Fogo Island (Newfoundland and Labrador)

For other uses, see Fogo.
For the town on the island, see Fogo Island, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Fogo Island (Fogo, Portuguese for "Fire") is the largest of the offshore islands of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It lies off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, northwest of Musgrave Harbour across Hamilton Sound, just east of the Change Islands. The island is about 25 km (16 mi) long and 14 km (8.7 mi) wide. The total area is 237.71 km2 (91.78 sq mi). On March 1, 2011, the Town of Fogo Island was incorporated, encompassing the former communities of Fogo, Joe Batt's Arm-Barr'd Islands-Shoal Bay, Seldom-Little Seldom, Tilting, and previously unincorporated areas of Fogo Island.[2]

Toponomy

Fogo Island is one of the oldest named features on the coast of Newfoundland. The Bertius map from 1606 shows Fogo Island as one of only about a dozen important features around the coast of Newfoundland. On French maps of the 16th to 18th centuries, the island is referred to as Ile des Fougues. The island was likely named by Portuguese explorers and early fishing crews in the 16th century (Fogo means Fire in Portuguese).

Fogo Island was once called Ilha do Fogo, meaning Isle of Fire.[3] There are a number of theories for the name:

  • Many accidental or natural forest fires destroyed the dense forests of the northern part of the island;
  • European mariners often saw the burning fires of the Beothuk natives;
  • The island may have been named Fogo after the Cape Verde Island's active volcano.

History

Beothuk traversed Fogo Island for many hundreds of years before Irish and English settlers arrived. The Beothuk pursued the seal and salmon fisheries in the area. They also travelled out to the Funk Islands to collect feathers and eggs from the birds there. In the early years of European settlement at Fogo, there were incidents of violence between the Beothuk and the Europeans. This contact ended around the year 1800. The Beothuk became extinct as a people in the late 1820s.

Though migratory French fishermen visited Fogo Island from the early 16th century until 1718, the first permanent European settlement of the island took place in the 18th century. Fogo Harbour and Tilting Harbour were the first settlements on the island.

Until 1783, Fogo Island was on an area of the coast called the French Shore. Though English and Irish were not supposed to settle here, under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, they did settle; by 1750, Fogo was a thriving part of the British mercantile system of fisheries, based out of West Country English towns such as Poole, in Dorset.

Fogo Island first attracted Europeans because of the extensive opportunities for commodity harvesting, including seal skins and oil, lumber, fur-bearing animals, salmon, and cod. Over time, settlers on the island concentrated on processing dried cod.

Residents defeated the Smallwood government's plans to resettle Fogo Islanders elsewhere in the 1950s but by 1967 a downturn in the inshore fishery had forced many to turn to welfare support. In 1967, the island played a key role in the development of what came to be known as the "Fogo Process," a model for community media as a tool for addressing community concerns, when an Extension field worker from Memorial University, Fred Earle, and Colin Low shot 27 films with Fogo Islanders as part of the National Film Board of Canada's Challenge for Change program.[4]

The northern cod fishery closed in 1992. Crab and lobster fisheries have largely replaced the cod fishery; a fish-packing plant remains in operation in the town of Fogo. The economy of the island has diversified into tourism and cultural industries.

The last physician was due to leave the island in June 2022; medical care at that point only being available via a six-hour round trip by ferry, weather permitting.[5]

Historic sites

Bleak House Registered Heritage Structure

Bleak House in Fogo was constructed 1826-1827 for Fogo merchant John Slade.[6] The Earle family made extensive alterations to the house after they took over the associated business in 1897.[7] A large dwelling with a centre-hall plan, the house was constructed with a summer kitchen at the back of the house, set there to take advantage of cool breezes and to remove the heat of cooking fires from the principal part of the house.[7]

The building was donated to the Fogo town council in 1981.[8] A restoration project in 1984 included work by youth participants in the Katimavik program.[9] The youth also worked to catalogue artefacts in the building, with the assistance of the Newfoundland and Labrador Museums Association.[10]

The building was designated in 1986 as a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador.[11] A ceremony to mark the designation was held by the foundation on 24 August 1986.[12]

Tilting Registered Heritage District

Tilting Harbour on Fogo Island is a National Cultural Landscape District of Canada and has been designated as a Registered Heritage District by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. The provincial designation was announced by then board chair Ruth Canning on 21 June 21 2003.[13]

The National Cultural Landscape District designation notes that the heritage value of Tilting lies in the nature, diversity and range of the individual resources within its cultural landscape, and their complex interrelationships.[14] One example is the ongoing summer tradition of transporting sheep from Tilting to nearby Pigeon Island, allowing them to free range.[15] Another is the "extensive and remarkable 'gardens,' or fenced-in fields, variously located adjacent to their owners' houses or more often in clusters, some distance away."[16]

Local oral history indicates that Tilting was originally a French harbour before becoming a venue of Irish settlement. This is highly likely, given the traditional commercial and cultural links between southern Irish and northern French fishing ports. The first Irish settled in Tilting in the 1750s; it evolved into a predominantly Irish and Catholic community by the 1780s. The parish of Tilting was established in 1835.[17]

In 2022, the Tilting Recreation and Cultural Society (TRACS) and Heritage NL began a preliminary inventory of traditional skill holders in the area.[18]

Fisherman's Union Trading Company Building

Before Confederation with Canada, the mercantile classes of St John's, Newfoundland became rich by holding a near-monopoly stranglehold on both the supply of goods to the Newfoundland outports and on the sale of fish from them. In the early 20th century, the Fisherman's Protective Union was formed in an attempt to break this stranglehold. It was a form of co-operative with general stores owned by fishermen for fishermen. One of the Fishermen's Union stores still stands at Seldom-Come-By[1] on Fogo Island, now open as a museum complete with general store, port installations, fishing implements and equipment for the manufacture of cod-liver oil.

Marconi Station

A Marconi radio transmitting station was once operational atop a hill near the town of Fogo; operating with a spark-gap transmitter to establish maritime communications, the station was forced to close around the time that radio became common for household use as the spark-gap design generated unacceptable levels of radio interference. Efforts to rebuild this station as a historic site commenced in 2002.

Transportation

Fogo Island is connected to mainland Newfoundland by the ferry MV Veteran, and is served by the Fogo Aerodrome airport. The primary roads on the island are Route 333 (Fogo Island Road) and Route 334 (Joe Batt’s Arm Road), as well as Deep Bay Road and Island Harbour Road.

Tourism and attractions

The island attracts a wide range of visitors interested in its history, local wildlife and other attractions. It has seven hiking trails, such as Lion's Den, Brimstone Head, Turpin's and Joe Batt's Point Trail. It also has ten Town-owned local museums and heritage properties, including the Marine Interpretation Centre, the Lane House Museum, and the Bleak House Museum. There are also museums run by local individuals, including Mona's Quilts & Jams and the Museum of the Flat Earth, now closed.

Fogo Island Arts (launched in 2008) provides a platform for contemporary art on the island, via a series of residencies hosted at different studios around Fogo.

Literature

Fogo Island appears in fictional form in the novel Blaze Island by Catherine Bush.[19]

In Pop Culture

The popular thriller tv-series, Severance, filmed season 2, episode 8, on Fogo Island.

See also

  • Shorefast a charity devoted to economic development of the island

References

  1. ^ a b "Seldom-Come-By". Intangible Cultural Heritage. Memorial University of Newfoundland. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  2. ^ "Interim List of Changes to Municipal Boundaries, Status, and Names From January 2, 2011 to January 1, 2012 (Table 1 - Changes to census subdivisions in alphabetical order by province and territory)" (XLSX). Statistics Canada. November 14, 2012. Retrieved December 3, 2012.
  3. ^ "Fogo Island".
  4. ^ Quarry, Wendy (1994). The Fogo Process: An Experiment in Participatory Communication. Thesis, University of Guelph. Archived from the original on 2001-11-04. Retrieved 2009-10-16.
  5. ^ Cecco, Leyland (4 May 2022). "For the first time in 200 years, people on this Canadian island will be without a doctor". The Guardian.
  6. ^ "Bleak House Registered Heritage Structure". www.historicplaces.ca. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2025-10-20.
  7. ^ a b "The Earle Premises at Fogo". The Trident. 4 (2): 8. November 1977 – via Memorial University Digital Archives Initiative.
  8. ^ "Bleak House". Decks Awash. 16 (6): 62. September–October 1987.
  9. ^ "Katimavik projects commencing on Fogo Island". The Pilot. 1984-07-25. p. 2.
  10. ^ "Katimavik in action". The Pilot. 1984-10-17. p. 19.
  11. ^ "Heritage structures designated in Trinity-Conception". The Compass. Vol. 18, no. 6. 1986-01-22. p. 1.
  12. ^ "Heritage structure gets big facelift". The Compass. Vol. 18, no. 37. 1986-08-27.
  13. ^ "Tilting: Provincial and National Heritage" (PDF). Newfoundland Historical Society Newsletter (Summer): 1. 2003.
  14. ^ "Tilting National Historic Site of Canada". www.pc.gc.ca. Retrieved 2025-10-22.
  15. ^ Newell, David (1 December 2016). "Tilting sheep return to Fogo from summer sojourn". Retrieved 22 October 2025.
  16. ^ "Tilting National Historic Site of Canada" (PDF). Newfoundland Historical Society Newsletter (Summer): 3. 2003.
  17. ^ Byrne, Clara Burke (April 1998). "Tilting Expatriates Association" (PDF). The Trident: the newsletter of the Newfoundland Historic Trust: 10.
  18. ^ Jarvis, Dale Gilbert; O'Brien, Andrea, eds. (August 2023). Tilting Traditional Skills Inventory Project (PDF). St. John's. ISBN 978-1-988899-21-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  19. ^ Bush, Catherine (2020). Blaze Island. Goose Lane Editions. ISBN 978-1773101057.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Fogo Island and Change Islands.

Media related to Fogo Island at Wikimedia Commons

49°39′49″N 54°10′13″W / 49.66361°N 54.17028°W / 49.66361; -54.17028[1]

  1. ^ "Fogo Island". Geographical Names Data Base. Natural Resources Canada.
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