Halls Bay was one of the last places in the northeast coast to be settled. When the English moved in there, Mi'kmaq/Red Indian families moved down to Bay d'Espoir. Bay d'Espoir was one of the last places on the Island that the English came into in the 1850s. There were also Mi'kmaq communities in Burgeo and St. Georges. When the English came there, the Mi'kmaq families moved to Bay d'Espoir.

There were different groups of Mi'kmaqs on the island of Newfoundland. You have a Burgeo-West Coast extended family. You have people between Burgeo and Bay du Nord on the south coast that are interrelated and intermarried — the Benoits and the Pulletts. They're in St. Alban's now. They came from Bay du Nord and intermarried with people from White Bear Bay and Grandy's Brook.

The Paul family were originally up in the country behind White Bear Bay. They intermarried with Red Indians and ended up going down Red Indian Lake, out through the watercourses of Halls Bay, back around the coast, down through Exploits Bay, and back up the Exploits River again. John Paul had wigwams at Badger, Hodges Hill and between Point Leamington and Wigwam Point.