A beautiful hike in a complex setting

Our friends Kay and Wayne invited us to join them on a hike of the Bordeaux Trail in Arnold’s Cove. It’s a coastal trail, about 8 kms round-trip, with many beautiful vistas and interesting features. It’s named after the resettled community of Bordeaux – pronounced Burto – the remains of which can still be seen at the far end of the trail.

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Arnold’s Cove (pop. 1,000) is adjacent to Come By Chance, home of the only oil refinery in Newfoundland. It’s been operating since the 1970s, but its future has been in question since early 2020 when the owners started to shop around for someone to purchase it. Since then, operations have ceased, and the future of the refinery and its workers is uncertain, although there are rumours of a deal to keep it operating. Arnold’s Cove’s main enterprises are a fish plant and a transhipment terminal for offshore oil that connects the Come By Chance Refinery to the rest of the world. Here’s a picture from the Trail that shows how the refinery is very much part of the landscape in Arnold’s Cove.

Given its location on the isthmus that joins the Avalon Peninsula to the rest of the island, Arnold’s Cove is often much cooler than other nearby areas. When we finished our hike in the afternoon, the temperature in Arnold’s Cove was 16 degrees. When we got home less than an hour later, it was 33 degrees! I know where I’ll be going during a heatwave.

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Arnold’s Cove has a fascinating history that I wasn’t aware of until I got home from our hike and did a little googling. Many of the people from small nearby communities in Placentia Bay were resettled to Arnold’s Cove in the 1960s, as part of the province’s efforts to centralize far-flung populations and reduce government servicing costs. It wasn’t just the people who came; many of them brought their houses with them, floating them across the bay. And so Arnold’s Cove grew by 139 families, 620 people, and 103 houses, many of which are still in use today.

The local historical society has created a virtual tour app that features recorded reminiscences about the families that lived in the homes, and about the resettlement program. The society operates out of Drake House, a 130-year-old house that was floated up the bay in 1969.

The website provides the following information about the house’s last inhabitant, Frank Drake.

Frank was born October 9, 1912, the son of George and Lillias Drake of Western Cove, Haystack, Placentia Bay.

Frank was a fisherman like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. His favourite place to fish was near Bread and Cheese Islands and the northern tip of Long Island. In the winter, he fished for herring out of the Barachois on the western side of Long Island.

He was fifteen when his father died, and he had to take over the fishery and look after his mother and sister until his mother remarried, and his sister married and moved away.

By late 1950’s, everyone had moved out of Haystack through the Resettlement program, but Frank refused to take part in what he called the “Shiften’ Racket”. He lived on the island alone for 12 years and reluctantly decided to float his house to Arnold’s Cove in November 1969. After that, he spent most of the year back at his cabin in Haystack and fished during the summer months until he was 80 years old.

Frank always tried to preserve things the way they were – his house, stores, wharf, stage, and boats.  He didn’t want things to change.  He liked the simple way of life, without the modern conveniences we have today.

When he passed away in 2002, he was buried in his beloved Haystack.

So during the next heatwave, you’ll find me in Frank’s house, learning about a simple way of life that no longer exists, in a community that represented modernity to the resettled inhabitants of Placentia Bay, but whose own future is tied to the success of old and increasingly undesirable technologies. So much change in so little time – maybe Frank was right!