Dispossession

At the time of European settlement of Newfoundland, the indigenous people appear to have all been Beothuks. There were only ever around 1000, and the last one died in 1829. They were mainly a coastal people, perhaps living inland in winter, and when Atlantic Salmon fisheries blocked off every single estuary, they couldn’t get to the coast, and started to fight. Within a few decades they were gone.

Today I visited the Beothuk interpretation centre, located near a partly excavated village that was lived in all seasons except perhaps winter between 1650 and 1720. European fishermen were visiting the area during summer each year during this time, and the Beothuks foraged metal (mainly nails) from the camps when they were abandoned each year.  The metals were repurposed into tools. Archeologists found an amazing number of artefacts during their excavation, and some are in the centre. I particularly liked the fact that some of their designs had been reproduced along the edges of the information panels.

There was also a painting of what the excavated area may have looked like. They were real red indians, as they painted themselves with red ochre.

I visited the site, and took pictures at the site and the harbour where they would have pulled up their boats.

Later I visited a fishing museum. In the 1960s Newfoundland decided to close an enormous number of fishing villages - those with no road access. The museum was created by a man who had been a boy when his family was relocated, and it shows the way of life, the isolation problems, and how some of the buildings were moved to this location.