NEWFOUNDLAND’S 10 LONELIEST PEOPLE
Cyril Oxford has thought about burning down his house, he tells me, only half-jokingly, since the actual joke around Little Bay Islands, NL, is that, even if old Cyril really did want to burn down his place — and he doesn’t — it would involve a half-hour ferry ride followed by a 90-minute drive for him to find a store where he could actually buy matches.
Then, Oxford would have to come all the way back, and to what, he asks? He is an old cod-fishing boat captain, a Little Bay Islander, born and raised. Alas now, in his telling of things, he and about 90 other geezers are all but marooned on a once-idyllic — and prosperous — island that simply refuses to die.
“My dear,” Oxford says. “There is nothing left here. And I would have left yesterday, if I had the chance.”
That chance, on his preferred terms, may still come. Then again, maybe it won’t. The 72-year-old can’t predict the future and nobody, not the province, nor the 95 permanent residents of Little Bay Islands, off Newfoundland’s northern coast, has a clear idea of what their fate will be since none of the politicians in St. John’s are prepared to tell them.
Here’s what they do know: three years ago, the community took a straw poll asking residents if they wanted to relocate (i.e., receive a $270,000-per-capita payout from the province to abandon their community). The majority responded: yes.
Three years later, after creaking through a bureaucratic process where permanent residents were distinguished from summer cottagers, and where the yes and no camps traded barbs — a tension highlighted by one poor holdout from the no side telling a reporter he felt like the “Taliban of Little Bay Islands,” such was the animosity being directed at him — the community conducted a formal vote.
Secret ballots were cast and mailed to the province’s Department of Municipal Affairs. The votes were tallied Nov. 9; 85 in favour, 10 against. It was a clear victory for the yes side, albeit one with a downside. Relocation funding requires a 90-per-cent majority. Little Bay’s number is … 89.47 per cent.
“Our policy states 90 per cent,” says Kevin Guest, a spokesman for the province. “We are in (provincial) election mode, so no decision can be made until the election is over.”
Election day is Nov. 30. Guest can’t say whether the province is inclined to round up, or down, in close votes, and offered no timeline as to when the matter might be resolved beyond stating, “It will be looked at.”
Meanwhile, on Little Bay Islands, residents have returned to their same old routine of waiting for answers while avoiding unpleasant conversations with neighbours.
Zelda Locke is Cyril Oxford’s first cousin. Zelda’s oldest son is Perry, a former mayor of Little Bay Islands and manager of the local power plant. (He is the only employee). The younger Locke has advocated fiercely for staying put although, of late, he has fallen silent, and didn’t return multiple phone messages last week. (Jerry Weir, the town clerk, said the town spokesman was away, and declined to comment).
Locke’s mother, Zelda, won’t say which way she voted. But she defends her son.
“They have been picking on Perry, oh boy,” she says. “But I know how he feels. He has a good job here, and so, if he moved, what would he do?”
Zelda is a widow. She loves her house and her church and her friends, but understands she may have to move on, some day, and isn’t looking forward to that day, no matter how much money — or lack thereof — the province offers in compensation.
“The only thing I know anything about is this island,” she says. “I’d miss it here, terribly, if I left.” So why not stay? Newfoundland’s postcard-worthy island communities are often, like Little Bay Islands, dying or already dead. It is a narrative common to rural towns across Canada. Oxford remembers when the islands had 500 residents, 11 stores, a fishing fleet, a crab-processing plant — and opportunity. Now there are no stores. No plant, and no young people, save for a single student at the local high school.
“Every island is precious, but for people that live there, they need to have a way of life,” says Rob Greenwood, adding the death of island life isn’t a foregone conclusion.
Greenwood is the executive director of The Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development at Memorial University. He recently spent a week on Fogo Island, a shining example of what is possible when a community reinvents itself.
Fogo was targeted for relocation in the 1950s, but fought it off. Locals formed a co-operative instead, and built fishing boats, and today run a community-owned fish processing plant. In recent years fishermen have adopted “cod pots.”
Gill nets crush fish, damaging the meat. Cod pots keep it firm, fresh, and delightfully flaky — by giving the cod space to swim around before being pulled from the water and bled out. Diners at the Fogo Island Inn pay $42 a p late for cod-pot-caught cod.
But Little Bay Islands doesn’t have a wealthy benefactor, or a plant, or cod pots, or enough people who are young, and willing, and prepared to fight the fight.
Oxford has his bags packed already. His wife died a decade ago. His siblings — he has eight — and nieces and nephews, have moved away.
He sold his boat and now keeps his eyes on the horizon, knowing that whatever future he has is on the far side of it.
“Things just can’t go on like this around here,” he says. “When I go, my dear, it will be the last of the Oxfords on Little Bay Islands.”