Floating George and Annie Warren's House, Placentia Bay

Lisa Wilson and I are just back from a trip to Arnold's Cove, to meet with their local heritage committee on a web project they are undertaking, on the theme of resettlement.

Committee member Edna Penney shared with us this great image, which would have been a fairly typical sight during the resettlement period. It shows George and Annie Warren's house, being floated from Best's Harbour (Tack's Beach) to Arnold's Cove in July 1966.

If you've got a photo of a family house being floated, or hauled across the ice, we'd love to see it. Toss us a line at ich@heritagefoundation.ca

The Arnold's Cove Water Truck, circa 1970

I mentioned in an earlier blog entry that we've been working with some local heritage enthusiasts in Arnold's Cove on a project to map out the legacy of resettlement in that community. We'll be running some community training over the next little bit, showing people how to create a Google map of some of their photos and stories.

The area of interest in Arnold's Cove contains over 70 buildings which were floated into the community during the resettlement period. The local heritage committee has located most of these on a paper map, and we'll be showing them how to transfer some of their collected information into a digital format which they can share online.

I drove out to Arnold's Cove this morning to plan out our workshop, and local volunteer Edna Penney showed me some of their historic material on the theme of resettlement.

The photo above is one of hundreds they've amassed. It was taken around March 1970, and shows one of the houses which was brought into Arnold's Cove. When the houses first arrived, many of them were not yet hooked up to town water, so the town had a water truck (pictured above) which delivered water to those dwellings.

If you have a memory of the Arnold's Cove water truck, or know any of the people in the photo, you can email me (Dale Jarvis) at ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Mapping the legacy of resettlement in Arnold's Cove, Newfoundland

"Overall, some 307 communities were abandoned between 1946 and 1975, and over 28,000 people relocated. Captured in film, poetry, visual art and music, the response to resettlement was an important political thread in the province's cultural renaissance in the 1970s. The programme had a profound impact on the lives of those affected, and continues to resonate in the culture and collective psyche of the province today."

- excerpt from “No Great Future” Government Sponsored Resettlement

in Newfoundland and Labrador since Confederation

I had an interesting day today, with a trip out to Arnold's Cove to meet with representatives of the town's heritage committee. I was there to help provide some advice on project focus and preliminary project planning around a few ideas they have for future heritage projects.

I'm always encouraging communities to focus on projects that are somehow unique to their communities. One of the interesting facts that came out of today's meeting is that the town has a large number of buildings that were moved into the community from now abandoned Placentia Bay towns during the resettlement period.  A lot of communities in the province have resettled buildings, but the heritage committee has tentatively identified 71 houses still standing in Arnold's Cove, with a few additional buildings yet to be added to the list.  They are clustered, perhaps unsurprisingly, with people from the same home towns, with people setting up their houses in Arnold's Cove close to their original neighbours. You can see a rough version of a preliminary map above.

We are talking about setting up a public workshop in Arnold's Cove around the topic of mapping cultural resources, using this as a case study, and possibly incorporating features from of one of our old Google map workshops. Stay tuned! If you'd like to be involved in some way, you can drop me a line at ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Resettlement Links:

• “No Great Future” Government Sponsored Resettlement in Newfoundland and Labrador since Confederation
• The Resettlement Program - “Resettlement Now While Resettlement Pays”