Settlement and transportation before the Newfoundland Railway

John Cabot, a Venetian reporting to England, stumbled on rich fishing grounds in 1497 - then everyone found out about Newfoundland and the Grand Banks.

A Portuguese explorer landed on the Avalon Peninsula, claimed it for the King of Portugal, and named St. John's Harbour while he was at it. This was in 1501. St. John's Harbour was a handy place to hide out during a storm or to make repairs.

St. John's Harbour
You really have to experience the harbour firsthand. It is about 2 kilometres in length. As you walk along the shore closest to the bottom of this old aerial view, Signal Hill looms larger and larger. Signal Hill is on the far side of the harbour entrance. At the top of Signal Hill is the Cabot Tower - three stories tall and completed in 1900. It's the little black square on top of the hill with the ocean behind.

Looking in the other direction - from Signal Hill into The Narrows, and on to the end of the harbour - gives you a better idea of the size of this gigantic rock formation. Much of the harbour is hidden behind the outcropping at the right :
St. John's Narrows looking into the harbour

The most valuable catch during the 1500s was cod. The most important species, Atlantic Cod, likes capelin and herring (it's not mutual). The cod spawn during cool months - for example they spawn on the Grand Banks between April and June. Spawning times vary widely during the year depending on local water conditions. Baby cod eat plankton and little creatures they find on the bottom. Except for coming to the surface while chasing small fish, cod tend to stay near the ocean floor.


The English were late to the fishing party in Newfoundland - only really getting interested when closer European fish stocks were dominated by other countries. By the time they arrived  the 1570s : Portugal, Spain, France and Basque fisherman were well established in Terra Nova with fishing and whaling.

These southern Europeans had lots of access to salt. In their sunny dry climates, salt producers would shepherd seawater through an interconnected succession of shallow ponds. The hot sun changed the seawater to stronger and stronger brine, and finally to crystalline salt.

Access to salt allowed them to use "green fishery " techniques. Fresh prepared cod were salted away in their ships' holds in a two stage process. The fishing ships travelled about one month to the Grand Banks, stayed at sea to fish there during the April to October fishing season, and spent another month getting home.

They could go ashore at St. John's or at other locations, but they didn't need to. It was better to fill the hold with salted fish as soon as possible and get home.


Without as much access to salt, the English needed to go ashore to dry their fish - a "dry fishery" process. Having predictable access to land was more important for them than for the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Basques.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert blew into St. John's Harbour with the hesitant support of Queen Elizabeth I in 1583 and told everyone else to take their salt and stow it ... England was now in charge! I guess he could do that kind of thing - his half-brother was Wally Raleigh the Smoker.

Newfoundland cod was soon bringing in a lot of money to England.


Cod fishery: early practices of the dry fishery and green fishery
When he is done posing, the dude (A) will take his leather apron, baited weighted hook (B), and get on the sailing ship at (C).

Green Fishery made fun and easy
Once on sailing ship (C), he will stand in one of the barrels fastened to the ship's side, with his leather apron hanging outside to keep him dry. As he pulls in fish all day, he will send them up over his shoulder for gutting, heading and stowage with some salt to let the juices flow out (yum). A couple of days later they will repack everything with some more salt. As soon as the hold is full, it's back to Europe to sell ... while the English are still doing the rest of the alphabet.

Dry Fishery made fun and easy
Every night, take the fish to the dock and get them gutted, headed and split. Brush them with brine and let them set a spell. A couple of days later, wash them and lay them out on "wooden split-cod drying tables" - called flakes for brevity. Keep them as sunny, airy and DRY as possible and the dried cod will be ready in a few weeks ... but you have to keep flipping them over. Keep them dry on the way back to England too !


Whether you like to salt them away, or flake them out, Atlantic Cod is goood eatin' !

Fishing structures and settlement

The winter winds, heavy wet snow and pounding drift ice took a toll on the dry fishery structures. Every year they had to be rebuilt.

The "West Country Merchants" of England liked all the dried cod coming in, and fishing supplies going out, only through their hands. They had influence with the English government and used the law and brute force for decades to ensure that no one overwintered in Newfoundland. If people settled in Newfoundland, influence on the colony might pass to local merchants and local government.

By English law, the first English ship's captain arriving at St. John's in the spring got to be "Fishing Admiral" for the season. Without university prerequisites in public administration or political science, Fishing Admirals administered "justice" on behalf of the government and were often very brutal.


Speaking of brutal ... St. John's and its environs kept changing hands between the English and French, French and English ... (Newfoundland? ... sounds like Canadian history!). Iberville and Jeffrey Amherst's little nephew William were a couple of those involved during this long and tedious bit of history. I would do a whole page on this alone, but there's no spellcheck for Utrek ... as in Treaty of ...

Survival in pioneer Newfoundland is hard enough ... can't we all just get along?


Anyway ... back around 1700, some inhabitants kept their heads down and discreetly began permanent settlement away from all the action around St. John's and the drift-ice-free French fort at "Plaisance" (today's Placentia). To over-simplify, these first settlers came mainly from the seasonal population which was made up of garrison soldiers, fishing workers and "private sector support services" like carpenters and use your imagination. Life wasn't easy for these first permanent settlers.


Outport Life
... The dispersion of permanent settlement beyond St. John's continues, and the need for better transportation develops  ...


If fishermen didn't want to work for "The Man " aboard sailing ships on the Grand Banks - or onshore with the dry fishery work ... they might settle somewhere down the coast in what came to be called an "outport" - a little isolated settlement which was often accessible only by sea.


Below is the "pseudo-outport" of Quidi Vidi Harbour - minutes from Signal Hill and downtown St. John's (you can see the hill at the right on the aerial view). The camera is looking toward the harbour entrance and the ocean. There were many of these peaceful little areas all along the coast of Newfoundland where people began to settle. You can get the "outport idea" from this place :
Quidi Vidi village Newfoundland, "outport"

Newfoundland: bringing in a cod trap - inshore fishery

The inshore cod trap and other low technology processes such as manually set lines of baited hooks stood the test of time. Used in a labour-intensive small-scale way, they were ecologically reasonable and sustainable.

Gee, it must have been great ... just living off the land and in harmony with nature like that !

... Often with big families, outport fishermen often ended up working very hard for "The Man" anyway - not themselves.

For perhaps 200 years, a "merchant credit" system operated. When cod prices were poor, or the inshore cod schools were not plentiful, fishermen got into debt. A go-between merchant would get access to a St. John's trading company's fishing supplies and financing ...

Probably in a better boat than any of the local fisherman owned, the merchant would travel to a series of outports, providing credit in the form of fishing equipment at the beginning of the season. In return for credit, a fisherman would agree to hand over his catch to apply to the debt. Over the years, the debt never seemed to go away ...

Here is a conclusion about the merchant credit system, written in the late 1960s :

"His complete dependence on the local merchant for credit, coupled with his old-fashioned catching and curing methods, condemned [the fisherman] to a lifetime of unrewarding labour."


Sandford Fleming stirs things up

Sir Sandford Fleming

Sir Sandford Fleming : The foremost railway surveyor and construction engineer in Canadian history.


Fleming was probably looking at a bigger picture - rather than Newfoundland's needs ...
The War of 1812 was fresh in Canadian political memory. Fleming believed that he could do a lot to unite the scattered British North American territories with that greatest of all 19th century technologies ... the railway.

Fleming's "big picture concept"...
He seemed to think that a Newfoundland Railway could provide a fast land bridge connecting British steam ships arriving at St. John's with the new Intercolonial Railway (via ferry) ... and so on ... all the way out to the Pacific Ocean. The buzz term for transcontinental railways across British North America back then was "Steel of Empire ".


CPR Last Spike at Craigellachie
CPR Last Spike - November 7, 1885 - Craigellachie, B.C.
Spike maul swung by CPR Syndicate member Donald Smith.
Immediately left of him with dark beard: W.C. Van Horne, General Manager.
Between them, tall with white beard, Sandford Fleming.
(All 3 men died 1914-1915)


Political Reality
So how are you ever going to get a railway built in Newfoundland?



Final Point - classic marine transportation patterns in Newfoundland
The large map below helped me better understand the settlement patterns, and historic marine transportation needs, along Newfoundland's rocky coast.

This is a Canadian National Railways modern map from the early 1960s. It shows the railway lines which the CNR inherited and operated after Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949.

More significantly, it shows the coastal steamship routes the CNR was committed to operate - the dotted lines all around the island. Some of routes were seasonal, closed "at the end of navigation" in the local area.

CNR used the following vessels in 1957:
S.S. Baccalieu ; S.S. Bar Haven ; M.V. Bonavista ; M.V. Burin ; M.V. Nonia ; M.V. Clarenville ; S.S. Northern Ranger ;
S.S. Springdale ; S.S. Kyle

The direct mainland service between Port-aux-Basques and North Sydney was provided by:
S.S. Cabot Strait ; S.S. Burgeo ; M. V. William Carson.


Newfoundland: CNR steamship routes showing coastal transportation patterns


A trans-Newfoundland railway did get built ...

only a dozen years after the CPR was completed across Canada.

And there were a few CPR connections with the project too ...


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