‘People remember the good times’
Former residents of resettled communities thank resettlement for their education; say execution of resettlement was not perfect
Carl Pitcher knows about resettlement.
Now retired in Whitbourne, after a 40-year career in IT, Pitcher says resettlement opened a world of opportunity for him.
Originally from Merasheen Island in Placentia Bay, he says his educational and career prospects would have been worlds apart if his community hadn't been resettled.
“Merasheen was considered a prosperous community by comparable standards back in the in the ’60s. We left in July of '67. We had a fish plant there with freezers and drying facilities for saltfish. We had electricity to all the houses since the fall of '65,” says Pitcher.
NORMAL CHILDHOOD
Pitcher says his family's life and education in Merasheen weren’t very different from that of others on Merasheen Island.
“Our family, there were eight children, and that was pretty much the rule. We had reasonable schools there. In the lower grades, you'd probably have three or four grades in the same classroom,” he says.
When he moved to Placentia, the schools were worlds apart, Pitcher recalls.
“The comparisons of schools, there was no comparison, it just wasn't the same at all. I probably wouldn't have gotten an education if we hadn't moved. I was looking at a life in the fishing boats or whatever,” he says.
'WHOLE NEW WORLD'
While school wasn’t entirely smooth, the better education in Placentia was welcomed.
“A lot of people from Merasheen, many of them moved to the Placentia area. I did have some friends who I'd grown up with," Pitcher said.
There was a period when the new kids were picked on because they were from the bay, he says.
“It wasn’t entirely welcoming. But you had to make your own path forward in those days," he adds.
"The good thing for me is I had three older brothers who could step in and help me out. We moved to Placentia and, jeez, there’s a bathtub and seemingly endless water coming out of there. It’s a whole new world.”
GETTING EDUCATION
Resettlement, despite its flaws, had a positive side, he says.
“Resettlement was the right thing for Merasheen," Pitcher says.
"I’m probably in the minority. I’ll go back to what my father used to say, people remember the good times. For me, there were so many opportunities by going to Placentia."
IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
He concedes there were some issues with how it was implemented, the key among which was the resettlement funding from the government.
“It never came anywhere near covering the cost. If you look at my family as an example, we had a house there that we owned. Father had sheds and a fishing wharf and stage and several boats,” says Pitcher.
“The cost of replacing those would have been many times what the government offered. It was something to get a start somewhere else. It was never intended to replace what you had there.”
EXPERT’S VIEW
Raymond Blake agrees with Pitcher. Blake is an expert on resettlement and Newfoundland history. A university professor and historian, he wrote a book about Confederation and is from the resettled community of Push Through on the south coast of the island.
He says there were good times, but it’s easy to forget the troubles.
“Life was difficult for most people coming out of the Second World War in 1945. A number of people from the coastal outport communities would have gone and worked either in Gander or in Torbay or Stephenville,” Blake says.
“If you stayed in those communities, your life hasn't changed much since the days of John Cabot. You didn’t have running water. You didn’t have flush toilets. You didn’t have a connection except by coastal boat, and the railway in Newfoundland ran through the centre of the island.”
LOW STANDARDS OF LIVING
Blake has a rather unique pastime. Every time he visits a different community in Newfoundland, he visits a graveyard.
“I’m always astounded by the number of young women and children. Women who died at 32 or 38. If you got a fishhook in your hand that got infected, and there was a storm raging, you were probably going to be in big trouble,” he says.
That was the kind of life Joey Smallwood promised to change after Confederation, says Blake.
With that came resettlement. For Blake, that meant moving to Hermitage at age seven.
“There's a lot of, I think, misconceptions. People say we were drove out of our communities. Every community had a meeting. Everybody had to sign a petition that they wanted to move,” he says.
“My mother thought resettlement was a good thing. My three brothers, after we left Push Through, all graduated from high school. My two older brothers, who went to school in Push Through, did not. My mother says if they had lived in Hermitage, they, too, would have gotten to high school.”
WOULDN’T EXIST TODAY
Blake says Push Through –– and most other communities like it –– wouldn’t exist today, even if resettlement hadn't happened.
Despite the benefits of moving, Blake says, there were some issues with how resettlement was handled.
Pitcher agrees that if resettlement didn’t take away the town, it would’ve eventually died out over the years.
“I had many conversations with my father in later years and he basically said that when the monofilament nets came in, in the mid-’60s, that was the end of it. And then the trawlers, where you're basically scraping up all the fish on the bottom in the big dragger nets,” says Pitcher.
“It's only a matter of time before people won't be able to make a living at this, and he was right.”
MESSAGE FOR SMALLWOOD
Pitcher has a message for Joey Smallwood.
“I think looking back, it probably was the right thing, but very poorly implemented," he says.
"I think I could offer him some constructive criticism on the process. Here’s things you guys should’ve looked at in terms of implementing this process, but it was almost like this mad rush to shut down.” Blake has a similar message. “I think sometimes Joey got a little ahead of himself. He never followed things through. Let’s do this and then move on,” says Blake.
“One of the things that he would need to be reminded of is we're dealing with people who are leaving a real sense of place and you're uprooting them and you're putting them down in strange communities –– quite often in communities where people don't want newcomers. I don’t think Joey understood those things.”
IMPACT ON SENIORS
Pitcher says the people who paid the price for resettlement weren’t young people like himself, but those who were too old to move.
“They didn’t really understand the culture, and what they were doing to people. It was tough on the older crowd, for sure,” he says.
“You had people in their 70s and 80s who had never even been off the island in their lifetime. I remember one lady, she was around 90 years old, and it was her first time leaving Merasheen when they resettled.”