One woman and her family had already moved there from another community. They decided they would move no farther. She remembers the pressure on people to leave for bigger centres, and the things that were said about what would happen to the ones who stayed.

We were going to starve to death. The youngsters were going to starve to death. There'd be no milk for them to drink. And there was going to be no mail, and the steamer wasn't going to come.¹²

Such threats and fears were hard to resist. As well, the government was offering financial help to families who moved. If they did not take this help now, it might not be there later. Some people thought they would have more money than ever before. But many who left for larger towns found life hard.

In the end, six families stayed. Their determination began to pay off. The ferry service got better. The boat began to come in twice a week, more than before. So South East Bight, with its six families, survived resettlement. And soon some of those who did "shift" came back. They had found jobs scarce in the towns they moved to, and some found that they could not adjust to the change in lifestyle. They came back and moved into houses they had left behind, or built new ones. The community grew. There was a sense of pride.

Like others in Newfoundland who would not move, the people in the Bight found that they had to get organized. They had to do this to get basic services, like electricity. People learned how to form committees. They learned how to lobby the government to get what they needed. They had to fight to keep a school, then to improve it. They had to organize to get funds for a new wharf. These things happened in the days when there were many government projects. Today, people often call them "make-work" projects. Some people think these projects are not a good thing. There are few of them left. But small communities used them to build things they needed. People made an income at the same time.

South East Bight's story is a success story. But what will happen to such places without the cod fishery? Even communities that survived resettlement have had a hard time since the northern cod moratorium. Since the cod stocks went down, the whole issue of resettlement has come up again. But many people do not even want to hear the word spoken.