From Ferryland, we sailed around the southeast corner of Newfoundland to Trepassey, where Savai and Graeme ran to the lighthouse, and the next day to Argentia, where we picked up our new crew Talia! These were long travel days along a rugged coastline with lots of birds, reading, games, and motor-sailing in light winds.
Our first notable stop was at Oderin Island (pronounced “odeern”) on the west side of Placentia Bay. Oderin is a gem of an island with rocky outcrops, green rolling Sound of Music hills, and a small protected harbor just (barely) big enough for Dogbark. The shoreline is dotted with the colorful homes of the fisherfolk who used to live here. In the heat of the summer, the place looked idyllic, but imagining living here through the cold winter months battered by North Atlantic storms definitely made us shiver.
It used to be that Newfoundland had hundreds of these “outports,” small settlements accessible only by boat, but in the 1960s the government sponsored a resettlement program as the cost of providing services to such remote areas was costly. Add to that overfishing and the cod moratorium in the 1990s and it definitely feels like a way of life has been lost here. But the cod stocks were down 99% and, after thirty years, have only now rebounded; the cod fishery was reinstated in 2024.
Walking among the abandoned homes and gravestones on Oderin we experienced a mix of emotions. Sadness at a way of life lost. Delight and wonder at the charm and beauty. Disgust at all the plastic detritus lining the leeward shore. And the eeriness of lives interrupted: plastic flowers in vases, dish tubs next to kitchen sinks, record albums lining shelves, Welcome Home signs above doors.
There are signs of some families returning if only for fair weather visits. While we saw no people, there was a Canadian flag flying above a locked red house. Gravestones were clean, their paths well-trodden. And bent-wood lobster pots were stacked at the ready.