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The Beothuk's Inner
Refuge
Was the Exploits River valley an aboriginal
haven or a refuge of last resort? Mounting
historical evidence suggests that the proudly
independent Beothuk, Newfoundland's last indigenous
people, were far more at home harpooning seals
in Notre Dame Bay or gathering seabird eggs
on Funk Island, than they were building caribou
fences along the Exploits River or trapping
beaver deep in the interior of Red Indian
Lake.
Bounty of the Sea: At the Beothuk archeological
site of Boyd's Cove, in eastern Notre Dame
Bay, well-preserved refuse pits reveal that
in the 18th century, coast-dwelling Beothuk
enjoyed an abundant, varied diet of harp and
harbour seals, polar bears, geese, caribou,
smelts, clams, mussels, sculpin and flounder.
They lived in warm, water-tight, bark-covered
wigwams dug firmly into the ground and banked
with insulating earth. They were masters of
the sea, skillfully navigating their steep-sided,
sharp-prowed birch bark canoes through wind
and waves. Unlike most other North American
aboriginals, the Beothuk had not been forced
to alter their traditional lifestyles to trade
with Europeans. In the bleak solitude of Newfoundland
winters, they had simply helped themselves
to the nails, fish hooks and other iron tools
left behind by departed European fishing boats,
re-fashioning them to their own particular
use.
The
Beothuk: Countdown to Extinction
200 (A.D.) - First appearance
of Beothuk in coastal areas of
Newfoundland. Territory shared
with Dorset Eskimo. Origins thought
to be mainland Algonkian, closely
linked with Mi'Kmaq, Montagnais
and Naskaupi. Total population
estimated to be less than 1,000
people.
600 -
Beothuk are only remaining aboriginals
in Newfoundland.
1000
- Vikings (Norse) establish
settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows
in northern Newfoundland, trade
with Beothuk, referring to them
as "Skraelings."
1100 - Vikings abandon
Newfoundland.
1497
- Venetian navigator John
Cabot reaches Newfoundland, comes
in contact with Beothuk.
1501 - Portuguese explorer
Gaspar Core-Real visits Newfoundland,
captures 50 Beothuk slaves.
1507 - French fishermen
take 7 Beothuk captives to France.
1612 - British colonist
John Guy attempts to establish
a permanent settlement at Conception
Bay. Peaceful contact with Beothuk
temporarily established.
1613 - Beothuk assemble
to trade with Guy, but crew of
a passing fishing vessel shoots
at them, causing them to flee
and trust to be destroyed. French
fisherman shoots at a Beothuk
who is trying to rob him. Beothuk
retailiate, killing 37 Frenchmen.
French respond by encouraging
Mi'Kmaq seasonal hunters to settle
permanently along Newfoundland's
southern coast, arming them with
guns and fostering an alliance
against the Beothuk. Beothuk are
driven steadily inland, by expanding
European and Mi'Kmaq settlement
around the island. Beothuk territory
shrinks to inland lakes and rivers.
1720 - Hostilities
erupt between British salmon fishers
in Bonavista Bay and Notre Dame
Bay and Beothuk. Further deadly
conflict between Beothuk and English
trappers.
1758 -
Beothuk mother and child killed
by settlers, retaliation by Beothuk
against fishing crew in Bay of
Exploits, and white settlers in
Hall's Bay.
1768 - Evidence of English
brutality toward Beotuck disturbs
Governor John Palliser. Lt. John
Cartwright sent up Exploits River
to make peace. No Beothuk sighted,
despite evidence of their existence.
Population of 350-500 confined
to Exploits River valley.
1781 - Following years
of ambushes and retaliations between
Beothuk and settlers, John Peyton
Sr. leads an expedition up the
Exploits River, firing into a
mamateek and killing a fleeing
Beothuk.
1792 - George
Cartwright of Labrador agitates
for protection of Beothuk, warning
of their imminent extinction.
Captain George Pulling proposes
a peace mission to the Beothuks,
recording many acts of British
violence. No action taken by government
officials.
1803 -
Newfoundland government offers
a reward to anyone who brings
a live Beothuk to St. John's for
peacemaking purposes.
1810 - British government
issues official proclamation for
protection of Beothuk.
1811 - Captain David Buchan
leads an expedition up Exploits
River, encounters settlement at
Red Indian Lake. Peaceful meeting
turns deadly, when 2 British men
are left overnight with Beothuk
and beheaded. Total tribe population:
72.
1819- John
Peyton Jr., with government permission,
pursues Beothuk on Exploits River
after they sabotage his salmon
fishing boat. Peyton's men capture
Demasduit, a young Beothuk mother,
but kill her husband, Chief Nonosabasut.
Peyton later acquitted of his
murder. Demasduit, also known
as Mary March, taken to St. John's.
1820 - Citizens of
St. John's form committee to return
Demasduit to her people. Captain
David Buchan attempts to take
her back to Red Indian Lake, but
she dies en route, at Botwood,
of tuberculosis. Buchan returns
her remains to the settlement
at Red Indian Lake without sighting
other Beothuk. Her body is found
by her people and buried with
her husband and child.
1822 - Adventurer-explorer
William Eppes Cormack searches
for Beothuk while trekking across
Newfoundland. Makes no contact,
concludes that natives are on
the verge of extinction. Founds
"Beothick Institution"
to conduct further research into
Beothuk culture.
1823
- Furriers find 3 Beothuk
women in starving condition, transport
them to John Peyton Jr. on Exploits
Island. Older women die, youngest,
known as Shanawdithit, survives
to join Peyton household as a
servant. Shanawdithit provides
extensive details about the Beothuk
culture, estimating remaining
population at 12-13 people, too
few to maintain caribou fences
and completely cut off from former
means of existence. Shanawdithit
spends time in Cormack's household,
and home of Newfoundland Attorney
General. Dies of tuberculosis
in St. John's in 1829. Last known
Beothuk.
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But the golden age of the Beothuk culture
was short-lived. In the 19th century, as the
shores of Newfoundland were overtaken by year-round
European fishers, furriers and loggers, and
as misunderstanding, animosity and contempt
grew between the aboriginals and the newcomers,
the Beothuk were cut off from their livelihood.
Refusing to capitulate to European notions
of domination and superiority, they had nowhere
to go but in - into the heart of the island.
Following the upstream course of the Exploits,
Newfoundland's longest river, the hungry,
displaced Beothuk retreated permanently to
their winter hunting grounds, to a steadily
deteriorating life of subsistence, disease,
starvation, and finally, of total extinction.
Matty Mitchell's
Metal
Who was the first to discover the Buchans
lode, one of the richest ore deposits in the
world? A rich blend of legend, lore and historical
fact attributes the finding to Matty Mitchell,
a Montagnais-Mi'Kmaq prospector from Bonne
Bay. In 1905, Mitchell, whose hunting and
trapping family that had long travelled the
waterways of central Newfoundland interior,
led an expedition from Grand Falls, along
the Exploits River to the north shore of Red
Indian Lake. Mitchell and his companion, St.
John's mining engineer William F. Canning,
had been hired to survey and assess the mineral
potential of the Red Indian Lake and Victoria
Lake watersheds. All water, timber and mineral
rights of the area had been granted for a
term of 99 years to the Anglo-Newfoundland
Development Company (A.N.D. Co)., founded
by British newspaper magnates Alfred and Harold
Harmsworth.
One version of the orebody discovery paints
a colourful picture of Mitchell blithely boiling
his kettle on the shore of the Buchans River,
only to find a sample of lead, melted by the
campfire. The actual circumstances of the
discovery are undocumented, but records indicate
that Mitchell and Canning had located 3 outcrops
of lead and copper ore along the Buchans River
within days of setting out from Grand Falls.
Historians have speculated that the ore locations
were already well known to the aboriginals
of the area, and that Mitchell's "discovery"
was in fact a re-location of a previously
discovered mineral site.
The Buchans ore discovery was only one of
the famous exploits attributed to the larger-than-life
Mitchell. As a hunter, furrier, prospector
and guide, he developed an intimate knowledge
of the Newfoundland interior. In 1908, he
led a small party of Laplanders and their
herd of 50 reindeer on a harrowing 600-kilometre
wilderness trek from St. Anthony to Millertown.
Mitchell died in Corner Brook in 1922 at the
age of 75, just 5 years before a producing
mine was established on the site of his ore
discovery.
The
Ubiquitous A.N.D. Company
A pulp and paper plant, mine, railway, dairy,
post office, hospital and even a movie theatre
- in the Exploits River valley of the early
20th century, the Anglo-Newfoundland Development
Company - known by its apt acronym as the
"A.N.D. Company" - controlled much
of the region's industrial and commercial
sector.
Established in 1905 by a land grant from the
Newfoundland government, the company was founded
by Alfred and Harold Harmsworth, publishers
of London's Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. The
brothers, who eventually earned the titles
of Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothermere, wished
to secure a reliable source of pulp and paper
for their newsprint supply. As part of their
controversial property arrangement, they agreed
to pay a royalty to the government of 5% of
net profits derived from mining operations
on Company lands.
On the frontier of the Newfoundland interior,
the A.N.D. Company quickly established an
overwhelming corporate presence. It founded
the pulp and paper industry in Grand Falls
on the lower Exploits, and conducted the original
exploration of the Buchans Mine just north
of Red Indian Lake. (The Company eventually
sold its share of the operation to the American
Smelting and Refining Company.) In 1910, the
Company took complete control of the newly-constructed
Botwood Railway, from Grand Falls to the seaport
of Botwood on the Bay of Exploits, operating
it as a corporate subsidiary until 1957. Employees
and associates of the Company were provided
with milk produced by the A.N.D. Company Dairy
Farm, the ill and injured were treated at
the Grand Falls A.N.D. Company hospital, and
even movie-goers were entertained by the A.N.D.
Company moving-picture theatre in Grand Falls.
Until 1960, when Price Brothers and Company
acquired a large share of A.N.D. Company stock,
the community of Grand Falls operated as a
company town, with housing, schools, and retail
and recreational services falling under corporate
control. Families and businesses were not
permitted to locate inside the town's boundaries
without Company permission, leading to the
development of Grand Falls Station, incorporated
in 1938 as Windsor, just north of Grand Falls.
Amalgamation of the 2 towns into Grand Falls-Windsor
took place in 1991.
All
Aboard the Botwood Railway
With logging, sawmilling, mining and pulp
and paper operation firmly established in
the Exploits valley early in the 20th century,
the Botwood Railway, from Grand Falls to Botwood,
provided the necessary shipping link between
the hinterland and the coast. Constructed
from 1909-1910, the rail line carried goundwood
pulp bound for export, and coal, sulphur,
china clay and limestone bound for import.
At the rail yard in Botwood, mountains of
paper, awaiting ships, were stored in sheds,
and a roundhouse and shops built and maintained
both freight and passenger cars. Ore from
the Buchans Mine, deep in the Exploits interior,
was shipped to Grand Falls on Canadian National
Railway tracks and transferred to the Botwood
Railway for transport to the ocean-going ore
boats.
During the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's, the
Botwood Railway was the main artery of the
lower Exploits valley, offering a train for
every purpose:
• The "Nickle
Train" carried movie-goers from Botwood
and Bishop's Falls to the theatre in Grand
Falls, for a fare of only 5 cents.
•
The "Shopping Train" took Botwood
and Bishop's Falls residents to Grand Falls
early in the morning, returning conveniently
in mid-afternoon.
• The "Milk
Service" ran each day as part of the
general freight schedule, carrying bottles
of fresh milk packed in wooden crates from
Grand Falls to Botwood.
• The "Soldier's
Train" was added to the regular schedule
during WWII to allow Canadian servicemen based
at Botwood and Phillip's Head to travel to
Grand Falls for Saturday evening entertainment..
• The "Shawnawdithit" was a
luxury railway passenger car built in the
1920's to transport corporate officials and
dignitaries from the port of Botwood to Grand
Falls. The car was subsequently used by travelling
school teachers, visiting remote Exploits
Valley communities.
Loading logs on bush train
William
James Topley/National Archives
of Canada/PA011590 |
The
Botwood Heritage Centre
The colorful history of the Botwood
Railway, as well as the town's
role as a shipbuilding centre,
terminal for early trans-Atlantic
passenger aviation, and military
base during World War II are portrayed
through exhibits and artifacts
at the Botwood Heritage Centre,
located on the former Botwood
Air Base. The Centre also explores
early Beothuk culture of the area,
and traces the history of early
European explorations and settlement
of Exploits Bay. |
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Early Lumber Barons
of the Exploits Valley
• Reverend
William Botwood - Spiritual pursuits were
not the only concern of Reverend William Botwood,
resident Anglican clergyman of Exploits Bay
during the 1860's. Recognizing the untapped
timbering potential of the Exploits River
Valley, the Reverend bought nearly all of
the land timber rights along the River, as
far as Red Indian Lake. He convinced a Quebec
company to build a sawmill at Ship Cove (later
to be named Botwoodsville, in honour of its
corporate patron), formed the Exploits Lumber
Company with an associate, and launched a
thriving forestry industry that continues
to form the foundation of the Exploits valley
economy. • Harry J. Crow - In
1903, the name of Harry J. Crow became synonymous
with Newfoundland lumbering. He established
Newfoundland Timber Estates Limited, the New
Land Lumber and Pulp Company and the Newfoundland
Pine and Pulp Company, purchasing most of
the island's sawmills in the process. In 1905,
Crow sold Newfoundland Timber Estates to the
fledgling Anglo Newfoundland Development Company,
but continued to operate a large mill at Botwood.
Crow was admired not only for his entrepreneurial
skills, but also for his generosity and social
progressiveness. He established a kindergarten
and social services centre in Botwood, and
introduced amenities such as showers, recreation
facilities, night classes and lectures to
his logging camps. |
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