Rural exodus: Newfoundland’s quest to save its community
Halfway up Route 430, on the northern tip of Newfoundland, the tiny town of Port au Choix is postcard perfect. Caribou graze at sunset at the Point Riche lighthouse, a pepper shaker-like structure that has been guiding ships through the area since the late 1800s.
Waves from the Gulf of St. Lawrence gnaw incessantly at the craggy coastline. Whales frolic in the cobalt waters, while seabirds flit in the salt winds overhead. In the town itself, barnacled shrimp boats bob in a protected harbor, and brightly colored houses cling to barrens that have witnessed 6,000 years of human history. It is a sonnet of rock and sea.
For the people who live here, self-reliance is a fact of life. Locals forage for berries and fish in the summer. They hunt moose that’s stored in freezers through the winter. No one panics if the power goes out for days – a not-infrequent occurrence.
But that resourcefulness has been tested to the limits over the years. Ever since the Canadian government banned cod fishing in 1992, the story of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has been one of out-migration, decades of locals leaving their fishing communities for high-paying jobs, often to the tar sands of Alberta. Here the population has seen a nearly 40% decline in three decades. If once there were plenty of jobs and services to support a bustling workforce, now residents accept hourslong drives for basic care and know that if a showerhead breaks, they are on their own to fix it.
“People here are good at surviving; they are not good at understanding how to thrive,” says Rachel Atkins, who lives in Port au Choix. “There has to be a cultural shift to make that happen.”
And that’s why she has joined a
