Turbulent Tides: A Social History of Sandy Point

Melvin Baker is an archivist and historian at Memorial University of
Newfoundland, and the co-editor of Dictionary of Newfoundland and
Labrador Biography.

This book draws upon a rich array of written and oral sources in
documenting the origins, growth, and decline of the community of Sandy
Point on Newfoundland’s west coast. Since the mid-18th century, Sandy
Point was a fishing and trading settlement visited and populated by
English, French, Jersey, and Acadian fishermen. Their descendants have
intermingled with the Micmac Indians who lived there at least from the
first arrival of Europeans two centuries earlier. In its heyday, Sandy
Point had 696 residents; its population had declined to 14 by 1966,
after which it was resettled.

The book also compares Sandy Point’s economic and social development
with that of other Newfoundland communities. The reader is left wishing
to know more about the history of west coast settlement and its
relationship to Quebec and the Maritime provinces before
Newfoundland’s Confederation with Canada in 1949. Only some of this
information is provided in Turbulent Tides; a broader study is needed.