The Ones Who Stayed

1960s-1970s

One of the places hit hardest by resettlement was Placentia Bay. We hear place names now that bring to mind pictures of empty communities and wrecked houses. These are places like Merasheen and Paradise. Today, you can go by boat past these old places. If you do this in the summer, you might see smoke coming from chimneys. You might see boats in the water. People often come back for holidays. They come from all over Canada. They are drawn back to the places they left behind.

Not everyone left, though. If you travel by boat, you will come to Petit Forte and South East Bight. These are small communities that survived resettlement.

South East Bight has an interesting story.⁹ During the 1960s, most of the people left. But a few stayed on. Then, in the 1970s, some people started to move back. For them, resettlement was full of empty promises. They found it hard to adjust to the places they had moved to. It was hard to make a living. Some of them had not wanted to move at all. They had moved because of pressure. They were afraid of ending up in ghost towns. There was lots of pressure.

Here is how three women describe what it was like in South East Bight at the time of resettlement.

There were fellows going around from the government, with papers. They had some people frightened to death. They said there'd be nothing here for anyone. My husband, well he didn't know what to be doing. I wasn't shifting. Sure the priest even came to the door one day, and he said, "Oh, you'll be gone. When the old rooster goes, the old hen will follow." And I said, "Well, the old rooster can go. I'm staying here."¹⁰

Another woman said:

We got down to only a few families. And it was some sad. The empty houses.¹¹