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SHIPS AND BOATS KEEP THE ECONOMIC HEART BEATING
Ferry Jos. & Clara Smallwood arrives at Argentia (Photo by Daphne With)
As it has been for centuries, water transportation is still indispensable in Newfoundland and Labrador. Even today, a number of outports, or coastal communities, are still totally dependent on ships and boats to reach the outside world.
Some of the larger outports have ship- and boatyards, fish processing plants, pulp and paper mills, an oil refinery and oil trans-shipment facility. Others continue as they have for generations...as home ports for inshore and offshore fishing vessels. In these, old skills like traditional wooden boatbuilding can still be found in use alongside such modern inventions as fiberglass and metal boats and high-tech navigation aids.
Over time, and particularly the last century, the fishery has created a
variety of large and small boats suited to its needs. Some -- the rodney or
punt, the jack boat, the hirat, the western boat and trap skiff, to name a few
-- have been almost unique to this province. Others like the fine Grand Banks
schooners and the dories they carried, were adopted from the mainland coast and
put to good use in the fishery here. In some outports right now, small boatyards
are still building longliners from lumber harvested on the island and sheathing
them in fiberglass, while each winter a few small wooden skiffs are made from
moulds passed along from one home-boatbuilder to another. Elsewhere, commercial
yards are building in aluminum, fiberglass and steel.
The province is totally isolated from the rest of the world by either water or vast uninhabited regions. In central and western Labrador a wilderness highway and railroad connect with Quebec. Otherwise, marine and air transportation are the only access to the island of Newfoundland and most of coastal Labrador.
A few decades ago, what were known as "coastal boats" regularly supplied towns and outports around the perimeter of the island and north down the Labrador coast. Medical and religious needs of more remote communities were often met by special boats. Between times, local fishing craft did double duty as people and cargo carriers. On the water today, ferries provide that access to the outside world, linking the highway system in both parts of the province, and continuing the tradition of coastal boats where roads are still non-existent.
Other commercial shipping around the province's shore carries specialized cargoes, such as crude oil from offshore and containerized freight to and from the mainland. Keeping an eye on all this activity, including the fishery, is the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and its sister service the Canadian Coast Guard which operates a fleet of vessels out of St. John's.
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