People of the Bays and Headlands: Anthropological History and the Fate of Communities in the Unknown Labrador

Olaf Uwe Janzen is an associate professor of history at Sir Wilfred
Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

This book sets out to explain the “anthropological history” of the
permanent inhabitants or “Settlers” of southeastern Labrador. In 12
chapters, Kennedy argues that historically, the “fundamental lesson of
survival” of permanent residence in Labrador has been a seasonally
mobile settlement pattern. Until this century, the fishery’s
labor-intensive demands encouraged families to congregate at summer
fishing stations, then disperse into smaller, family-based homesteads,
away from the coast, to exploit inland resources during winter. It is a
pattern that evolved as Europeans began to exploit coastal Labrador in
the 17th and 18th century; it reached its fullest expression in the 19th
century. Even in the 20th century, new economic opportunities such as
the herring fishery, whaling, and the commercial fur industry were
compatible with the traditional seasonal round. However, three other
economic and institutional developments—the Grenfell Mission, the
timber-cutting operations of the Labrador Development Company, and the
construction of the military base at Goose Bay and its smaller coastal
installations—promoted rural centralization that undermined the
seasonal movement and encouraged Settler dependence on the state.
Resettlement merely reinforced the process.

Kennedy clearly sympathizes with the Settlers. He is irritated by the
way in which growing dependence on Ottawa gives the perception that
Labrador—and for that matter Newfoundland—is an economic drain.
According to Kennedy, the blame rests with the way the state (both
before and after 1949) encouraged economic development that undermined a
way of life well suited to the harsh challenges of the Labrador
environment.

The book is not without flaws. Irritating factual slips (e.g.,
identifying Louis XIV as the French King in 1737, or identifying Hugh
Palliser as Newfoundland’s first governor) abound, and Kennedy relies
too heavily on Gosling’s 1910 history of Labrador while ignoring
important works by McFarland, Lounsbury, or Rothney. The Dictionary of
Canadian Biography, with its many entries on French and British
merchants who were active on the Labrador coast between the 17th and
20th centuries, is never cited. Collectively, these flaws undermine
confidence in Kennedy’s treatment of the history of southeastern
Labrador. However, they do not undermine the strength of his analysis of
the cultural anthropology of Settler society.