Vernacular Outport
Newfoundland

Part 1: Introduction

This report is the result of an independent study that involved researching the photographic archive of Newfoundland from the digital collections of The Rooms, the Memorial University of Newfoundland, the Library and Archives Canada, and select photo books. My primary goal for mining this material was to understand the broader context of my own research-creation practice on themes related to the history of Newfoundland during the pre- and post-Confederation periods and especially the role of place, culture, and tradition in outport settlements. Thus far, my work in this area has primarily come out of an oral history tradition, with photography and video used to bring that oral history, my family’s, to life. In this independent study, I was interested in focusing on the visual history of Newfoundland through its photographic records.

Specifically, my guiding questions for this research were:

1. What does Newfoundland’s photographic archive contain?
2. What is the vernacular photography of outport Newfoundland communities?
3. How does the photographic archive inform my understanding of resettlement, and how might those understandings impact my own work?

In considering these questions, I wanted to be able to situate my own research-creation practice into the broader context of Newfoundland photography. The process of developing a visual understanding of vernacular outport Newfoundland life took approximately three months, during which I reviewed more than 20,000 digital scans of various printed photographs from a diverse set of photographers. By no means is this study a comprehensive evaluation of the Newfoundland photographic archive, which is itself an ongoing project that continues to grow as more photographs are collected. While I focused on the digital collection due to the access limitations of living away from Newfoundland, I must note there is a portion of the archive only available on-site at The Rooms and Memorial University of Newfoundland. Additionally, due to the nature of the archive, there is so much that has not yet been collected. Therefore, this project represents a starting point of an ongoing research project of aggregating vernacular outport Newfoundland through photographs. This report will continue to evolve along with my continued research.

Relationship to Prior Research

This report builds upon prior research I have undertaken to inform my work in photography, video, installation, and sound. For some time, my artistic practice has been related to my deep curiosity about my family’s history of resettlement from Pinchard’s Island, and, on a larger scale, how and to what extent resettled people globally are able to maintain the intangible history of a place. I have previously used primary source material to support my work, primarily in the form of oral history and my own family’s experience. For example, in the installation and real-time video piece Cabin (fig. 1), I recreated a traditional Newfoundland home within a studio space. The cabin was inspired by vernacular architectural elements and contained traditional furnishings and housewares. These came directly from my family or were sourced based on their recollections of their homes. In this independent study, I wanted to extend my scope beyond my family’s experience to include the history of Newfoundland settlement more broadly and what we can learn about it through period photography. Ultimately I am interested in bringing my research full circle to understand how proactively recording information about a place can help preserve the tangible and intangible history that was lost during periods of resettlement. The community of Little Bay Islands is of particular interest; my recent video and sound piece Mug Up (fig. 2) was shot in transit to and on the shoreline of this community, which is currently in the process of resettlement.

Methodology

Throughout the process, I intuitively defined my methodologies for analyzing the archive. I started with preliminary criteria of what to include and exclude, which became more refined as my research progressed. Initially, I set out to focus on the years from 1945 to 1965 to encompass the period before, during, and after Confederation, when Newfoundland joined Canada as its tenth province. However, due to the estimated or unknown dates of the photographs, I decided to be unconstrained by dates and focus primarily on the content of the photographs.

The content that most interests me is rural, outport Newfoundland communities and daily life; therefore, my analysis excludes all urban representations such as daily life in the capital city of Saint John’s. I also determined that the portion of the archive pertaining to World War II is outside the scope of this research, as it has been extensively researched and documented by others. However, because that timeline of WWII, 1939 to 1945, immediately precedes the 1949 confederation of Newfoundland with Canada, I am interested in considering at a later point how the war and its aftermath impacted the vote to join Canada.

I began by defining categories of photographic content which enabled me to organize the components of the archive that I was organizing for myself. As a photographer with an understanding of the visual language of lens-based media, I instinctively gravitated to visually appealing images. However, I made a conscious effort to find a balance between professional and amateur photographs, aesthetically pleasing and candid imagery. In effect, I developed a subset of the archive that contains images with relevance to my areas of focus and that enabled me to develop themes that are the basis of this research. The output, this report, follows a loose journal format where I analyze specific themes through short written entries.

Description of Archives

Photography as a medium in the Newfoundland archive begins to appear towards the end of the 1800s and becomes consistently present in the early 1900s. The majority of the digital photographic archive, over 15,000 images, documents pre-Confederation Newfoundland during 1900–1949. Unfortunately, there are fewer than 2,000 photographs in the archive that represent a post-Confederation Newfoundland between 1950 and 2000. I suspect the reason for the relatively small number of images from the second half of the twentieth century is that families still retain them in their homes, and it may still be some time before photographs from this period enter into institutional archives.

The photographs are predominantly black and white glass negatives and physical prints. As expected in an archive that spans several decades, some of the photographs show the evolution of techniques and aesthetics, ranging from ethereal pictorialist landscapes to hand-coloured photographs and some colour prints that have the unmistakable palette of early colour film. Some images appear to have been taken by amateur photographers. The amateur photographers who lived in Newfoundland (as opposed to outside observers) would likely have belonged to a small subset of relatively wealthy families, given that outport Newfoundland was not an affluent society at the time. One such example is the Forbes Family Collection, which includes nearly 450 photographs compiled (and presumably taken by) Dr. Robert E. Forbes, his wife, and children. These photos document Bonaventure and the surrounding area primarily between the years of 1914 and 1950. Note, though, that my research focused was on the content and not on the photographers, the techniques, or the photographs themselves as physical objects.

A significant portion of the photographic archive portrays a documentary-style aesthetic, surveying communities, architecture, occupations, and the advancement of industrialization of the island over time. There is a distance in the photographs, and the photographers rarely get close enough to their subjects to suggest familiarity. Rather, the images have a sense of providing an overview or appraisal of these communities. I suspect that many of the photographs were taken by Europeans or Canadians arriving by boat, potentially designated officials sent to photograph Newfoundland to return evidence of a way of life back to Britain or Canada. The archive includes some instances of work by notable photographers such as Lee Wulff, Robert Edwards Holloway, and James Vey, along with Sir Wilfred Grenfell who documented his medical missionary work in Newfoundland. A number of photos in the archive capture the photography process itself: families taking each other’s photos, individual amateur or hobbyist photographers, and several photos of what appear to be professional photographers at work. Therefore, the act of photographing communities seems to have been identified as an act worthy of documentation itself.

Part 2: Contextual History of Newfoundland’s Settlement and Resettlement

Settlement History

An archaeological discovery in the mid-1960s provided strong evidence that the Norse were the first European settlers to arrive in Newfoundland, via Greenland, around 1000 CE.¹ The small Norse settlements found in Newfoundland appear to have been seasonal and only occupied sporadically, as opposed to the permanent settlements established in Greenland. One reason for the impermanence was the resistance of the native inhabitants, who far outnumbered the small groups of Norsemen.

The aboriginal people of Newfoundland were the Beothuk, who may have been the native group encountered by the Norse. The first evidence of Beothuk culture came through objects gathered by John Cabot when he arrived in Newfoundland via ship from England in 1497.² Cabot established the North Atlantic Cod Fishery, which led to the identification of Newfoundland as a prime commercial fishing location. While Cabot first claimed Newfoundland for England, ships from Portugal, France, and Spain later arrived to partake in the riches of the ocean; Portugal subsequently claimed Newfoundland in 1497.³

The commercial fishing industry benefited the Beothuk by providing them ready access to abandoned and discarded scraps of metal. This windfall freed the Beothuk from the burdens of labour and time typically required to produce products for trade to the settlers. While their continued self-reliance proved to be an asset to the Beothuk in the short term, it was a liability in the long term: once European settlements became permanent in the 1600s, the Beothuk didn’t have existing relationships with the settlers and had difficulty adapting to their increased presence. In the 18th century, interactions between the settlers and the Beothuk became progressively adversarial, and by the 19th century, the Beothuk were a small isolated community. Shanawdithit (fig. 3), the last known Beothuk, died of tuberculosis in 1829.

The first English settlement occurred in 1610 after years of England and France fighting for control. Newfoundland didn’t officially come under British rule until 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht; it became a British colony in 1824.⁴ After a century of self-rule, Newfoundland, reeling from the Great Depression, ceded control back to England. After World War II, two referenda were held, the first to choose among the options of self-rule, British rule, or Confederation with Canada. A split vote prompted the 1948 runoff referendum between the top two choices of self-rule and Confederation; Confederation won with 51% of the vote.⁵ The confederation movement was led by Joey Smallwood (fig. 5) who served for more than twenty years as Newfoundland’s first premier.

Resettlement History

Though rich in resources, Newfoundland is not an easy place to live, with its rocky terrain, intense fog, and powerful winds. Periodically throughout its history, residents of Newfoundland have moved in search of better opportunities, migrating to other Newfoundland settlements, to other parts of Canada, or to the U.S. This voluntary migration greatly reduced the populations of some communities and left others completely abandoned.

The first post-Confederation government-sponsored resettlement began in 1954 with the Centralization Program. This program offered grants to households in communities that unanimously agreed to relocate. Short-haul moves were common in the early years of resettlement; some families even floated their houses to the new destination. Under centralization, the provincial government helped a few thousand people move into larger service areas that were more centrally located and offered better services, even though employment opportunities were not adequate to support those who relocated. By 1959, 29 communities with 697 families had been resettled. This particular period of resettlement, which my grandmother experienced, has played a role in much of my work, including Driftwood, Cloudberry, Island, and Resettlement.

In 1965, the provincial and federal governments jointly launched the second phase of resettlement, the Fisheries Household Resettlement Program (fig. 6). Under this initiative, families were encouraged to settle in designated “growth centres,” larger settlements with jobs in fish plants and infrastructure such as roads, schools, hospitals, and water and sewer systems. An outport could qualify for relocation assistance if at least half of the households approved a resolution in support of resettlement.

The outport then negotiated the terms of the move with the government; to move forward, the petition had to be signed by at least 90 percent of the community’s householders. Each household received a stipend and moving expenses were reimbursed after the relocation was complete. Initially, some people maintained their former homes so they could augment inadequate employment with seasonal fishing in the summer. The provincial government attempted to discourage this, in some cases, by destroying buildings or seizing property left behind. In 1970, the next iteration of the resettlement process, the Newfoundland Resettlement Program, was established as a joint federal-provincial operation, more closely tied to economic development than previous programs. In order to qualify and receive payment, resettlers had to reside in government-designated outports, and 80 percent of households had to agree to move. Between 1965 and 1970, 3,242 households were resettled, representing 16,114 people from 119 communities. The cost to the federal government was more than $5 million, and about $2.5 million to the government of Newfoundland.

The resettlement program of this period is generally viewed as a failure. Despite the superior social services of growth centres, especially in education, many new industries failed and resettled workers were displaced from their traditional livelihoods in the fisheries. While resettled residents received support for the relocation process itself, they residents scant resources to help them fully integrate into the social or economic realms of their new communities. With the rebuilding of the inshore fishery, some fishermen and their families, particularly in Placentia Bay, have returned without government assistance to resume their livelihood seasonally or year-round in formerly resettled communities.

Though large scale resettlement is a thing of the past, individual communities are still grappling with the issue today. The communities that have recently been resettled, or that have been identified as candidates for resettlement, are tiny island communities, such as Little Bay Islands, with ageing populations and a dearth of medical and other services. The provincial government sees resettlement of these communities as a cost-saving measure because it will no longer have to provide services or ferry transportation to these islands. Resettlement of these islands requires 90% participation of full-time residents. As in the resettlement programs of the last century, resettled individuals will be allowed to return, if they procure permits, for fishing, berry picking, and other recreational activities.

Part 3: Research Findings

Several broad themes arise across the images I selected from the archive: The Natural World, Outport Communities, Architecture, People and Resettlement. Each of these categories has several subthemes that inform my understanding of the Newfoundland vernacular during the period from around 1945 to 1965. Though I initially set out to look at the broad categories in equal depth, it became clear as I intuitively gathered the images that some piqued my interest far more than others. Therefore, the depth at which I discuss the categories below varies. Also, note that the categories and subcategories have some overlap: a photo of a lighthouse, for example, could fall into the natural world category or the architecture category. In those cases, I selected a primary category for the image.

The Natural World

Landscapes, oceanscapes, and icescapes

Many of the landscapes show bodies of water, bays, falls, lakes, and rivers, juxtaposed with jagged rocks and other coastal features. The photographs capture a sense of the sublime, with imposing mountains rising above the water (fig. 7) or rows of evergreens laden with snow (fig. 8).

Others are more placid, portraying moments of calm (fig. 9). The landscape photos are generally unpopulated. When they do include people, the tiny scale of the figures underscores the majesty of the setting (fig. 10).

A group of icescapes is particularly spectacular. Some show people interacting with the ice: sealing, floating on ice pans, or simply viewing it from the shore (fig. 11). Others depict enormous icebergs that are stunningly sculptural (fig. 12). The icescapes provide an especially dramatic illustration of the climate with which Newfoundlanders have to contend.

A smaller group of photographs tagged as “flora” (fig. 13) shows some of the indigenous plants of the region. These images, in contrast to the other landscape photographs, have a more human scale. Of particular note are the images of bakeapples (cloudberries) (fig. 14), an iconic Newfoundland plant; gathering berries was one of the sanctioned reasons for resettled residents to visit the places from which they moved. This category includes what might be considered “pure” landscapes, but it’s important to note that nearly all of the photographs in the other categories also reflect the prominent role of the land in the day to day life of Newfoundland. The land and the water of Newfoundland have been significant components of my own work in photography, video, sound, and installation.

Animals/Wildlife

Most of the photographs I selected of animals depict horses being used for transportation (fig. 15), work (fig. 16), or occasionally entertainment (fig. 17).

Other photos include sheep, foxes, dogs, and cats. In most cases, the photographs show the interaction between the animals and the people who used them, owned them, or simply delighted in them (fig. 18). Overall, they convey the sense that animals were an essential part of daily life in Newfoundland, fulfilling a range of functions.

Notably, the Newfoundland pony, a heritage breed (fig. 19), and the Newfoundland dog (fig. 20) appear in photographs, both emblematic of the region and its reliance on animals.

The wildlife photographs include animals that could be considered the iconic species of the region: moose, deer, caribou (fig. 21), beavers (fig. 22) and even a polar bear (fig. 23). These may have been taken by outsiders looking to record the quintessential Newfoundland, or by locals using the images as trophies of their wildlife sightings.

Land- and Sea-based Livelihoods

A significant number of the photographs categorized under the theme of the natural world show the ways in which Newfoundlanders relied on the land and the sea for work or to procure resources for their family’s use. These include forestry (fig. 24), personal gardening (fig. 25) and large-scale farming (fig. 26–7), hunting (fig. 28), and, the most prominent, fishing (fig. 29).

Indeed, the lifestyle of the people who settled in these communities depended entirely on the sea; fishing was the primary income-generating activity of the residents. Similar to gardening and farming, fishing is represented on both a personal level and a commercial level. The archives include images of all stages of fish processing: washing (fig. 30), spreading fish on flakes to dry (fig. 31), and stacking and sorting dried fish (fig. 32).

The flakes themselves, wooden drying racks for fish, primarily cod, feature prominently, as do a variety of other tools, structures, and equipment related to the trade, such as nets (fig. 33). While fish flakes were once iconic aspects of the built environment of Newfoundland, the advancement of large fish processing plants, electric storage freezers, and the 1992 fishing moratorium have all but eradicated them from outport communities.

Outport Communities

The photographs in this category provide overviews of the outport communities’ architecture, the coastline, structures related to the fishing industry, and infrastructure such as roads (fig 34). For the most part, these photos are shot from a distance that allows them to include groups of buildings or an area of town rather than single buildings (A 64–30). Overall, these are the photos within the archive that feel most like dispassionate, broad surveys intended to document information for the government or other entities that commissioned them. Their primary visual impact is that they underscore the vulnerability of modest wooden homes situated on an inhospitable coastline, and the extent to which the fishing industry infiltrated town life.

Some communities were nested in bays (fig. 36–7) to provide shelter from the harsh wind of the ocean, while others are situated on small peninsulas that jut out into the open ocean (fig. 38).

The configurations of the communities varied from one to the next, dependent primarily on the layout of the rugged landscape, from cliffs (fig. 39), barren land (fig. 40), beaches (fig. 41) and deep within coves. The communities are composed of a variety of architectural structures, some surrounded by wooden fences to guard livestock (fig. 42).

The iconic Newfoundland shorelines are full of fishing-related structures built on stilts and extend over cliffs into a bay, out into the ocean, or even further via wharves. In many communities, it’s hard to see where the shoreline begins: the dwellings on land seem to blend into the structures over water (fig. 43–4).

There are storage units for fishing gear and boats, structures to cut and clean fish, and interconnected boardwalks linking one structure to another. Typically extended families owned and collaboratively used these structures for both personal fishing and to sell seasonal catches to merchants. The unique use of the stilts to provide support for structures can be seen in the photographs of La Manche (fig. 45–6), a community on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland which resettled in 1966. This style of architecture, as a primary component of communities, no longer exists; however, contemporary structures are emerging that incorporate the use of stilts to provide support for structures as a reflection of Newfoundland culture and identity, such as the recently constructed Fogo Island Inn.

Aerial photographs taken by Lee Wulff during the mid-1950s (fig. 47–8) show that once gravel roads were introduced to support automobile travel, the growth pattern of the communities changed significantly, with new homes are built on both sides of the easily accessible roads, further inland than in the prior eras. This development pattern caused a significant reorientation of houses, with traditional homes facing the ocean and newer ones facing the road. Since most communities were only accessible via boats, I speculate that these fly by images of communities could have been used by government officials to help investigate potential communities to nominate for resettlement.

Architecture

As I perused the archives, the theme of architecture, specifically the architecture of the home, quickly rose to the surface as the most compelling, not only because of its prominence in the identity of the Newfoundland family and home but also because of its link to my artistic pratice. Traditional domestic architecture has been a recurring theme in my work in photography, video, and installation, particularly in Cabin, as well as in the related project of building an actual inhabitable cabin on Pinchard’s Island. Because the home became a focus of this research, the discussion of the topic appears in a separate section later in this report. Here, I’ll briefly discuss other types of architecture present in the photographs.

Churches

Both Anglican and Catholic churches appear in the archives. Some are imposing structures that tower over the rest of the town (fig. 49) while others are quite small (fig. 50). There are also photographs of open-air services (fig. 51), of which the photographs of baptisms are one type.

Many of the photos show the church seeming to dominate the town, not only because of its size but also because of its placement on the highest piece of land. The church served as a guidepost for fishermen at sea and acted not only as the religious center of the town but also as the seat of civic life.⁶

Businesses and Government Structures

The businesses shown in photographs are those one would expect to find in any town: hotels or inns (fig. 52); post office (fig. 53); and a variety of shops (fig 54–5) with both new and second-hand goods, food markets, and co-ops. The government structures I selected include buildings used by the Newfoundland Ranger Force, including barracks (fig. 56) and detachments (fig. 57). The Ferryland Lighthouse (fig 58) also appears in a number of photographs.

People, Recreation, and Leisure

This large category includes a range of photographic conventions: formal portraiture, family snapshots, genre scenes, and documentary photography. As you might expect, the photographs of Newfoundlanders have a sense of liveliness and of immediacy that has the effect of transporting the viewer directly into the scene. There are countless ways to subcategorize this broad theme; the designations that I chose are somewhat arbitrary but convey many of the universal experiences shared by people everywhere, here seen through the lens of a specific place.

Celebrations and Rites

As in any society, much of the photographic documentation of people’s lives in Newfoundland revolves around significant moments and rituals: weddings (fig. 59), funerals (fig. 60), burials (fig. 61), and baptisms (fig. 62).

These photographs reveal information about the customs, dress, gatherings, and other details that surround celebrations and marking of milestones. People are dressed in their finest clothing, and the groups attending these events are relatively large and span a range of ages.

In some cases, it seems as if the whole town is attending the ceremony (fig. 63), suggesting that neighbours felt like an extended family in these tight-knit communities.

Home Life

Images of home life include indoor and outdoor chores done by women, men, and children. As noted below in the section on the traditional Newfoundland home, most of the photographs of home life show the exterior of the house and outdoor chores. Examples include chopping wood (fig. 64), mowing the lawn (fig. 65), and making and repairing items like sleds and snowshoes (fig 66).

As expected in this period, chores appear to be divided along gender lines, though there are exceptions (such as a woman mowing the lawn). While men’s tasks as represented in the photographs take place outdoors, women’s tasks span both the inside and outside realms. Interior photographs show domestic activities like cooking (fig. 67). while chores like hanging laundry (fig. 68) naturally take place outdoors.

Several of the interior photographs (fig. 69–70) show the kitchen as the heart of the home, a theme I have explored in my own work, including Island, Cabin, and Mug Up. Most of the photographs show family members or (presumably) neighbours working together on these tasks, suggesting an integration between social activities and household activities.

Recreation, Leisure and Family

The photographs of recreation show activities like camping (fig. 71), canoeing (fig. 72), children playing (fig. 73) and crafts like spinning (fig. 74).

As noted above in the Landscape section, many of the recreation images show people enjoying their natural surroundings. Family photographs include children, men, and women of a range of ages, and encompass many different configurations: individuals, pairs, and large and small groups.

Some of the archival photographs show people engaged in an activity posed either informally or formally, like boys sailing model boats (fig. 75).

A number of formal photographs show entire families, including pets, at their homes (fig 76–7).

Many of the subjects are unidentified; identifications, when they appear, are often by group (“the Brooks children” or the “Evans family”) and less often by the individual. (Interestingly, there is more than one instance of the pet being named while its owner is not.)

Part 4: The Architecture of the Traditional Home in Newfoundland

The Outport Newfoundland House

Traditional Newfoundland homes are made of wood, which was readily available in a lumber-producing area, and which the average homesteader could afford. First-generation “settler” houses were simply built single-story structures (fig. 78–9). These were made of unfinished materials, and sometimes of multiple sources of wood, indicating the practice of reusing building materials (fig. 80).

The predominant style of second-generation homes was the more refined “saltbox,” (named for its resemblance to the wooden boxes used to ship salt). This style originated in New England and featured a roof sloped steeply from the front, which had two stories, to the back, which had only one (fig. 81). Saltboxes have a flat facade and a central chimney.

Houses increased in size as architectural styles evolved. The third-generation house was known as a modified saltbox, and the fourth generation as a “biscuit box” because of its small gable roof (fig. 82).

To provide the best fishing access, houses were often built on sloped land, which compromised their stability and made them extremely vulnerable to the effects of wind and weather. Only permanent residents built homes; seasonal settlers lived in tilts (fig. 83), which were temporary wooden camps that did not survive the harsh winter months.

Most of these traditional homes have been replaced by the post-Confederation bungalow. However, some communities on the northeastern coast of Newfoundland have begun to revive the architecture of the traditional saltbox home. Today, only a few original wooden houses remain in the communities of Newfoundland as vinyl siding has become a primary cladding material: it’s easier to maintain and lasts longer in such harsh climate conditions.

The Representation of Home in the Archives

There are multiple generations of houses present in the photographic archive: first-generation “settler” homes, second-generation saltboxes, third-generation “modified saltboxes,” and fourth generation “biscuit boxes.” Photographs of later styles include bungalows, and one image shows prefabricated home post-confederation. Other notable architectural characteristics visible in the photographs include very steep gable roofs (fig. 84), double peak window roofs (fig. 85), tar paper roofing, and a few instances of a Victorian Mansard detailed roof (fig 86).

Windows are scattered throughout the structures but are typically made up of small, four-pane panels (fig. 87). In some instances, there are asymmetrical four-pane windows with two smaller panes panels, and larger windows below (fig. 88). It’s also common to see nine to twelve tiny glass panels making a larger vertical rectangle window (fig. 89).

Smaller dwellings have one chimney (fig. 90), and larger houses have two (fig. 91). Wood stoves were the primary heating source. With the abundance of forestry, it is still common to heat homes via wood stoves. Piles of wood standing upright in the style of a tipi appear in a significant number of house photographs (fig. 92). This allows for firewood to dry more efficiently, making it easier to burn. I have personally never seen this in my lifetime; however, my father confirmed that this method of piling firewood is still practiced today in some western Newfoundland communities.

Another idiosyncrasy of Newfoundland homes is the placement of ladders across the roof (fig. 93). While I was not familiar with this tradition, I am guessing it relates to the task of removing snow from the roof or controlling a chimney fire.

Around a single house, the landscape formations necessitated the organic arrangement of multiple outbuildings in and around the garden, such as an outhouse toilet (fig. 94), storage shed (fig. 95), work shed (fig. 96), and root cellar (fig. 97).

It’s also common to see multiple extensions to a single saltbox house over time to accommodate growing families (fig. 98). In the gardens, often dispersed around the structures, were small areas to grow root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, turnip, and lettuce (fig. 99).

Many photographs that include images of houses also show the tasks required to maintain the structures and the daily life of the families that inhabited them. The majority of these tasks are outdoor chores. In fact, while there are over 250 images of house exteriors in the public archive, there are fewer than 20 images of their interiors. This marked imbalance reinforces my theory that the majority of photographers at this time were “strangers” that didn’t have access to the interiors of the homes. While Newfoundlers are known to be extremely welcoming, there has traditionally been a clear distinction between people with connections to the community and those without. Strangers (the word itself is considered a pejorative term) identified themselves by knocking, instead of walking into a neighbour’s home, as locals would do, and were only permitted in certain areas of the home that were considered public.

The Floating Home

During the evening of November 18th, 1929, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 occurred off the Southern Coast of the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland.⁷ The exceedingly rare earthquake caused a tsunami that hit coastal communities, such as Port au Bra, and claimed the lives of 28 people. The tidal wave swept homes into the ocean, destroyed wharves, boats and fishing gear (fig. 100), devoured livestock and seasonal cod catches and left communities shocked and devastated.⁸

There are several photographs in the archive that depict the destruction of the 1929 tsunami: homes falling into the sea, bays completely dishevelled, and buildings destroyed. I am drawn to a specific photograph of a two-story, saltbox style home swept out to sea by the tsunami and semi-submerged into the ocean (fig. 101). The unidentified home is tied to the stern of an anchored schooner named Marian Belle Wolfe off the coast of the Port au Bras community. It was later towed back to shore by two men in a small “make and break” boat.

This photograph captivates me for several reasons. First, it challenges our concept of home as rooted in place. The photograph illustrates humans’ immediate impulse to right the wrong of an unmoored home, and the description tells us that the house was later dragged back to its original site. While we think of place and home as permanent, they are, in fact, temporary. Second, we don’t know who owns the house, and we could even argue that nature has taken over ownership. Regardless of the details, we know that the photographer is aware of the uniqueness of this moment. Lastly, and most importantly, the photograph foreshadows one of the most iconic visual representations of resettlement in the post-confederation era from 1949 on: homes towed on the water by families from resettled communities as they moved to their new locations (fig. 102–5).

Part 5: Conclusion and Next Steps

Conclusion

Because I have a strong base of knowledge about many of the topics represented through the photographs in the archives, I was curious about what additional insights I’d gain from this deeper analysis, and how those insights would relate to both my existing and future projects. The broad scope of the photographs, as well as the repetition of certain themes and motifs, led me to several conclusions. Some are new realizations, while others are new questions that developed or existing questions that intensified. The conclusions, discussed in at more length below, relate to the distance of figures in photography, the relationship between oral and photographic history, the development of a visual understanding of resettled communities in their prime, and continued fascination with images of the floating house.

Initially, the distance that I felt in the photographs frustrated me. The photographers were not close enough to the subjects to offer me the connection to the vernacular life of outport Newfoundlanders that I was searching for. However, I began to notice characteristics that have parallels to my own work, such as the distant figures with backs to the camera. This ruckenfigur is a common motif in my work, and it often evokes questions and comments from viewers around the inaccessibility of the individuals in my photographs. I felt the same way while looking at the photographic archive. This realization forced me to step back and to ask myself why I present my family, who are the subjects of most of my photographs, with such distance. I believe the dichotomy in the ways I represent people in my work, the distant figure in the landscape versus the portrait of an individual, reflects my personal feelings of both distance and proximity to Newfoundland. On one hand, as a Newfoundler who lives away from the island, I often feel that it’s important for me to articulate that yes, I am from here, while knowing that my experience of the vernacular is quite removed. On the other hand, I experience an element of respect, trust, and protection that can only come from a deep understanding of a place. I’ve built a relationship of trust and co-collaboration with my family and with the residents of communities, specifically the residents of Pinchard’s Island. So much of that relationship is built upon intimate oral history where I am an active participant in functional memory transfer. The camera has no presence in these interactions; in fact, the camera could be considered a “stranger” in the sense that I’ve previously articulated. My photographs, in fact, represent the more quiet, reflective moments in between, rather than the representation of the vernacular, the functional memories, or the symbolic. I believe that I am just beginning to empower my participants to represent themselves, to have an equal weight equal to mine as the distant “come from away.” One example of this is the recent work Mug Up, which I co-created with my grandmother.

Material archives provide the ability to evoke and invoke memory, and probably more than any other material, the photograph is able to situate the viewer within specific moments of historic narrative. However, as I looked through the archive I was struck by the incomplete nature of the cultural narrative of outport Newfoundland; so many of the photographs are missing information such as dates and the names and details of the photographers and subjects. This brought to light, quite evidently, that for outport Newfoundland’s cultural narrative to survive the ever-changing physical and cultural landscape, artifacts, especially photographs, will need to be intimately tied to the oral history of its people. While the digital archive I researched provided some insights, the project confirmed that I’m actually more interested in the images that are not included in the archive. I’m intrigued to discover the images that are still in photo albums in people’s homes. Images that are tied to specific people, events, stories, and relationships to places that evoke collective memory. Indeed, my own family has such an archive. I feel like my work in pairing archival images with oral histories is just beginning. My next steps are not yet confirmed but I know they will be closely related to people and their stories rather than to the government institutions that collect archival material as something to possess.

For years I have travelled to resettled communities to be met with varying degrees of abandonment, from semi-intact structures being reclaimed by the landscape to communities, such as Pinchard’s Island, that have been completely erased. My understanding of these sites is primarily based on the ruins, if any, that have been left behind, and in some cases on oral history from people that once lived in such communities. I had not, however, seen extensive images of what these communities once looked like. Looking through the archive, I saw, for the first time, outport communities in their prime. I particularly noticed the ways in which each community responded to its unique landscape on the rugged coastline of Newfoundland, and that the architecture of homes, tilts, and stages are uniquely tied to place and the regional culture of its people. In some ways, the archive also offered a glimpse into the values in which outport Newfoundlanders lived by: reliance on community for survival, the importance of the home structure, tightly knit families, and dependence upon land and sea for work and resources. The experience of researching the archive has enabled me to develop concrete visuals for places I’ve never seen but only imagined, like the community of Pinchard’s Island at its peak. I can now picture the physical space of outport community life before its Confederation with Canada and before the fish harvesting moratorium.

Discovering the photograph of the house floating in the ocean as a result of the 1929 tsunami was very surreal. At first glance, I assumed it was an image of a home being towed to live out the rest of its life in a new community as a result of a resettlement program. Upon further inspecting the date, description, and type of boat (which was atypical of the type of used to haul resettlement homes), I realized that my original assumption was incorrect and that there had to be another interpretation of the photograph. Further investigation led me to the information about the earthquake and tsunami. For me, as mentioned earlier, this image became a foreshadowing of the floating home that is a visual hallmark of resettlement. While the house in the 1929 photograph obviously became detached from the foundation as the result of a disaster, that is, unintentionally, houses that were towed during resettlement were moved intentionally, or at least as a considered response to a difficult situation. I’m interested in the shift in thinking that resulted in a floating house being perceived as a solution rather than as a catastrophic event. That shift happened as resettled communities were forced to think about the essence of their homeland rather than its physical manifestations. My personal connection to resettlement is through my grandmother, whose house was floated during the family’s resettlement from Pinchard’s Island to Newtown. The decision to bring one’s home on such a move likely came both from financial need (it was cheaper to move a home than to build a new one), and from a desire to mitigate the sense of displacement caused by the relocation. However, my grandmother explained that this goal was not achieved. As she put it, the house, “wasn’t our home anymore. It didn’t fit in its new place: it was meant to be elsewhere.” On a practical level, the house’s architectural characteristics no longer responded to the landscape that once surrounded it. More importantly, it felt lifeless: the family and community activities that surrounded the house were left behind, redefining it simply as an ill-fitting structure rather than a home that was integrated into its physical and cultural setting.

Next Steps

Based on the insights and questions described above, I have identified three areas of focus for my own research-creation work going forward. First, I plan to use my new understanding of outport communities and traditional home architecture to inform how I will formalize my future thesis project. I will make architectural considerations that are:

1. Responsive to the physical characteristics of the landscape.
2. Empathetic to past, present and future cultural contexts.
3. Accessible and relatable to other cultures and experiences for non-Newfoundlanders.

My intentions are not to imitate the past, but to understand it. To speak to a vernacular, not replace it.

Second, I will continue to research the digital archive as well as on-site materials contained in the archives of The Rooms and Memorial University of Newfoundland. Based on the limitations of the digital archive and the absence of more personal moments of vernacular outport photographs, a key component of my research moving forward will be working more deeply within my own family archives as well as the family archives gathered from the participants in my research-creation practice.

Third, I want to further understand the significant influence and importance of Indigenous communities, people, and culture in Newfoundland history, and to develop a strategy for connecting with my personal Mi’kimaq heritage. These approaches will enable me to contextually address my concerns with how Indigenous peoples are represented and problematically categorized as a “type” or “other” in the Newfoundland photographic archive.

While I’m not certain what how these areas of focus will manifest themselves in my work, it’s clear to me that my research in the Newfoundland archives will have a lasting impact. It has further developed my visual vocabulary of the Newfoundland vernacular, and it has given me the momentum I need to begin exploring topics with which I had not yet fully engaged.

Works Cited

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