maps dating from the early 1500s onwards will reveal considerable detail in the coastal outlines and rivers, and numerous entries of names of natural features on the eastern half of the Island, but remarkably few on the western half. Also, most of these early maps show the entire eastern seaboard of North America, from Labrador to Florida, as one unbroken coastline, while the Straits of Belle Isle and Cabot are both drawn as large bays. For example the maps of Salviati and Castiglioni, dating from 1525, and that of 1529 of Girolama da Verrazzano, brother of Giovanni of greater fame, are so drawn, as is another by a Spanish government official, about 1545, and even one, dated 1544 and claiming to have been drawn by Sebastian Caboto, the explorer's son. Several of these maps identify Newfoundland as Tierra de Bacallaos, "land of the codfish", a name still remembered in the east coast island of Baccalieu. By 1563, however, the map by Lázaro Luís, and the 1564 world map of Ortelius, show Newfoundland as an island. Ortelius presents a number of inaccuracies, including depicting Labrador as an island and showing a very imaginative and accessible Northwest Passage, but he does use the names 'Terra Nova' and even 'Canada'. Mercator's map of 1569 incorporates great improvements in accuracy for the most part, although he has two large islands, Terra de bacallaos, and Ilhe de S. Julien, for Newfoundland. ⁽¹⁴⁾

COLONISATION : TRIAL AND ERROR

The second half of the sixteenth century saw increased development of English naval power, focusing on the need to defend the homeland against Spain. On 3 August 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, armed with a commission from Queen Elizabeth I of England, entered St John's Harbour with a fleet of five ships ranging in size from two hundred tons down to merely ten. He found thirty-six ships of various nations, including England, in the port. At first they were reluctant to receive him, but the royal commission solved that problem, and two days later he took formal possession of the New Found Land in the name of Queen Elizabeth. ⁽¹⁵⁾ Thus was created England's first colony, laying the foundation stone of the empire which would continue to grow for the next three hundred years.

The feared invasion of England by Spain was attempted in 1588, but the Royal Navy rose to the occasion and, with a generous measure of good luck combined with the superior tactical skill of its sailors, managed to stave off the attack. Nature then decimated the ships which had escaped the English tactics in the Channel, and the remnants of the huge fleet, the pride of Spain, limped home in disarray. This defeat of the Spanish Armada, the greatest fleet ever assembled, resulted in a huge psychological advantage for England over Spain, Portugal, and France, and that, coupled with the tremendous popularity of Queen Elizabeth I among the common people, gave a powerful impetus to the development of the colonies.

Newfoundland, however, which by providing a training ground for the Elizabethan navy had indirectly played a major role in the naval victory, received little recognition. Through no fault of her own, Newfoundland was slow in acquiring a permanent population. There were distinct drawbacks to being Britain's Oldest Colony. In 1565 there were no permanent settlers anywhere on the Island. Those who came for the fishery were obligated to return to England in the fall. Newfoundland was in fact being used not as a home for the expanding population of the growing European nations, but as little more than a huge base for the fishing operations.

The old Colonial system was mercantile rather than imperial. There is no more striking example of this than the treatment of Newfoundland. The purpose of English interest in Newfoundland in 1760, as it continued to be throughout George's reign, was not to paint the map red or to colonise, it was to find a base for fishermen hailing from the little West Country ports from Poole to Falmouth. It was therefore forbidden for anyone to settle permanently in Newfoundland. It was not to be a settlement but a great centre for the drying of nets and the packing of fish, a safe harbour for those in temporary danger. It was regarded as part of the naval service and its governor was a naval commander who divided his time between a quarter-deck and St John's, thinking of them in the same way. Strenuous attempts were made to prevent the 10,000 or 15,000 residents from being increased. ;⁽¹⁶⁾

Meanwhile, the power of France was growing apace. It is estimated that around 1700 the French fishery employed between sixteen and twenty thousand men, and her navy was proportionately strong, nurtured on the success of the fishery. The great fortress at Louisburg, Cape Breton Island, also became a major factor of the French military establishment. Thus French power was becoming a threat to the success of any British endeavours, but little or nothing was done to remedy it. Instead, what few measures were taken, aside from the establishment of some marginal colonies, tended to work in the other direction.

The year 1610 saw the founding of John Guy's colony "Sea Forest Plantation" at Cupids, but in spite of its official inception and a good start, the colony soon fell on hard times, suffering hostilities at the hands of the west country fishermen who resented its existence. Five other colonies were also attempted during the next few years, under the leadership of men like Sir William Vaughan, Lord Baltimore, Lord Falkland, Bacon, Kirke, and others. Numerous quarrels ensued between the colonists and the fishermen, until the Star Chamber Rules of 1633 and 1670 set up laws for the governance of the Island, giving very clear advantages to the incoming fishermen as opposed to the resident colonists. Among other enactments, the First Order of Star Chamber stated "That no planter [permanent resident] cut down any wood, or plant within six miles of the sea shore", "That no inhabitant or planter take up best stages before arrival of fishermen", and "That no master or owner of ships transport seamen or fishermen to Nfld unless belonging to his ship's company". ⁽¹⁷⁾ These rules clearly favoured the ship fishery at the expense of the settlers. Thus began the infamous rule of the "fishing admirals" which alone was sufficient to prevent permanent settlement until the next century. When these adversities were combined with the harsh Newfoundland winters and the great distance from the home base in England, it is hardly surprising that few braved the challenges of both man and nature.

The Second Order of Star Chamber was passed in 1670 after the urging of Sir Josiah Child (1603-1699), a powerful English merchant with interests in the East India Company and other trading concerns. This document virtually gave the west country fishing merchants the right to do as they wished with the settlers: they destroyed property, they threatened (and surely used) violence, they imprisoned the settlers for no reason. This continued until 1677 when a fresh directive arrived which allowed the settlers to continue possession of their houses and stages "until further orders". ⁽¹⁸⁾ Some respite was thus provided.

THE TREATIES : UTRECHT (1713) AND PARIS (1763)

Because the fishery was so valuable, there were disputes with the Spanish and the French over who might fish where, what rights different parties held to construct fishing rooms, and who controlled a particular harbour, as well as minor skirmishes and occasional outright attacks. Legislation, too, or the lack of it, as well as the "fishing admirals", made settlement difficult if not impossible, and the wars against France in the early 1700s compounded the difficulties. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) which terminated hostilities with France, gave Britain sovereignty of Newfoundland island and allowed the French to retain fishing rights between Bonavista on the East Coast and Point Riche on the west side of the Great Northern Peninsula. This comprised about a third of the Island's entire coastline, and included much of the best-known fishing grounds at that time. This treaty did have the potential to solve some problems by awarding the British the right to establish law and order if they so chose. However, editorialising on the difficulties caused for the colonists by the implementation of the treaty, Prowse states that:

This unfortunate state of affairs was due to the extraordinary imbecility of the British Government. They endeavoured to rule the Colony without a Governor, to defend it from invasion without adequate military or naval force, to distribute justice without duly constituted courts or laws made by the authority of the Imperial Parliament; in fine, they went on administering the affairs of the Island in the most blundering manner, and then stupidly wondered because the inevitable result was chronic disorder and chaotic confusion. ⁽¹⁹⁾

Nowhere in the history of Newfoundland is there to be found a clearer illustration of the way the colony's interests were subordinated, used, and even sacrificed, to benefit those of the mother country, than that afforded by the three treaties. Instead of using this opportunity to secure Newfoundland as a British possession by encouraging settlement, the authorities allowed control to remain with the mercantile leadership who continued in the belief that a permanent population was harmful to the mobile fishery. This resulted in the ban on residence remaining in force. Newfoundland in general suffered badly from this short-sighted policy, and the West Coast in particular was severely hampered. What fishermen or settlers were going to venture into unfamiliar territory when there was no organised system of support? The present-day imbalance of population which still favours the East Coast of the Island, and the lack of social and industrial development on the West Coast until the present century, may well both be blamed in large part on this policy.

The rest of North America was receiving immigrants from Europe at an astounding rate, while few, if any, were coming to Newfoundland. The areas more remote from St John's, like the West Coast, received no permanent settlers at all. A map of 1720 by T. Cour Lotter ⁽²⁰⁾ was typical of its time in showing the Island of Newfoundland and the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence as exhibiting a marked emptiness from Ingornachoix Bay (Point Riche) to Cape Ray on the southwestern corner of the Island. Within that 400 kilometre stretch of coast are marked La Belle Baye (Bonne Bay), Les Trois Isles (Tweed, Guernsey and Pearl Islands in the mouth of the Bay of Islands) and La Baye des Trois Isles itself (Bay of Islands, also known as Bay de St Julian on some early 18th century maps ⁽²¹⁾), Port a Port (shown at the location of Serpentine River), Isle S. Georges, Baye St Georges, Cap a l'Anguille, Baye a l'Anguille, and Point a l'Aneau, a total of nine named features. A stretch of comparable length on the east coast of the Island has approximately sixty names. ⁽²²⁾ All other coasts around the Gulf are comparably supplied with names, with the exception of Anticosti Island, which was another similarly uncolonised location. On this basis alone it would probably be safe to suggest that there were virtually no permanent inhabitants on the West Coast at this time. Yet, less than fifty years later, in 1765, Governor Hugh Palliser reported 15,484 inhabitants, men, women and children inclusive, and 9,152 fishermen in addition for a total of 24,636 on the entire Island; ⁽²³⁾ in 1766 Sir Joseph Banks reported in his journal that St John's had a population of 1,100, contributing to a total of some 10,000 on the entire Island. Most of these were located on the Avalon Peninsula and the East Coast. ⁽²⁴⁾ There is an obvious discrepancy between Palliser's and Banks's figures, but even if the figure of 10,000 is the correct one, under ordinary circumstances one might have expected that some of these would have established themselves on the West Coast, given the generous resources of ocean and land reported by all who saw it.

Although the 1713 Treaty should have settled matters between the English and the French, such was not the case. One mistake made was the placing of administrative control of Placentia into the hands of the Nova Scotia government. Queen Anne then instructed the Governor of Nova Scotia to allow French subjects to retain their property in Placentia as a gesture of thanks to the French king Louis XIV for his releasing of some French protestants who had been used as galley slaves. This was a typical example of the way Britain used Newfoundland for her own political and economic convenience. It resulted in a virtual "fifth column" being established in an area that by rights now had exclusive British rule. This incident however was only one of a number where Newfoundland was used as a pawn to further the needs of the Old Country. Moreover, further irritation resulted from the perennial disputes over the actual extent of the French fishing rights, and the locations of the two points, Bonavista and Point Riche, which marked the agreed extremities of French activity.

Various military engagements, including the defeat and recapture of Louisburg, took place between Britain and France during the years from 1713 to 1763, when the Treaty of Paris was signed. After some haggling this treaty, basically a revision of the earlier Utrecht Treaty, gave the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon to France, and confirmed French rights to fish between Bonavista and Point Riche. At this point, 1764, Sir Hugh Palliser became Governor of Newfoundland.

Although Palliser was yet one more in the long line of marine commanders to be placed in charge of Newfoundland, and while with hindsight we may not entirely approve of his policies, he did make great efforts to strengthen the British position in the Island. Not only did Palliser recognise the importance of providing for the defence of the Island as a means of competing against the French even during times of peace, but he made it his business to travel throughout his territory to see firsthand what this great land was like. To assist in this he recruited a man who would become one of the world's greatest mariners.

JAMES COOK IN NEWFOUNDLAND (1764-1767)

In April 1764 James Cook (1728-1779), (portrait) was appointed master of the Grenville (previously the Sally, a 68 ton schooner built in Massachusetts and purchased by Governor Graves). Cook's services as surveyor were secured by Governor Graves, but that year Graves was replaced by Hugh Palliser, who was already well acquainted with Cook's capabilities as a surveyor and map maker, and he was not long in making use of Cook's talents. It should be noted that Palliser was very concerned to ensure that the French should not exceed their treaty rights in regard to the fishery, and he fully intended to take charge in this matter. ⁽²⁵⁾ The Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 had now been superseded by that of Paris of 1763. The new Governor interpreted the Treaty as giving exclusive authority to the British who would be the sole arbiters in any disputes which might arise, and he was determined to enforce it. Adequate naval patrols therefore had to be instigated, and good navigational aids were essential. Before Cook left England for Newfoundland that spring, Palliser had instructed him to search London for relevant charts that might help in resolving a major dispute. The following account by Dr William H Whiteway gives an illustration of the great practical importance of Cook's work, as well as some insight into the abysmal state of cartography on the West Coast of Newfoundland:

The question they [Cook and Palliser] had to grapple with immediately was a claim by the French government that the western terminus of the French shore, Point Riche, was one and the same as Cape Ray. Acceptance of this claim would, of course, have extended the inshore fishing rights of the French down the whole western coast of Newfoundland. That the claim could seriously be advanced is testimony to the confused and hazy state of knowledge in regard to the geography of Newfoundland at this time. The French Ambassador rested his claim on several maps of Newfoundland, chiefly on ones of Herman Moll, published in 1715 and 1720. ⁽²⁶⁾ Palliser employed Cook in searching the shops of the London book and map sellers for evidence to the contrary. On March 7 Cook reported some of his findings to Palliser, concluding: "I have seen no maps today but such as we see yesterday, except the above, neither have I met with any histories or voyages that makes any mention of what we want". Palliser subsequently turned Cook's memorandum in to the Admiralty, along with other lists of maps and information he had accumulated demonstrating that Point Riche and Cape Ray were separate and distinct. The French subsequently dropped their claim. ;⁽²⁷⁾

In 1767 Cook surveyed the Bay of Islands, remarking on the convenient fishing harbours at the entrance to the Bay, and making an expedition up the Humber River and four miles into Deer Lake, where he "could see no land at the N.E. and the weather being then very clear". He also observed that "the banks of this river and the shores of the Lake are well clothed with timber such as are common in this country. In this river has formerly been a great salmon fishery and the Bay of Islands has been much frequented by fishers."  Whiteley suggests that Cook supplemented his own observations with information gathered from natives of the country ⁽²⁸⁾, so by this time there must have been some small number of permanent residents, either European or aboriginal, in the inner reaches of the Bay of Islands if not in the Outer.

With the completion of Cook's marine surveys there were now available to mariners for the first time reliable navigational aids covering the West Coast of Newfoundland, and the Gulf of St Lawrence. Among the vessels assigned to the Newfoundland squadron around this time was H.M.S. Lark, after which the harbour, and later the community, was named. Cook, or others in company with him, may have named some of the natural features around the Bay, including several of the mountains and islands, but the existence of charts made in 1764 show that many of these had already been named before Cook's visit in 1767. ⁽²⁹⁾ Examples are Blow-me-down Mountain ⁽³⁰⁾, Tweed Island, and Pearl Island, these last two named after frigates of the Newfoundland squadron, and Guernsey Island, named after the Governor's flagship. ⁽³¹⁾

No mention is made of any residents in the immediate area of the Outer Bay of Islands (cf paragraph second above) so we must assume there were few, or even none. However, within twenty years of Cook's visit there was a productive salmon fishery on the Humber River some thirty kilometres inland to the east, for an English fisherman was reported to have brought 76 tierces ⁽³²⁾ of salmon and £265 worth of furs from there to St John's in 1787. But things must still have been uncertain as the establishment seems to have been abandoned the following year. ⁽³³⁾ At last, however, with the Bay of Islands explored and competently charted for mariners, one more obstacle to settlement was conquered. Cook's charts remained in regular use by mariners for at least a hundred years.

Under Palliser's administration the fishery, and all associated with it, prospered. The Governor was very energetic in the pursuance of his responsibilities, and visited many parts of the territory in his charge, including the Bay of Islands. Unfortunately however, in spite of his keen support of British rights in Newfoundland, he saw no need to reverse the policy that discouraged permanent settlement on the Island, though he did not actively enforce it either.

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1783)

In 1776 came the American Declaration of Independence. This was the signal for the American privateers, who had barely been kept at bay before the declaration, to feel totally free to ply their trade. Then in 1778 France recognised the independence of the United States and declared war against Britain. Thus Newfoundland was caught in the middle: for the first, but by no means for the last time, a major theatre of battle in Britain's defence strategy. Five years later, in 1783, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, affirming St Pierre and Miquelon to the French, and changing the area of their inshore fishing rights to the shoreline from Cape John to Cape Ray. This change from the previous treaties placed the Bay of Islands squarely within the limits of the French Shore, a situation which remained in effect until 1904. The West Coast was no longer exclusively a British domain, since the French rights now extended over its entire length, and Britain, like France, now had no rights of settlement there.

This latest version of the treaty was not popular in Newfoundland, nor did it ever work to the real benefit of the French. A few English settlers were already established on the West Coast, and were not inclined to relinquish their holdings. Coupled with that, a declining fishery placed the French at a further disadvantage, and since under the terms of the Treaty they could not overwinter on the Island, when they arrived in the spring the settlers had already taken a good catch. A similar scenario repeated itself each fall after the French had sailed for Europe.

The French Revolution of 1789, and later the Napoleonic period with its wars culminating in the defeat of the French navy at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1815, gave Britain virtually unquestioned supremacy on the high seas for the next hundred years. During all of this time Newfoundland enjoyed a modest degree of prosperity. The few settlers of the West Coast, going about their daily business in the sheltered bays and fiords they had chosen as their home, very slowly increased in number and gradually became the undisputed controllers of their half of the Island, despite occasional visits from American privateers and the French. Unfortunately the West Coast settlers were not able to rely on complete support from the British navy, whose action was restricted by the Treaties. But the price of fish remained quite good, and other lines of productivity and profit were developed. Herring and lobsters, mostly used as bait at this time, became useful staples. Subsistence farming developed, and small forest industries started to appear in the inner reaches of the bays. Commerce with mainland Canada, conveniently located just across the Gulf, began to assume importance on the West Coast. This particular factor, though it did not dominate the economics or politics of the region, came to be a significant underlying feature, and played an increasing role over the next century, finally culminating in the achievement of confederation in the mid twentieth century.

In 1832, however, confederation was not an option. Newfoundland, following the examples of the mainland Colonies, was granted the right to representative government. Britain's Oldest Colony was coming of age. Even the long-neglected West Coast, although not to be enfranchised along with the rest of the Island until 1882 because of obligations under the Treaties with the French, was finally coming into its own.

Beginning on the east coast, Basque, Spanish, Portuguese, French and English fishermen had established extensive fisheries around all the shores of Newfoundland, gradually extending their efforts until they had encompassed the entire Island by about 1700. Exact dates are not available for such usage of the Bay of Islands, but archaeological evidence suggests that they were frequenting the West Coast at about the same time.

By the late 18th century the Bay of Islands had become a well-frequented fishing area for the early Europeans, some of whom left behind some of their artefacts, and some of whom died and are buried here. Several sites probably attributable to the Basques or the French have been identified, but as yet there has been no detailed exploration of these. ⁽³⁴⁾

Newfoundland had been granted the right of Responsible Government in 1832, giving her equal ranking with the other North American colonies. But there was one very significant factor which yet remained as an obstacle to free development, which the Imperial Government in London had so far shown no inclination to resolve in any way beneficial to the Colony: the French Shore treaties with their prohibition on permanent settlement in the controlled areas, continued to limit the autonomy of the Island, discouraging the development of free trade and settlement. Nevertheless there had begun a steady migration of fishermen and their families from Bay St George and points west [more accurately, "south"], from Labrador to the north, and of single young men from various places, who for one reason or another deserted their ships in preference to returning home to Europe at the end of the season. ⁽³⁵⁾

ARCHDEACON EDWARD WIX VISITS THE BAY OF ISLANDS

One of the earliest documentary accounts telling about the inhabitants of the Bay of Islands is found in the Journal of Archdeacon Edward Wix, in which he describes his experiences of travelling around the Island for a period of six months in 1835. Born in England, he was appointed to the Anglican (Church of England) Archdeaconry ⁽³⁶⁾ of Newfoundland in 1829. Shortly after receiving this appointment he made several journeys around his extensive area of responsibility. The contrast between the genteel lifestyle of a nineteenth century clergyman used to the sophisticated world of middle class England and (to a lesser extent) St John's, and the rough-and-ready existence of those who through either choice or necessity inhabited the bays of Western Newfoundland, is nothing short of riveting. The Archdeacon was informed by the oldest inhabitant, whose name is not given, that the area had been visited six years earlier, in 1829, by Rev William Bullock in company with the Governor, Sir Thomas Cochrane. Having just arrived in the Bay of Islands where he held "two full services, and baptized fourteen children", the Archdeacon makes the following entry in his Journal:

Sunday 24 May 1835 ... There were acts of profligacy practised, indeed, in this bay, at which the Micmac Indians expressed to me their horror and disgust. The arrival of a trading schooner among the people, affords an invariable occasion for all parties (with only one or two exceptions, and those, I regret to say, not among the females!) to get into a helpless state of intoxication. Women, and among them positively girls of fourteen, may be seen, under the plea of its helping them in their work, habitually taking their "morning" of raw spirits before breakfast. I have seen this dram repeated a second time before a seven o'clock breakfast ...

One woman was pointed out to me here, who, in her haste to attack a quantity of rum, which she had brought on shore with her from a trading vessel, and under the influence, at the same time, of a certain quantity which she had drunk on board, left an infant of six months old upon the landwash and forgot this her sucking child, till the body of it was discovered the next morning, drowned by the returning tide! The father, immediately after the discovery of the awful disaster, went on board, unwarned, and apparently unaffected, for another gallon of the poison for the wake, or wicked drinking revel, which the custom of the island has commonly made an appendage to a funeral.

Wix must have been aware that what he was hearing of and observing among the poor settlers of Newfoundland was actually little different from what he might have seen in almost any slum of a nineteenth century English or European city, in the pioneer settlements of Canada or the USA, or in parts of some more sophisticated cities like St John's, Halifax, or Toronto.

As a remedy, Wix called for missionaries and schools to be provided, the same solutions that were being applied simultaneously throughout the western world. He quotes an example of the contrast between those unfortunates described above, and others who, but for the opportunity to avail of a good Christian education, might have been little different. He speaks in the following terms of his "worthy friend, M. J." [Michael James], a man employed in the Bay of Islands by a Jersey fish merchant, and who had provided him with transportation around the area:

Friday 29 May 1835. The superior demeanour of this person, compared with that of the people by whom he is surrounded, and his superior religious intelligence, were most gratifying. It may stimulate the exertions of those engaged in Sunday schools, to know, that he attributes it himself to the attention he received when a cabin-boy, from a worthy clergyman in England. He was a native of Newfoundland and received as fair an education as his highly respectable parents could themselves give him in a little out-harbour. ⁽³⁷⁾

When Mr James took him at six a.m. in a drenching rain in an open boat the twenty-four miles out the Bay to Little Harbour (Little Port) and Bateau Cove (Bottle Cove), Wix mentioned being very kindly treated by the French who were fishing there and had six brigs moored, one of them a vessel of 350 tons. That night he slept on the floor at Little Harbour at the house of Mr James's sister. As there was virtually no permanent settlement here at this time, it is most probable that this lady and her family moved elsewhere, perhaps further into the Bay, for the winter months.

In spite of Archdeacon Wix's concern about the need for clergy and teachers on the West Coast (by this time there were significant numbers of them in East Coast locations) it was several decades before any denominations appointed permanent clergy for West Coast communities.

EARLY SETTLEMENT, INDUSTRY, AND THE ARRIVAL OF THE CHURCH

In 1857 Captain Kelly of the schooner Alice, visiting Lark Harbour on business for the Newfoundland government, reported:

There are no permanent residents in this harbour. Some five or six families from the entrance of the River Humber come here during the summer for the purpose of fishing, the catch of which here is very small. There are ten French brigs and seven schooners from St Pierre in the bay. ⁽³⁸⁾

Rev Ulric Zuinglius Rule, the first priest of the Bay of Islands Anglican Mission, made a similar statement about the location of settlers in 1865 on his first visit to the Bay:

... the bulk of the inhabitants of Bay of Islands lived not in the actual bay, but along the shores of the estuary of the river Humber, which flows into the main arm of the Bay. ⁽³⁹⁾

The location referred to by both Captain Kelly and Rev Rule is the stretch of shoreline along both sides of the Humber Arm from the mouth of the Humber River westwards to the present community of Frenchman's Cove, including the community of Birchy Cove (Curling) and "The Beach" (John's Beach) on the south side, and Meadows (the most populous settlement on the north side), Gillams and McIvers on the north side. These were already inhabited when Rev Rule arrived. This shore line is not only more sheltered from the violent winds which frequently assail the exposed outer regions of the Bay, but it would also be less exposed to the view of the French naval vessels when they patrolled the area, thus making it a more comfortable place for English settlers. There had been a good salmon fishery in this area for a number of years now, and this, along with the plentiful herring, fur and timber resources, made the area attractive to the settlers.

U Z Rule mentions being warmly welcomed on his arrival by two men, "Strickland and Maurice Derigan", from The Beach. Both names Derigan (now Darrigan) and Strickland are still represented in the area. This populated stretch of shore also includes Cook's Brook, a small estuary some few kilometres west of Corner Brook on the south shore of the Humber Arm. According to the late Mr Robert Park, resident of Lark Harbour ⁽⁴⁰⁾:

The first permanent settler in Lark Harbour was my grandfather Will Park. His family and him had lived in Cook's Brook before this but would come to Lark Harbour in the summer to fish. He then decided to come and live in the place. Just before he got shifted out a family of Blanchards came. They stayed on the point of Big Brook. Mr Park built a log cabin on top of what is now called Park's Lane. Later he built a house where mine is located. ⁽⁴¹⁾

At the time of writing, traces of post holes are still visible in the ground at the location "on top of what is now called Park's Lane" that Robert Park describes. His account of the arrival of his grandfather's family coincides with those of Kelly and Rule. Since Will Park would have been a youngish family man around 1860, his may well have been one of those families to whom the Captain referred as migrating to the outer part of the Bay to fish in season. So at least two families had apparently established themselves in Lark Harbour by the early 1860s, and Rule also mentions one family living in Little Harbour in 1865.

As the cod fishery began to develop (because of the French rights cod had been off limits to English fishermen), so did the necessity to move closer to those fishing grounds. While the seasonal migration to places further out the Bay like Lark Harbour and Woods Island increased rapidly, the cod fishery continued to grow till about 1875, with average catches of about 30 quintals per fisherman. When after 1875 a commercial herring fishery drove it into eclipse, cod production fell to about 10 quintals per fisherman, but it continued to involve residents of Lark Harbour and Woods Island, both near the mouth of the Bay. In 1874, Bay of Islands fishermen caught 9,860 quintals of cod and 34,325 barrels of herring; by 1901 the cod catch was halved to 4,825 quintals, and the herring was almost doubled to 73,313 barrels. Over the same period, the salmon catch also declined by an even greater margin, from 958 barrels to 114, perhaps because of overfishing or lack of conservation. Beginning with a demand for bait, but gradually becoming an industry with great export value, the herring fishery was largely a winter activity from January to March, with lesser efforts in the spring months of May and June, but increasing again in the fall. This winter emphasis was good, because it acted as an economic cushion at a time when other activities were minimal. On the negative side, however, the effects of a poor herring fishery could be a near disaster. This was the case when there was a notable downturn in herring catches for some six to ten years around 1880 ⁽⁴²⁾.

Early settlement in the Bay of Islands was both sparse and limited. U Z Rule notes the extremely scattered nature of the population, for which reason he made his headquarters at Birchy Cove:

I think that arrangements must have been made ... that I should be received and housed in Birchy Cove by a little colony of migrants who had just come there from St George's Bay. This was a wise plan for here was a small settlement of people accustomed to the routine of church life, and moreover in a neighbourhood which, though sparsely peopled, was yet more populous than any other ... But it certainly was not central. Meadows' Point would have been fairly so: but the population there was far too scant for a head station. The problem was solved in due course by my making my headquarters in Birchy Cove and there building the first church, and establishing a second centre with a School Chapel at John's Beach.

The population of the Bay of Islands consisted in my time partly of the old established settlers of English race scattered chiefly along the middle and lower parts of the estuary of the Humber, with a very few families in the Middle Arm of the Bay and one at Little Harbour; partly of recent immigrants who established themselves in the middle and upper parts of the estuary. ⁽⁴³⁾

THE BAY OF ISLANDS ANGLICAN MISSION

The church had so far exercised little influence in the lives of the people of Bay of Islands. A few intrepid clergy such as Archdeacon Wix had made occasional visits to the area, but there had been no permanent presence. But once the Anglican Diocese of Newfoundland became established with the appointment in 1839 of Rev Aubrey George Spencer as bishop in St John's, attention was turned to the West Coast. Economically, the area would not have been able to support clergy on its own, but it was decided to set up a supported mission to cover the Bay of Islands and Bonne Bay. In 1865 Rev Ulric Zuingli Rule, an Englishman, was appointed pastor. It is interesting to note that this was the same year that a Halifax lumber firm, Silver and Company, set up a sawmill on the site of the present Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Mill, whose predecessor, after several changes of ownership, it was.

At one time undecided about whether to select the Bay of Islands or Bonne Bay to the north as the head of his mission, Rev Rule states that the Bay of Islands "certainly had the larger population, but the population was very sadly scattered". At that time most communication was by sea, so that from such a consideration neither bay had an advantage over the other. Bonne Bay had been settled slightly longer than the Bay of Islands. Rule finally opted for the Bay of Islands, choosing the settlement of Birchy Cove (later Curling) as the headquarters of his mission. In the remaining years of the century the railway would pass through the town, thus confirming his choice, and ensuring that the communities around the south side of the mouth of the Humber River would be the ones to develop most in the ensuing years, while those on the north side, and those of Bonne Bay also, would decline in influence.

The Mission was received enthusiastically by the people who were plainly lacking almost any form of leadership, and it was not long before the church became influential and a great contributing force in the lives of all parishioners. U Z Rule has some interesting comments about the level of education he found among some of the people in his new mission locality. He was impressed by the fact that a good number of people could read, which he attributes to the man Maurice Derigan who came out from John's Beach to meet him. Derigan was a man with some education, for Rule recounts that he was told that "all of these original settlers who could either read or write had learnt it either directly from him [Derigan], or from someone whom he had taught." It was a common feature of many small and isolated communities that one person can exercise enormous influence for good or evil. Maurice Derigan was one such in his neighbourhood, and the early interest in both church and school at John's Beach may well be attributable to his efforts.

But there was another, less positive, side to the picture too, which illustrates one of the effects of the extreme isolation many of the people had endured, often for several generations:

I had myself from time to time to teach some elder people to say by heart the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed. On one occasion in one of the smaller settlements, when I was discoursing on our Lord's crucifixion, a woman asked me "Was he alive when they did that to Him?" Such ignorance was however exceptional. ;⁽⁴⁴⁾

By the early 1860s the "Church Ship", with Newfoundland's second Anglican Bishop, Edward Feild, on board for a visitation of the West Coast, had reported nineteen baptisms at Lark Harbour of children ranging in age from eighteen months to eighteen years, including one family of six children. Permanent residents were clearly moving into the Lark Harbour area, and in quite appreciable numbers, at this time. Increasing numbers in the Bay of Islands made possible construction of church and school buildings. In a letter of 6 October 1866, Rev Rule spoke of a school-chapel being built at The Beach. It was in use the following year, but it was some years before it was finished. In Birchy Cove a church, dedicated to St Mary, was consecrated on 30 July 1871. Sadly the new Rectory at Birchy Cove was destroyed by fire in 1870, with the loss of all Mr Rule's church records to that time.

Rule gives us a glimpse of the kind of schedule he followed in his scattered parish in the mid 1860s. His plan was probably quite typical of clergy working in isolated Newfoundland outports at that time, and it allows us to understand why these men, far from their own families and loved ones, often lonely in their dedication to duty, were held in such great esteem by their parishioners. His practice was to spend a period of perhaps several weeks in each locality, and no doubt he followed a similar schedule in each place. The school teaching provided by men like Rule, and a few very rare educated laymen like Maurice Derigan, was the only academic education the young people of areas like the Bay of Islands received, and in it lay the seeds of the education system reflecting the partnership between church and government which has persisted in Newfoundland down to the present day.

Every morning but Sunday, school for the children taught by myself, after matins; every evening, catechizing for the young men or young women alternately before or after evensong: Wednesday and Friday evenings a sermon: Sunday afternoon before service catechizing for all young men and women. ⁽⁴⁵⁾

Providing elementary education to the children of the parish could not be a priority for men like U Z Rule if they were to do properly the job for which they had been appointed. With the responsibility of servicing the spiritual needs of dozens of small isolated settlements accessible only by boat or by arduous land travel, he could not hope to spend more than a week or two per year at each one. Perhaps that he managed to find the opportunity to teach at all is the most amazing thing.

The churches which have operated in Newfoundland have all played major roles in the lives of the people, as was the case in the incident described above. Mention has been made of the Anglican priests U Z Rule and J J Curling, both of whom made huge contributions to the lives of the people; it should also be noted that the Roman Catholic Church played a very major role in improving conditions for the settlers in the Bay of Islands. Notable among those clergy was Monsignor Thomas Sears, who ministered to the West Coast from 1868 to 1885. The Bay of Islands was part of his charge. From his arrival in 1868 he made tremendous efforts on the part of all residents of the West Coast, not just Catholics, to improve the conditions of their lives. Commenting on the injustices suffered by West Coast settlers resulting from the effects of the Treaties, Father Sears had this to say in a letter dated at Grand River, Codroy, 15 April 1879, to W J Donnelly, M.H.A. ⁽⁴⁶⁾:

... it is an injustice to the rapidly increasing population of this most important part of our Colony to deprive them of free trade with the neighbouring Colonies, in a word, to tax them equally with the other Colonists, even to tax them without representation (but this would be endured for a time). but to tax them and then turn round and tell them coolly that they are to participate no more in these taxes till Great Britain will do so and so. This is, to say the least of it, an act of injustice that bids fair to find a parallel in the history of civilized Legislation. What! is the population of these parts to be taxed and then not allowed to derive any benefits from these taxes till England and France will make a new Treaty regarding the rights of the latter on these shores? Why, this may require scores, nay hundreds of years, as all former endeavors of the kind may amply prove, and we to pay taxes all this time and no more money is to be expended on our Coast. OF ALL THE MISLEGISLATION EVER KNOWN IN HISTORY THIS IS THE MOST UNJUST......

There is another remark of yours that I would like to call your attention to, viz: 'That the Legislature looks upon money expended on this Coast as money thrown away.' I am really astonished at so honourable a body of men entertaining such an idea. ;⁽⁴⁷⁾

Father Sears then went on to castigate Mr Donnelly and his associates for the niggardly appropriations they had made for the upkeep of social institutions on the West Coast, and finally he accused the Legislature of attempting to use the inhabitants of the French Shore as pawns in their attempts to coerce Britain to accede to their wishes. As well as these complaints, the Monsignor made it his business to draw public and legislative attention to many other basic needs of the West Coast colonists, including roads, agriculture, education, the timber and mineral industries, and of course the fishing industries themselves. Few places have enjoyed the support of so dedicated and enlightened a man as Monsignor Thomas Sears.

In 1877 H.M.S. Eclipse reports that twelve new settlers had arrived in Little Port, obtaining average catches of twenty to thirty quintals of fish, good salmon catches, and good crop yields. ⁽⁴⁸⁾ In the same year, Rev Rule, who by then had left and been replaced by Rev J J Curling, relates the latter's description of improvements made to the various church establishments in the area:

Mr Curling writing me in September, 1877, gave me an account of church building in the mission at that time. He mentioned an enlargement of the old school house in Birchy Cove, which was then used for Sunday School and singing practices; and a good-sized school house, and master's home at Sprucey Point.

The school chapel at the Beach had been enlarged; he also mentioned a parsonage and school room there: also a school-chapel and small parsonage or schoolmaster's house at Lark Harbour; also he spoke of the finished school-chapel at Birchy Head, Bonne Bay, and a small parsonage: and a school-chapel at Rocky Harbour; and a dwelling house in course of construction: and a school-chapel in course of construction at Cow Head. ⁽⁴⁹⁾

In order to support this kind of development in what was only a twelve year period since the start of the Mission, not only must the population of the Bay of Islands and Bonne Bay have increased considerably, but so must the general level of prosperity among the people. By 1884 the population of Lark Harbour itself had reached 77, and by 1891 Lark Harbour and Bottle [Bateau] Cove together were home to 135 people.

FURTHER SETTLEMENT

In the mid nineteenth century fishermen from St Malo, France, were still frequenting the waters of Newfoundland, as they had since earlier than the time of Jacques Cartier. One interesting narrative relates to a young St Malo man who "jumped ship", took up residence in Lark Harbour, married a local girl and established another family name, Mollon, derived from the name of the town of his origin. (It is interesting to note that many of the local people still pronounce the name as "Mollo", in the French style, in spite of the terminal letter "n".) Other family names arriving in this period were: Sheppard and Youden (Spaniard's Bay), Childs (Bonne Bay), Joyce (Placentia Bay), Druggett (Jersey, Channel Islands, UK).

A report in the Journal of the Legislature states that as of 11 July 1871 there were no inhabitants at York Harbour. ⁽⁵⁰⁾

Settlement here appears to have begun in the late 1890s with fishermen who migrated from further west along the coast. Among the first of these, from Codroy, were the Samms brothers, Thomas and Charles, who are reported to have established permanent homes in York Harbour by 1898; and the Robinson brothers, Ben, Reuben, and Stephen, about a year later. About the same time John Cammie and Joe Vincent also arrived with their families from the Magdalen Islands via Bay St George. By the late 1920s about ten families were living in York Harbour: Samms, Robinson, Cammie, Vincent, Kendell, Byrne, Wheeler and Jesso. ⁽⁵¹⁾

THE FRENCH SHORE ISSUE

During all of this time that permanent settlers were moving to the Outer Bay of Islands there was constant friction with the French who still had the "French Shore" fishing rights accorded them under the Treaty of Versailles. The Bay of Islands was unquestionably a part of the French Shore: the uncertainty came about in the interpretation of the precise nature of the French rights. Under the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, "The Island of Newfoundland, with the adjacent islands, shall, from this time forward, belong of right wholly to Britain ... " The Treaty of Paris then followed, in 1763, and then the Treaty of Versailles, 1783. The main difference between the two treaties, Utrecht and Versailles, as far as the fishery was concerned, was the changing of the geographic limits in which the French had rights. This change placed the Bay of Islands squarely within the "French Shore" limits, a factor which had a major influence on settlement in the area. The terms themselves of the earlier treaties were amplified, but not changed. Judge Prowse, assessing the Treaty in the light of his knowledge and experience of legal matters, makes the following statement:

The language of this treaty is very clear and explicit, the sovereignty of Great Britain over the Island of Newfoundland is made absolute. The French are confined to a temporary user of the shore for one purpose only, the fishing and drying of fish; [Prowse's italics] no other rights are granted to them ... No other fishery but the cod fishery was in existence at that time, and no other fishery was contemplated by the treaty; which view is further confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles, 1783 :-

"'The XIII. Article of the Treaty of Utrecht and the method of carrying on the fishery, which has at all times been acknowledged [a ship cod fishery], shall be the plan upon which the fishery shall be carried on there; it shall not be deviated from by either party; the French fishermen building only their scaffolds, confining themselves to the repair of their fishing vessels, and not wintering there; the subjects of His Britannic Majesty on their part not molesting in any manner the French fishermen during their fishing nor injuring their scaffolds during their absence.'" ;⁽⁵²⁾

Later, by way of interpretation, Prowse adds:

 ... the original Treaty of Utrecht had a clear meaning: it gave the French a concurrent fishery, regulated and controlled exclusively by English authorities ... It is an elementary rule of international law that the sovereign power alone exercises authority within its own territory. Whatever rights France may have on the Newfoundland treaty shore, they must be carried out under English supervision and control; neither France nor any other foreign power can exercise coercive jurisdiction on English territory. It will appear strange to many English readers, but it is nevertheless true, that England has never maintained this principle until the last few years. [N.B.: Prowse wrote in 1895.] Lord Salisbury was the first English minister to put his foot down firmly and declare that no French officer would be permitted to seize English boats, cut English nets, or drive English fishermen out of their own harbours. ;⁽⁵³⁾

Judge Prowse was a patriotic Newfoundlander, unwilling to see his countrymen cheated of their patrimony. But he was also a man with legal training and expertise, and his judgement of a document such as the Treaty of Utrecht must be respected. The fact remains however that England did not properly enforce the rights of the Newfoundland fishermen, in part because it did not serve the interests of the colonial government at that time, and in part because the influence of the merchants remained strong. What saved Newfoundlanders was:

the inexorable logic of eventsthe failing inshore fishery and the permanent settling of so many British subjects on the shore (which was originally encouraged by the French), and the settlers' persistence in fishinghas, at present, reduced the French treaty rights to mere barren privileges. ⁽⁵⁴⁾

Such was the status quo when, after almost a century of bickering, a joint Commission of British and French officials meeting in the 1840s made certain recommendations governing the fishery. These recommendations were accepted by the governments of both nations in 1857. However at this juncture the Newfoundland Legislature, which had not been party to any consultation, refused its assent. The Legislature argued with full justification that the new provisions substantially allowed French encroachment on the rights of Newfoundlanders by giving exclusive rights to the French on the Treaty Shore, as well as concurrent rights to a large stretch of the Labrador shore; by limiting the rights of Newfoundlanders to erect and maintain buildings on the French Shore; and by conceding to French naval officers the power to enforce the terms of the earlier Treaty even to the point of expelling from the Treaty Shore any Newfoundland vessels attempting concurrent fishing. Little wonder that Newfoundland objected strenuously:

We deem it our duty, most respectfully, to protest in the most solemn manner against any attempt to alienate any portion of our fisheries or our soil to any foreign power, without the consent of the local legislature. As our fishery and territorial rights constitute the basis of our commerce and of our social and political existence, as they are our birthright and the legal inheritance of our children, we cannot under the circumstances, assent to the terms of the convention: we therefore earnestly entreat that the Imperial Government will take no steps to bring this Treaty into operation, but will permit the trifling privileges that remain to us to continue unimpaired. ⁽⁵⁵⁾

Not only was the Legislature of the Colony upset, but public feeling in Newfoundland against Britain at this time was intense, perhaps as intense as it had ever been:

The excitement in the Colony over the Convention of 1857 was most intense and widespread; the British flag was hoisted half-mast; other excited citizens flew American flags; everywhere there was burning indignation over this proposal to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage. ⁽⁵⁶⁾

West Coast residents, the most severely affected by all of this, were discontented enough to petition for separation from Newfoundland and for confederation with Canada. ⁽⁵⁷⁾ Within ten years the British North America Act would give birth to Canada, a topic already being debated in the Maritimes, with whom the West Coast of Newfoundland had fairly intimate dealings. However, in spite of internal pressure to do otherwise, the Mother Country upheld Newfoundland's autonomy, and no longer pressed for acceptance of the 1857 Convention with France. A despatch from H Labouchere, Secretary of State, at Downing Street, contained the following words which have been called "The Magna Carta of Newfoundland": ⁽⁵⁸⁾

... the rights at present enjoyed by the community of Newfoundland are not to be ceded or exchanged without their assent ... the constitutional mode of submitting measures for that assent is by laying them before the Colonial Legislature. ;⁽⁵⁹⁾

A significant watershed had thus been passed: obviously Britain no longer felt that she could totally ignore or deny the legitimate aspirations of a daughter colony who wished to become the mistress of her own fate. Had the decision been otherwise, the course of history on this Island may well have been vastly different.

But the Treaty Shore question was no closer to settlement now than before. Such was the political climate in September 1876 when George Sheppard, fisherman of Lark Harbour, complained about French harassment to Captain R M Lloyd, commander of H.M.S. Bullfinch. This incident illustrates very well the precarious position of the settlers who chose to live in places like Lark Harbour where their homes were quite visible to the French; it also illustrates the extent to which the Treaty was being questioned. An officer from a French man-of-war which entered Lark Harbour had told Sheppard, through an interpreter, that "they must stop fishing there and take down their buildings, and if this was not done when they [the French man-of-war] came round again, they would do it for them." There is no evidence that the French ever made good their threat, but Sheppard and the other residents of Lark Harbour may well have suffered some sleepless nights over it. ⁽⁶⁰⁾

The issue of the supplying of bait to French ships was another irritant. This was an arrangement which the French liked because it saved them valuable time and enabled them to begin remunerative fishing so much sooner. Some of the West Coast fishermen also liked it because it could reduce their dependence on the local merchants by providing them with a small amount of cash (a rare thing in any outport at this time) or by allowing them the means to get supplies from St Pierre when they carried their bait there to sell it. However this practice was seen by the Newfoundland authorities as damaging to the fishery since it helped the French in their effort and, coupled with the heavy subsidy the French government paid to its own fishermen for fish caught in Newfoundland, enabled French fish to be sold much more cheaply in the markets Newfoundland also supplied.

In 1885 a document referred to as the "Arrangement" was mooted between England and France. Under its terms France would withdraw all claims to exclusive fishery rights and to the right to fish rivers above the tidal limit. She would also agree that any shore fixtures would not be disturbed. In turn England recognised virtually the existing state of affairs covered in the earlier Treaty, and it was agreed by both parties that French naval ships would act only when there were infractions of the Treaty, and then only if British ships were not present to do it. At this the Newfoundland Government expressed disappointment, but accepted it on two conditions: (1) that they would have the right to erect wharves and buildings in areas where there were minerals, and (2) that one article be rewritten to remove any suggestion of French rights of settlement on the Treaty Shore. This was initialled on 14 November 1885.

Immediately several fresh irritants became apparent. The French failed to observe the terms, which annoyed the Newfoundland fishermen. There was a bad year in the fishery, and Newfoundlanders felt themselves placed at a trading disadvantage to the French because of the generous French bounty. For that reason Newfoundland introduced her Bait Bill, which caused yet further consternation to the French, who threatened that failure of the "Agreement" would force them to fall back on their earlier interpretation of the Treaty terms. In the belief that her Bait Bill would give her power over the French, Newfoundland passed it into law, but on 18 February 1887 Britain disallowed it for one year. As might be expected, Newfoundland reacted with anger, as she had done in 1857 under similar circumstances.

Conflicts such as these arose frequently between the Legislature of the Colony, which wanted to consolidate its authority in the Island, including the West Coast, and the Colonial Office in London, which had concerns extending far beyond Newfoundland's affairs. The appointment of magistrates to the West Coast was one such issue that demonstrated Britain's ambivalent position. The navy was entrusted with the enforcement of civil laws among civilians. Although the ships' officers had consistently demonstrated their ability to do this, and to do it well, the terms of the Treaty made this endeavour invalid almost by definition, rendering it tantamount to a prohibition on settlement. (See again Appendix 12.) But by this time there was on the West Coast a population sufficient to require a civil law establishment. In 1877 permission was given by the colonial secretary for the appointment of a magistrate at St George's, but with the stipulation that there would be no adjudication on Treaty matters. The Newfoundland Government then promptly followed with the appointment of customs officers, and plans to enfranchise the West Coast. Britain allowed the customs appointments to stand, but enfranchisement was refused. ⁽⁶¹⁾

West Coast settlers now had several irritants: the bait issue, the unsatisfactory and still unresolved French Shore question, and a new, sensitive one, taxation without representation. Traditionally having closer ties with Canada and New England than they did with Europe, West Coast residents had been interested in confederation proposals being discussed in the Maritimes. Since the start of the collection of customs dues imposed from St John's by "their" government, they were now being forced to pay more for the goods they imported from Canada and New England, and they resented this imposition which brought them nothing in return. In 1890 Rev Michael Francis Howley (later Roman Catholic Archbishop Howley) suggested that the West Coast be separated from the rest of Newfoundland and be confederated with Canada. While seen as a valid idea on the West Coast, the suggestion received no more support this time than it had received decades earlier when raised by Sir John A Macdonald in connection with Sandford Fleming's projected Great American and European Short Line Railway. (See page 41)

THE LOBSTER INDUSTRY AND THE HATED MODUS VIVENDI

It has been seen how, on the failure of the 1885 attempt to resolve the Treaty Shore issue, the French had expanded their demands again to include some jurisdiction over their own citizens on the Shore, and to have an exclusive right over the fishery in that area. The British had demurred on the basis that the Treaty of Utrecht accorded them total sovereignty. The French demand for the removal of the English settlers and their structures would include the destruction of many permanent homes and fishing stages, as well as other permanent establishments such as lobster canning factories. Like the herring fishery described earlier, the lobster industry had begun in a small way as a bait fishery. However the introduction of canning technology in the late nineteenth century meant that remote areas like the Bay of Islands now had access to the growing urban markets of North America, and a variety of large and small facilities for canning lobsters had appeared by the 1880s. Loss of these facilities would have meant serious hardship for the settlers affected, particularly since there had been some years when catches of cod and herring had been poor and many fishermen had turned their attention to catching and processing lobster. Consequently there was reluctance on Britain's part to agree to anything as radical as the removal of facilities, at least before the extent of the action might be assessed.

The French however maintained pressure on the British Government to curtail the activities of Newfoundland fishermen on the Treaty Shore, and the British conceded by instructing the Royal Navy to enforce restrictions in locations where complaints were laid by the French. On 24 September 1887 a letter was sent by Lieutenant J Masterman, R.N., Commander of H.M.S. Bullfrog, to Mr Shearer, the operator of a lobster factory at Port Saunders, informing him that continued operation of his factory would be "at great risk", for a reasonable complaint from the French would result in his factory being "suppressed." ⁽⁶²⁾ The next year, 1888, Mr Shearer was told by the commander of H.M.S. Emerald that his lobster trapping would be prohibited within certain limits, and the same warning was repeated in 1889. That year also the French warship Bison destroyed a number of traps at Port Saunders, and another five hundred traps were destroyed elsewhere by the French. The Newfoundland fishermen on the West and Northwest Coasts were subjected to harassment from both the French and the British navies, the latter of which had clear orders to ensure that the French were not hindered in the conduct of their fishery. There resulted a number of ironic situations where English naval forces were obliged to support French interests against English settlers. Yet the lobster industry continued to grow, and both Newfoundlanders and French breached the terms of the Treaties by building permanent onshore facilities.

In 1888 Captain Campbell of H.M.S. Lily was ordered to survey the West Coast lobster industry. This information was required in order to provide statistics to the government about the extent of the activity of English settlers within the French Shore limits. A similar survey was conducted at the same time to discover the extent of French lobster fishing. Captain Campbell found twenty-nine lobster canneries owned and operated by English settlers on the French Shore, but only four belonging to the French. In addition, three more factories were being prepared by English entrepreneurs, and were likely to be ready to operate next season. Among those already operative were six around the Outer Bay of Islands: one at Lark Harbour, two on Woods Island, and one at each of Liverpool Cove in North Arm, Crabbs Brook on the north side of the Bay, and Shoal Point near North Head, just outside the Bay. The French factories were all in the Port au Choix area, and had only come into existence within the last five years. According to Captain Campbell, who investigated quite thoroughly and wrote a detailed report, the English West Coast lobster industry went back about thirty years. That would roughly coincide with the beginning of serious settlement in the Outer Bay of Islands.

The lobster canning industry was clearly successful as collectively it employed almost a thousand local men, girls, and fishermen, and, in the two years 1887-8, produced more than 49,000 cases of lobster which were worth $6.25 each and amounted to over $300,000 worth of finished product. The combined two-year output of the six Bay of Islands canneries totalled about 8,800 cases worth $55,000, a substantial sum in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. The output of the French factories was fewer than 5,000 cases, an amount much less than that of the Bay of Islands factories alone. ⁽⁶³⁾

On 7 March 1890 the Governor of Newfoundland opened the Legislature in the usual manner by delivering the Speech from the Throne in the presence of the assembled members. Reference was made in that speech to a modus vivendi that had been agreed between Britain and France with regard to the lobster fishery. This agreement was made without the knowledge of the Newfoundland Government which, on hearing the throne speech, immediately invoked the Labouchere despatch of 1857. Several powerfully-worded resolutions, of which the following is a good example, were quickly channelled to London:

Be it therefore Resolved: That the commencement, continuation, and conclusion of the negotiations for the modus vivendi without the knowledge and consent of the community or Legislature were in direct violation of our constitutional rights, and of the particular engagement with the people of Newfoundland which Her Majesty's Government voluntarily made; against which violation we record our most earnest protest, and to which we as a free people will never consent. ⁽⁶⁴⁾

Although the French did construct several lobster factories over the next few years, their numbers never approached those of the English for their operation was primarily a ship fishery for codfish, and by that time largely concentrated on the Grand Banks. Any inshore fishing was relatively insignificant and would have required a major change of approach. Even so, by 1893 they had about twenty lobster and cod processing establishments inside the limits of the French Shore. In Prowse's words, these were "a clear infraction of the treaty". ⁽⁶⁵⁾ They must also have been a source of annoyance and possibly insecurity to the English settlers. Seven more years were to pass before a resolution of the problem was achieved.

POOR RELIEF IN THE 1880s

During the years from 1877 to 1895, there were disastrous failures in the harvests of cod, and particularly of herring. The latter was by now the most important single fish product in the Bay of Islands, and any significant reduction in the quantities caught, or prices paid in the markets, inevitably resulted in hardship for those whose livelihood depended on it. Things became so bad by December 1879 that a group of thirty two residents of the Bay of Islands petitioned Rev J J Curling, the Anglican priest now in charge of the Mission, to help them obtain assistance for their survival. A local committee was set up, and by the beginning of 1880 the stipendiary magistrate recently appointed to Birchy Cove, Commander William Howorth, an ex naval officer, had written a letter to the Newfoundland Government requesting assistance to set up an emergency fund to feed some forty families who were destitute. Howorth referred to the bad cod fishery of the 1879 summer, the absence of herring through the year, and the heavy ice conditions which had prevailed so far in the winter of 1879-80, preventing the customary herring fishery. When earlier efforts to collect subscriptions had proved unproductive, meetings had been held at which Rev J J Curling and Rev D Creelman had put forward a motion, carried unanimously, expressing the urgent need to provide relief work for 49 families numbering 285 persons who were entirely dependent upon such assistance. It was hoped that this plan would be self supporting. Various kinds of wood cutting and preparation were to be done, and this then purchased at a fixed price from those deemed needy enough to qualify. No cash would be paid out, but instead those admitted to the program would receive actual supplies based on work done, family size, location, and ongoing need. After doing his best to justify his program, Magistrate Howorth presented a very bleak picture of the consequences to be expected if the needs were not met:

I therefore hope that the government will approve of the course I have taken and will authorize the necessary outlay for the carrying it into effect, especially when it is considered that my refusing to assist would inevitably have produced riot with theft and possible blood-shed, and the punishment of the offenders, and the maintenance of their helpless families while they were under punishment, would have entailed for heavier expense upon the colony, than their relief works will probably occasion. ⁽⁶⁶⁾

It is interesting to note that over a century ago this Magistrate recognised that the provision of a small amount of assistance may well save the necessity for costly punitive measures at a later date. This is an idea that has not yet gained full acceptance in our society.

THE GREAT AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SHORT LINE RAILWAY

In the latter half of the nineteenth century railways had become objects of extreme interest in both Europe and North America. They had revolutionised travel on both continents, reducing previously intimidating overland odysseys to journeys of no more than a few days, and beginning the world-shrinking process that today we take for granted. Steam transportation had no less effect on those of the nineteenth century than has air travel by jet on us of a hundred years later. And Sandford Fleming, who would later become Canada's supreme railway engineer, was one of those most inspired by it. When he was sponsored by the governments of Upper and Lower Canada (Ontario and Quebec) to conduct surveys to investigate the practicability of laying out a railway to link them with the Maritimes, he presented to them a detailed report describing fifteen different routes, but recommending one which terminated at Shippigan, close to the northeastern extremity of New Brunswick.

By 1865 railways in Britain were routinely carrying passengers and mail at an average of about 40 miles per hour, an unprecedented speed in the history of transportation. In North America the speed was somewhat slower, but rail was still by far the fastest mode of overland travel. At sea, properly designed steamships were able to travel at speeds of about sixteen miles per hour, a vast improvement over sail-powered ships, but still slow when compared with land travel. Fleming recognised the importance of speed, especially with the increasing commercial activity between Europe and North America. His survey, not restricted to engineering matters alone, had discovered that

In 1864 no less than ten regular lines of ocean steamers were employed in running either to New York or to ports north of that City in the United States or Canada. Of these ten lines, two were weekly, and eight fortnightly, equivalent in all to six weekly lines, so that there were on an average six steamships, leaving each side weekly or nearly one every day ... The total number of passengers carried by these various Steam lines during the past year was 135,317 ... ⁽⁶⁷⁾

He had realised that by replacing sea with land travel whenever possible, times between Europe and North America could be drastically reduced. Thus, when he submitted his report to his sponsors, he added a fascinating appendix in which he suggested a continuous land and sea route connecting Europe with North America by way of Ireland and Newfoundland:

It is thus apparent that, without assuming a rate of speed at all extraordinary, it would be possible to carry the Mails from London to New York in 171 hours by the route passing over Ireland, Newfoundland and by the proposed Intercolonial Railway from Shippigan. ⁽⁶⁸⁾ However, judging by times taken for the St John's to St George's leg of the journey by the narrow gauge Newfoundland Railway after actual construction, Fleming may have erred significantly in his estimate of the time required. (See below) Standard gauge would of course have been capable of higher speeds than the narrow gauge used in Newfoundland.

Such a project, while revolutionary by any standards, would have had untold benefits for Newfoundland and would very likely have brought the Island into the mainstream of North American life a century earlier. The route was to cross the Island fairly directly, passing down Southwest Brook to come out on the West Coast at Bay St George. It would have missed the Bay of Islands entirely, but there would be concomitant benefits to the area just the same. As part of the deal to finance the railway, a project clearly beyond the means of Newfoundland on her own, Sir John A Macdonald, always keen on the concept of a transcontinental railway, offered to finance the construction of the railway across Newfoundland if the Island would agree to confederation with the other British North American colonies.

Two obstacles arose. First, the issue became controversial. An election was held in Newfoundland in 1869, when the incumbent government of Sir Frederick Carter and Ambrose Shea lost to the anticonfederation party of Charles Fox Bennett. Newfoundland's business and commercial interests with New England and Britain were judged to be more important than any possible connection with the sister colonies of British North America. This attitude was rather specifically of East Coast origin, since West Coast residents had quite long and substantial trading contacts with Nova Scotia and would have welcomed closer ties with that region. The second obstacle came in the form of the refusal of the British government to entertain any venture which might increase friction with the French over Newfoundland. Once more the infamous Treaties of Utrecht, Paris, and Versailles barred the way of progress for the Island, and particularly the West Coast, which would have been the greatest beneficiary of Sandford's plan. But this was not yet the end of the project for in 1882 an act was passed in the Newfoundland Legislature incorporating "The Great American and European Short Line Railway Company", whose objective was "the establishment of more safe and speedy communication between America and Europe by way of Newfoundland". Sadly, however, the only tangible achievement of this venture was a short section of line between Oxford Junction and New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. When the company could not pay its contractors, the work so far done was sold and became a part of another railway line. ⁽⁶⁹⁾ In all fairness to those who would have been involved, the project would have been a very ambitious one, a "megaproject" in its day, and for that reason alone may never have come to fruition.

THE NEWFOUNDLAND RAILWAY

Newfoundland, however, while not prepared to confederate, was not ready to give up the idea of having her own railway. Her appetite had been whetted for the good things she saw being enjoyed by everyone else in North America. Consequently, after the Colony passed through several prosperous years in the fishery, another survey was initiated. This time a different route was defined, to pass down the southern side of Deer Lake, to emerge from the wilderness at the Bay of Islands and to proceed via Bay St George westwards to Port aux Basques, the most reliably ice-free port on the western side of the Island. (This route was essentially that which was finally followed by the Newfoundland Railway, and was not very different from that selected for the modern Trans Canada Highway.) Given the attitude of London, and of Newfoundland's own capital, one has to wonder whether a railway across the Island would ever have been constructed had not Fleming made his earlier suggestion.

Actual construction started on 9 August 1881 under the charter of incorporation of the Newfoundland Railway Company. The terrain of the Island, rocky, boggy, and often precipitous, combined with the scattered nature of its settlements, made such a project very expensive. The tiny local capital base meant that financing must come from outside, thus placing Newfoundland's needs at the mercy of those who controlled the capital markets. Speculators, politicians, would-be entrepreneurs, all wanted their share. The French again opposed any construction on the Treaty Shore. In the end, seeing the railway fraught with financial difficulties, the Government had to agree to large land grants to offset construction costs, on a pattern similar to those used in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in Canada.

Robert Gillespie Reid (1842-1908), a millionaire Scottish engineer who lived in Montreal and who had extensive experience in constructing projects including railways, bridges, and mines all over the world, was just the man to complete the job. For his trouble he was to receive $15,000 for each mile of line built, and as payment for operating the railway for fifty years, he was to be granted 2½ million acres of land running on each side of the track for its full length. ⁽⁷⁰⁾ After numerous vicissitudes, the railway was finally completed across the Island in 1897, at a cost of $11,644,692, and Reid had accumulated almost twice as much in land grants as had originally been offered. But the railway, narrow gauge and with sharp turns and steep grades which would always generate problems, was completed. ⁽⁷¹⁾ The following description captures some of the excitement that must have been felt on that first transinsular trip ending at Port aux Basques, where the beautiful custom-built steamer the S.S. Bruce stood ready for the next leg of the journey:

She'd be waiting at Port aux Basques when, for the first time in the history of Newfoundland, a train struggled across the country and chuff-chuffed down to the shores of Cabot Strait. The first regular express train left St John's at 7:20 p.m., Wednesday, June 29, 1898, on its 548-mile journey to Port aux Basques. Locomotives No. 5 and No. 2 double-headed the train over the final leg of the trip and, 27 hours and 15 minutes after leaving St John's, at 10:45 on the night of June 30, the new pier at Port aux Basques began to shake with the vibrations of the train's coming. The Bruce had been waiting at the pier, to start the service for which she'd been built, since before dark. And now a whistle sounded somewhere north of the town. The train's bells began their clanging declaration of an historic moment and, in a happy confusion of steam, hissing air, and screaming wheels, the transinsular express pulled onto the wharf. ⁽⁷²⁾

In their heyday, before the road network existed, railways were able to make or break a town, depending on whether their route would take them through it or not. The West Coast port of Sandy Point on what was a slender peninsula in Bay St George was a perfect case in point. The major port on the West Coast, Sandy Point, bypassed by the railway because of its location on a narrow low spit of sand jutting out into the bay, went into decline, while to the south across a quarter mile of water, the town of St George's began to grow. Close though it was to St George's, the distance may as well have been a hundred miles, for people wanted to be near the railway. When a major storm in the middle years of this century broke through the low isthmus and converted the peninsula to an island, the decline of Sandy Point became complete. Today it is totally deserted.

The Outer Bay of Islands saw nothing of the trains, which came down the Humber valley and passed through Birchy Cove, turning southwards from the Humber Arm at Mount Moriah on their way to Bay St George and Port aux Basques. However the railway did its part in helping to bring the neglected West Coast into the twentieth century. Also it provided indirectly the benefits of improved transportation for the isolated communities like those of the Outer Bay, even though they were many miles distant from the line itself and still had to travel by boat to gain access to it. For the West Coast in general, perhaps more than for the rest of the Island, the completion and start-up of the Railway was one more huge step towards control of its own destiny. Sadly, in less than a hundred years, the railway was closed down and the tracks removed.

THE CORNER BROOK LUMBER INDUSTRY

In 1865 a sawmill was established by a Halifax firm, Silver and Company, near the mouth of a small brook which flowed into a corner of the Bay and came to be known as Corner Brook. This enterprise brought an influx of loggers from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to swell the growing population of the Bay. The plentiful supply of large pine trees which could be cut into spars 60 feet long and 2½ feet in diameter, stimulated the growth of a schooner-building industry which produced ships up to 60 tons. Timber was also exported to the US, Canada, and Europe. This quickly became an extremely successful operation, employing seasonally up to a hundred men and producing up to 5 million board feet and a thousand tons of lumber annually. ⁽⁷³⁾ The logging industry provided much-needed employment during the slack winter months when the fishery was inoperable, and added a new dimension to the working lives of Bay of Islands men. Until very recently there were still men resident in the Bay of Islands who regularly pursued the practice of fishing in summer and logging in winter.

In 1872 Christopher Martin Fisher (1840-1927) moved from Nova Scotia to Corner Brook with his family to work on contract with the Silver lumber mill. The following year he bought the mill. He continued to operate it very successfully, and the little town grew, surpassing all the other communities in the Bay. In 1923 Fisher sold his mill to the Newfoundland Pulp and Paper Company who used the site for their giant newsprint plant which began construction that same year. ⁽⁷⁴⁾ Christopher Fisher is credited with being the actual founder of the City of Corner Brook, and a key influence on the modern economy of the entire Bay of Islands.

Another smaller mill was established independently at Summerside on the north side of the Bay. This flourished until the final years of the nineteenth century when Birchy Cove became the main settlement in the area. At that time the small mill closed, and Summerside was gradually eclipsed by the more fortunate communities, Birchy Cove and later Corner Brook, beside the railway track.

THE YORK HARBOUR COPPER MINE

Other things were also starting to happen. About 1892 a prospector named Daniel Henderson located a copper deposit about a mile east of York Harbour some 1,000 feet up the precipitous north side of Blow-Me-Down Mountain in a gully known today as Copper Mine Brook. Unable to finance a mine himself, Henderson offered his find to others who might, and a St John's merchant, A J Harvey, bought part ownership of the property. Hedley Smythe was appointed mine manager, and Charles Rendell was mine captain.

Under Rendell's instructions, mining began in a disorganised manner in 1897 with the sinking of four shafts and the construction of "a precarious chute and pulley contraption to transport pork barrels of ore down the cliff to the coast". By 1899 some 500 tons of ore had been extracted but they remained unsold on the shore below the mine. In 1900 A J Harvey fired Rendell and leased the mine to the York Harbour Copper Company of Manchester, England. James Hooper was appointed mine captain.

Hooper effected some improvements, deepening the shafts and installing a motor to raise the ore from the shafts. But according to Hedley Smythe, the workings were going away from the ore body rather than staying with it and mistakenly "the conclusion was arrived at that the bottom of the ore was reached and that it had cut out completely". ⁽⁷⁵⁾ Smythe's practical experience at this mine led him to disagree with this assessment. It would seem that there was a conflict here between one judgement based on general theory and another based on local knowledge.

Incompetence, or possibly the failure to heed the voice of local knowledge, was not the only affliction at the mine:

Sparks from the cookhouse started a fire at the mine in June [1900] and forced everyone to flee with their possessions down to the beach. A brief visit from the French navy squelched plans to build a new pier and tramway; and a summer dysentery epidemic struck the settlement, rendering many of the miners helpless for days. ⁽⁷⁶⁾

As the railwaymen had run into problems when they had needed permission from the authorities to build on the French Shore, so "The proprietors of the picturesquely named Blow Me Down mine were in similar trouble. Every mining licence requiring the Governor's approval contained a caveat as to the insecurity in law of leases or grants in the Treaty Zone". ⁽⁷⁷⁾ An 1890 memorandum to Cabinet maintained:

that no permanent buildings of any kind may be erected, no mines opened, no magistrates appointed, in short that the whole coast for several hundred miles is to be closed to the colonists, and consequently the resources of the country behind left undeveloped, in order that no French fisherman shall be prevented from hauling his net or drying his fish in any spot which takes his fancy. ⁽⁷⁸⁾

In 1902, Harvey refused to renew the lease of the York Harbour Copper Company and instead leased it to the Humber Consolidated Mining and Manufacturing Company and Daniel Henderson, the original discoverer. Several improvements were made, and between 1902 and 1905 some 15,000 tons of ore were shipped to the USA. More troubles, this time financial, resulted in court cases and bankruptcy. Chronic shortage and heavy turnover of workers also created problems, in spite of efforts to provide better conditions. One such improvement in conditions was the establishment of a boarding house for the miners, operated by William Murrin and his wife Priscilla. William, with his brothers Moses and Herbert, had earlier worked his way across the Island on railway construction, and had arrived eventually at York Harbour to work at the mine. Another incentive of interest to those with families was provided by James Druggett, a self educated man and also a miner, in the form of Sunday school classes for the children of miners who had their homes nearby. However it appears that none of these measures solved the labour problems, and the mine again seemed doomed to failure.

At this time a group of London mining engineers and merchants formed a new company called the York Harbour Mine (Newfoundland) Limited. Approaches were made to the Newfoundland Government to install a copper smelter at York Harbour. This was approved by the Government, and two Copper Smelting Acts were passed in 1910 and 1911 to subsidise the cost of construction of smelters up to $50,000 for each mine owner. However no smelter was built. A few years later, after an accident in which one miner, John Sheppard, was killed when a working collapsed, the mine was closed in September 1913 and the company was wound up. ⁽⁷⁹⁾ At its peak the York Harbour Copper Mine employed three hundred men, but only for a very brief time. It does not appear to have been a success for very long, and no more than a few cargoes of ore were shipped out during its entire lifetime of almost twenty years. Nothing further occurred until 1955 when the mine was reactivated briefly to maintain the mineral rights, and to this day whatever ore exists there remains untouched. Ruins of the mine workings and some of the machinery are still visible. ⁽⁸⁰⁾

Other minerals in the Bay of Islands area are marble and limestone, along the Humber River near Corner Brook; slate at Summerside and Curling; and copper at Goose Arm. A mine to work that copper deposit, belonging to R G Reid, existed only a few months. ⁽⁸¹⁾ The limestone beside the Humber has only been exploited quite recently, since 1951, by the North Star Cement Company. Similarly, the marble deposit was worked in the 1950s for the Corner Brook Memorial Hospital. ⁽⁸²⁾

THE SLATE QUARRIES

The two slate quarries operating around the turn of the century, fared only slightly better than the Goose Arm Copper Mine, but are by far the most entertaining. The Bay of Islands had two sites that yielded slate, one on the North Shore of the Humber Arm, at Summerside, the other at Birchy Cove.

The saga of the Summerside quarry began in 1900 when the Welsh slate industry was crippled by a strike. A group of Welsh merchants looking for alternative supplies saw the Summerside deposits and became interested. However before they could make the necessary arrangements with the Reid Newfoundland Company who owned the site, one of their number, Owen J Owen, managed to secure it for himself. Back in England he raised some capital and started a company called the Bay of Islands Slate Syndicate, took on eight Welsh quarrymen, and then returned to Newfoundland. Here he received a large order from Reid for 30,000 slates for the roof of the new railway station in St John's, and he set to work to get the quarry into operation. Very soon he was deserted by three of his quarrymen, and soon after that the foreman accidentally blew up himself and the workshop area of the mine. The remaining Welshmen complained that the Newfoundlanders who worked alongside them were too fast, and Owen laid the Newfoundland workers off, thus alienating the local population.

More trouble arose when in 1903 Fred Carter of Summerside complained that the quarry was trespassing on his property. He demanded $4,000 in cash payment and immediate withdrawal from the site. The company began moving to another site, until one of the Welshmen still remaining married a local woman twenty-six years his senior, but refused then to live with her. She threatened legal action, so that her "husband" and another Welshman fled to Cape Breton. Owen then also left very quickly to return to Wales.

A new manager named John F Stewart replaced Owen, and for a brief period the quarry had another lease of life. New galleries were opened, and a pier, tramway, and workshop were built. Thousands of slates were cut and stacked and were about to be shipped when news was received that Stewart's wife was suddenly ill. He immediately left for Britain, and the quarry returned once again to the confusion it had experienced prior to Stewart's arrival. A combination of incompetent management, lack of demand, and slackening of price for the slate caused insuperable problems, and by 1909 the quarry closed, leaving behind all the slate which had been cut. ⁽⁸³⁾ For several generations, those pieces of slate provided writing surfaces for local school children.

Meanwhile, the Birchy Cove quarry site had, unknown to any of the principals of the Summerside venture, been staked by Owen before his hurried return to Wales. Although not very competent as a quarry manager, Owen had some considerable skills as a promoter, or perhaps more accurately as a con-man. He managed to interest another group, the Newfoundland Exploration Syndicate, in sponsoring this mine, with him as operator. After an abortive attempt at a Nelson's Day observation using a steam drill to bore holes to fire a 21-blast salute, Owen was again dismissed. Still not giving up, he returned to England where he managed to interest a British group in forming the Long Range (Newfoundland) Slate Quarries. The compa