LBI
Little Bay Islands is a place we have wanted to visit since we found Mike and Georgina on Facebook three years ago. They are the only residents of this resettled community who opted not to take the government’s offer of $270,000 and instead to stay in their home, including through the winter months. We followed their lives through their writing under “Kintsugi”, along with 5,000 other Facebook friends! The response to their posts through the first winter alone here, was so overwhelming they took a break and just enjoyed the solitude of this beautiful island that was once a thriving, fishing community. Our goal, naturally, is to find them during our stay.
Anchored In LBI
The channel is marked at Black Rock Sunker and I can see the large green marker in the inner harbour so the passage past Macks and Goat Islands is tight but simple. Once we round the green mark the entire harbour is open before us. We can see the closed fish plant and its wharf, the public wharf ahead and many homes of various ages and sizes along the shore, as well as a handful of small pleasure boats.
Anchoring is easy with lots of swing room and we are settled by 4:00pm. Several small fishing boats pass by, some transiting under the small bridge to the southeast which connects Macks Island to the larger Little Bay Island. Nobody stops by but they all wave before heading to their stages where they proceed to clean their catch. These are summer residents.
The government resettlement plan allows the residents to keep their homes if they want to use them during the summer. All services, however, have been removed including the “innards” of the hydro boxes on the sides of the homes, hydro lines and poles. There is no firefighting service, no health care, the school and churches are left without any reason to be open. There are no stores. The coastal ferry doesn’t stop here anymore, delivering goods or passengers. The summer residents must bring all supplies by their own boats, as do Mike and Georgina.
During our shore visits, though, we meet many of the local people who tell us this is a quiet weekend on the island. There are days when visiting pleasure boats are tied two and three deep at the wharf and the harbour holds a dozen more. Seems we aren’t the only ones curious about this interesting place. We have seen some “For Sale” signs on some of the houses and we are told the house hunters visit on a regular basis - and why not - if you can secure a little place for $5,000?
On our first visit to shore, we arrive in our dinghy and tie up to the high wharf, just after a large fishing boat unloads its eighteen passengers. They have come to spend the afternoon, wandering the streets and paths and to examine the spectacle of a resettled community, as have we. Some of the visitors are from the area, others have “come home” and some are Ontario tourists. We chat for awhile with some who want to hear our story but we aren’t what they came for and soon we all head off in other directions to explore, eat picnics and take photos.
I am dismayed, though, when I see one woman actually climbing porch steps and trying the door of an unoccupied home. One of the residents later told us he saw a fellow, the same day, run from the church with a book, which he later returned and a woman carrying a table from the church and running with it back to her boat!
We walk to the top of the most accessible trail, but it does not take us to the lookout we were looking for. There is a freshwater pond at the top, though, where we stop for our lunch before walking back down the hill to the waterfront.
It is at the bottom of the hill where I see the couple walking two dogs and know immediately it is Mike and Georgina. I call out to them and they stop for a short conversation. She has just contracted Covid after being away for a couple of days, so we keep our distance “social” and speak only what needs to be said: we followed them their first winter of sharing their lives on social media, they are the reason we wanted to come to this inspiring place and that I brought Mike’s short stories with me. I reread them the day we arrived to familiarize myself with Little Bay Islands and its people, through his eyes.
He asks if we have his new book, “For William”, and that we can find it on a table in front of his mother’s house across from the playground. Our walk then takes us around the south shore of the bay, where we meet Mike’s parents and promise we will return tomorrow with our wallets.
His parents, though, have their own stories: his father worked in the fish plant and his mother was the local teacher. “The Museum” behind their house is an absolute treasure-trove of history! Mr. Parsons has photos and paintings of old ships, animals, local people in happy times in kitchen parties and fishing in small boats. There are old tools for the garden, for woodworking, for fishing and for the kitchen belonging as far back as his great grandparents.
He explains some of the photos to us, including one of a building sitting offshore on the rocky ledge we see only at low tide. This was the salt house where salt delivered on Portuguese boats was stored for the processing of the cod. The Portuguese would then fill their boats with cod for their return trip.
View From The Hill
His memories are delightful but others come in who have their own questions to be answered, so we continue on our way around the shore. We pass the school, the H.L. Strong Academy, and come upon a small gazebo where we rest for a cold drink at its picnic table.
The plaque on the wall tells the story of Lady Helena E. (Strong) Squires. She was born in Little Bay Islands in 1878, the daughter of the successful fish producing and exporting firm of James Strong Limited. Her husband was active in politics, including more than one term as Prime Minister and she won a seat in the Newfoundland House of Assembly in 1930 - becoming the first woman to do so. She later worked with Joey Smallwood in his campaign for confederation and in 1949, after Newfoundland joined Canada, Lady Squires was elected the first President of the Liberal Association of Newfoundland.
I contemplate this successful woman and wonder how many people stop by this small gazebo to read about this moment in our country’s history.
There is a small path beside the gazebo and we wander up, in the heat of this sunny day, to find two cemeteries perched on a small hill, but hidden from view below. Many old headstones sit among others more modern and upright. One catches my eye: “Erected by Jas. White in loving memory of his son Pte, Gordon White aged 28 years & 1 month. Who was wounded and died while fighting for the empire, in France in 1918.” We pause and recall the great sacrifice of so many from Newfoundland during that war.
The bay ends at the footbridge that crosses to Macks Island but we don’t venture across, as rain seems to be approaching and we have left the boat open and have a twenty minute walk back to the wharf. But we will stop for blueberries which we find hanging, full and ripe on bushes on the approach to the cemeteries. With our sandwich container nearly full, we arrive back at the boat with threat of rain passed and enjoy a lovely swim - it certainly now feels like summer!
It’s cod again for dinner, which I prepare in foil with onions, peppers and small tomatoes. Harald barbecues it and we enjoy it with the last of our small potatoes, and of course, blueberries for dessert.
For four nights, we enjoy long and quiet sleeps with no waves and no slamming centreboard. Harald services some winches, fills the diesel, scrubs the decks and cockpit and eventually runs the generator as our third day is quite cloudy so our solar panels are not producing any power.
We lounge in the cockpit, read and play cards, swim and enjoy the quiet. We have only been six weeks on the water but this is most relaxed we have been. Our journey will soon be ending so we wallow in this protected harbour, enjoying summer as we recall it being before.
We do not forget, though, all we have seen in those short weeks in the cold and fog and deserted communities, small fishing harbours and quiet wilderness anchorages. The people, the stories of new and old will remain with us as we now head toward our final destination, just 48 nautical miles away.
Leaving LBI
What It Was