HICKMAN’S HARBOUR, N.L. — Brian Avery was three years old when he and his parents packed their belongings into a boat and pulled away from Deer Harbour, N.
L., leaving behind their home, their way of life and centuries of family history. The Averys and their neighbours were abandoning their community on Random Island in Trinity Bay as part of Newfoundland and Labrador’s resettlement program.
Their boats were pointed toward Clarenville, N.L., and larger towns beyond, where roads, running water and the promise of jobs outside fishing and forestry awaited.
Fifty-seven years later, Avery is part of a new generation of Newfoundlanders navigating the painful history of resettlement and bringing people back to these abandoned communities through tourism. “It was a lot of years before they went back, a lot of years before anybody went back. You don’t want to go back to something that hurts,” Avery said of his parents and other residents.
“But I always knew in the back of my mind ...
there would be a day that people would know about Deer Harbour and the beauty there.” For centuries, people in Newfoundland relied heavily on fishing and settled in towns near the coast, close to fishing grounds. But after Newfoundland entered Confederation in 1949, the provincial and federal governments began offering people money to leave far-flung communities and move closer to government services.
More than 16,000 people were resettled between 1965 and 1970, leaving behind nearly 120 co.
