Discovering the alive and vibrant culture of Indigenous Newfoundland & Labrador, while following in the footsteps of the Beothuk People in Central Newfoundland.
Exploring Central Newfoundland Through the its Indigenous Culture
Growing up with a love and respect of nature and culture, whenever visiting a new place, our family would learn about the culture of that place and its people. This included at home in Ontario and British Columbia, where my mom would have us out in parks most weekends, learning about nature and the Indigenous people’s whose land we walked on and called home. As fortunate I have been to learn from and work with our First People in British Columbia and other parts of Canada, I realised in visiting Newfoundland & Labrador for the first time that I knew nothing about the Indigenous people of Newfoundland & Labrador, so was excited to sign up for an Indigenous Newfoundland & Labrador guided trip. In sharing my excitement about this with a friend who writes about Indigenous Tourism, I was told that this may be a depressing trip as the First People of Newfoundland & Labrador were driven to extinction. How wrong that writer was, the Indigenous Newfoundland & Labrador guided trip was a wonderful mixture of warmth, love, sombre history and vibrant culture that is alive and well, introduced to us by Indigenous Newfoundlanders & Labradorians who are alive and well, and have become valued friends.
Misconceptions on Indigenous Newfoundland & Labrador
While my writer friend may have been wrong about the First People of Newfoundland & Labrador being extinct, that writer is not alone in believing that fallacy. As I chatted with our Indigenous Newfoundlander & Labradorian guides – Barbara Young, Wayne Broomfield and Daphne March – on the bus ride to Hare Bay in Central Newfoundland, where our trip would begin, I learned that many people believe there are no First People’s in Newfoundland & Labrador. This misconception dates back to the purposeful omission of Indigenous Newfoundlanders & Labradorians by Premiere Joey Smallwood in negotiating the 1949 Terms of the Union in Newfoundland & Labrador joining Canada, declaring that “there are no Indians”. The intent behind this omission being to make the deal more appealing in that Canada would not need to pay into programs and services or land claims for Indigenous people in Newfoundland & Labrador. An omission that has been further perpetuated in the classroom and in popular culture.
Alive & Vibrant Indigenous Newfoundland & Labrador
Are there Indigenous people in Newfoundland & Labrador? Yes, very much so. In fact, today there are three distinct Indigenous groups still living in Newfoundland & Labrador – the Inuit (descendants of the Thule Inuit, who have made Labrador their home for centuries), Innu (descendants of Algonkian-speaking hunter-gatherers for whom Labrador is home), and the Mi’kmaq (descendants of Algonkian-speaking hunter-gatherers who have lived and travelled throughout Newfoundland for generations); along with the Beothuk, who were driven to cultural extinction in 1829. It is the Beothuk whom my writer friend spoke of in mistaking Newfoundland & Labrador’s Indigenous people to be extinct, and it is the Beothuk whose footsteps we would be following in as we discovered Indigenous Newfoundland & Labrador, or at least a glimpse of it in Central Newfoundland.
Please join me in our discovery of Ktaqamkuk / Taqamkuk (the island of Newfoundland in Mi’kmaq – Taqamkuk, when not on the island – Ktaqamkuk, when on the island).
Following in the Footsteps of Beothuk People in Central Newfoundland
Uncovering Indigenous Newfoundland & Labrador History at The Beaches
Our journey began at Hare Bay, where we dined on a scrumptious homemade lunch at Hare Bay Adventures‘ gift shop and café, as archaeologist and historian Duane Collins shared the indigenous history of the area with us from The Beaches, one of Newfoundland & Labrador’s most significant archaeological sites. The significance of The Beaches is as a multicomponent habitation site showing evidence of human settlements over a period of 9000 years. Archaeological evidence of habitation of The Beaches began with the Maritime Archaic (for around 2000 years from before 3000 BC) to the Dorset Culture of Pre-Inuit (from around 500 BCE – 1500 CE) and ended with the Beothuk (from 1500 CE to likely sometime in the 1700s CE). While the Beothuk culture is believed to have become extinct in 1829, Beothuk communities abandoned their coastal settlements in places like The Beaches before then due to violent encounters with Europeans, moving inland where they could more easily avoid them. This displacement from the Beothuk’s coastal settlements is suspected to have contributed to their population decline (along with the violence and disease that the Europeans brought) due to loss of access to important food sources and competition with European trappers for food sources inland.
Back in Hare Bay Adventures’ gift shop and café, Wayne Broomfield (our Inuit guide)’s eyes lit up in recognition and excitement at one of the artefacts that Duane Collins has from The Beaches in a display cabinet, with special permission for educational purposes. As he demonstrates for us, this stone tool is designed for scraping the fat from a seal skin.
A short boat trip later, having crossed the Dover Fault into Bonavista Bay, we are clambering out of the boat and onto a spit of land at The Beaches. Its not long after Duane leads us off the beach and on to a meadow of coarse and hardy coastal vegetation, pointibg out the depressed areas which denote where Beothuk mamateek (pit houses) once stood, that my eyes alight at seeing the evidence of ancient middens (the garbage piles of the people that once lived there). Duane chuckles, commenting on how there is nothing that gets an archaeologist more excited than an ancient garbage pile or privy.
As we walk along the shore, Duane points out other indicators of the Indigenous people who once lived here, from stone artefacts and fire cracked rocks littering the shore to the dark charcoal layer of the soil, indicating a period of habitation which I am assuming was from the most recent indigenous peoples to have lived here, the Beothuk.
Aside from The Beaches being situated in a sheltered harbour with easy access to harvest from the sea, while still having land access for hunting, an important draw to this site for seasonal settlement by these hunting and gathering people, would be it’s close proximity to a rhyolite supply for making tools and weapons for hunting. The rhyolite quarry, known as Bloody Bay Cove Quarry is thought to have got its name from the violent confrontations between Europeans and Beothuk in the 18th century. Duane tells us that it is believed that some of the European’s brutality towards the Beothuk was in response to Beothuk ‘stealing the European fishermen’s supplies’. Aside from the European response to this being brutally violent, this ‘stealing’ was in all likelihood a misunderstanding, as it was often supplies that were left on Ktaqamkuk shores when the European boats departed for the winter. The Beothuk then making the logical assumption that these items left behind were unwanted items, abandoned on the shores. It was also believed that ownership was not a believe held in Beothuk culture; rather their believes revolved around a community of sharing.
Today a new threat presents itself in preserving and learning about the people that called The Beaches home for thousands of years, and that is climate change causing rising sea levels and the erosion of the banks and of this valuable archaeology site. Duane already points out artefacts in the shallows and trees being uprooted and making it increasingly difficult to map out what period of time different tools came from. For a time, archaeological projects and the Burnside Heritage Foundation had helped preserve The Beaches with a breakwater and interpretation with a recreated mamateek, but with winter storms breaking apart such structures, money is needed to help preserve this important historic site, before it is washed away.
Meeting the Beothuk at the Beothuk Interpretation Centre Provincial Historic Site
The next morning had us at another abandoned Beothuk village site at Boyd’s Cove, where today stands the Beothuk Interpretation Centre Provincial Heritage Site. Here we walked a peaceful and serene trail to the Beothuk village site, active between 1650 – 1720 CE. It is thought the Beothuk would have abandoned this village site in 1720 to avoid European contact, as at that time Twillingate was being built up as a European settlement.
As we crossed a stream and walked into a peaceful grove of mixed birch and conifer trees, with the sunlight beautifully filtering through the trees, we were met by the spirit of Shanawdithit. There among the birch, alongside the melodic trickle of the stream, stood a statue, artistically crafted in memory of Shanawdithit.
The Last Known Beothuk
Shanawdithit is thought by some to be the last remaining Beothuk. The reality is that in all likelihood, ancestors of the Beothuk still walk on Turtle Island. I, in fact, met a young woman of Beothuk ancestry in my travels abroad in the Autumn. With the few remaining Beothuk in the early 1800s, however, their quest became about survival by going into hiding and possibly joining other Indigenous communities, like the Innu and Mi’kmaq, as some accounts suggest. Beothuk culture did become extinct though with Shanawdithi’s death in 1829, although there have been some glimmers of hope and remembrance over the years, like with the recording of Santu’s Song in 1910. Santu Toney was a woman who self-identified as Beothuk, with a Beothuk father and Mi’kmaq mother. With American anthropologist Frank Speck, Santu recorded the last known account of the Beothuk language, singing for him a Beothuk Nursery song that she remembers her father singing for her.
Shanawdithit’s Story
As for Shanawdithit, her story is one of survival in the face of tragedy and turmoil. She was born in 1801, spending her lifetime fighting for survival with Beothuk populations dwindling, their traditional way of life becoming increasingly difficult in the face of encroachment from European settlements and other Indigenous peoples, as well as infectious diseases from Europe which they had little or no immunity against. The Beothuk were slowly being cut off from the sea and their food sources. Encounters with Europeans were often filled with violence and brutality. She herself was shot as a child by a European trapper while washing venison in a river. In 1819, she witnessed her aunt Demasduit’s capture by armed Europeans led by John Peyton Jr, intent on recovering their possessions and taking a Beothuk to train to be a translator between their people. Trying to explain she was a nursing mother with a newborn baby, Demasduit’s husband and the leader of their people, Nonosabasut, and his brother, were killed while attempting to negotiate for Demasduit’s release. Her infant son, left behind, died two days after Demasduit was taken. Demasduit never made it back to her people alive. In 1820, after dying of tuberculosis on her return voyage home, her body was left in a coffin along the lakeshore of Beothuk Lake for her people to find and lay to rest next to her husband and child.
In April 1823, starving, Shanawdithit, her mother, Doodebewshet, and sister made their way to the coast Badger Bay in search of mussels. There they encountered European fur trappers. With her sister and her mother sick with tuberculosis, they were too weak to fight or run and went with the trappers to Exploits Island, where soon after Shanawdithit’s mother and sister died of tuberculosis. At this time, Shanawdithit estimated that no more than 15 people were left of her tribe. Shanawdithit spent the next 5 years working as a servant in the household of magistrate and merchant John Peyton Jr on Exploits Island. In 1828, the newly formed Boeothick Institution (now the Beothuk Institute) moved Shanawdithit to St. John’s, where she lived for a year with the philanthropist and scientist William Epps Cormack, helping him to better understand Beothuk culture and history. Cormack, the President of the Boeothick Institution, established the Instituition to consolidate community support for projects aimed at opening communications with Newfoundland’s Beothuk and saving them from extinction. Alas this was a little too late. Much of our knowledge of Beothuk culture and history, however, comes from Shanawdithit in this year, which ended up being the last year of her life. She translated English words into her own language, drew pictures of Beothuk tools, food, mythological figures, homes, and other artefacts, and illustrated various encounters between her people and European settlers.
At age 29, on June 6th of 1829, Shanawdithit died in St John’s of tuberculosis, an infectious disease brought to Newfoundland by the Europeans, that had taken so many of her people before her.
Back in that peaceful birch and conifer grove in Boyd’s Cove, I stared in the eyes of the statue create in remembrance to Shanawdithit by artist Gerry Squires, with love and sorrow, apologising to her for the tragedies she and her people faced in her all too short life and thanking her for all she shared on Beothuk culture and history, so that her people are remembered and not forgotten.
In walking back, I lagged behind our group to take a moment of silence in that peaceful woods, in crossing the stream, to share a prayer with the spirits of the Beothuk. Later joining Daphne March for a smudging in the Spirit Garden, as I left a message of my own and tied it with a ribbon to a tree.
Final Days of Captured Beothuk Women on Exploits Islands
That afternoon as we landed on Exploits Island and took a walk with
Paul Langdon of Adventures Newfoundland to the grave of John Peyton Jr., I was glad to see that at least Shanawdithit, Doodebewshet and Shanawdithi’s sister were able to return to their home of the sea at the end of their lives and to die (in the case of Doodebewshet and Shanawdithi’s sister) in a peaceful place, filled with beauty.
Miawpukek First Nation – Keeping the Memory & Teachings of the Beothuk Alive
While the Beothuk are culturally extinct, a visit the next day to the Miawpukek First Nation, at the mouth of Miawpukek (Conne River) on the Lapite’spe’l (Bay d’Espoir), to join the passengers of an Adventure Canada Cruise for a mini Powwow was a beautiful reminder that not only is Indigenous culture alive and well on Ktaqamkuk (Newfoundland) & Labrador, but that they have creative forward thinking communities that are building towards sustainable futures and fighting to keep their culture alive, recognised and to undo historic misconceptions.
In the case of the Miawpukek First Nation, as Mi’kmaw people they have been working to demonstrate that they existed in Newfoundland and Labrador before European contact by building a 26-foot birch bark canoe named Spirit Wind that they crewed and crossed the Cabot Strait from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia in July of 1999.
They have fought the Canadian Government to be recognised as a First Nation in Canada and get access to money for their reserve, and the Provincial Government to self govern that money without the Province taking over $60,000 in administrative fees from it. After being met with a year of red tape from the Provincial Government, in 1983 they went to St John’s to demonstrate and get an audience with MPs. This led to a group of nine men risking their lives in a hunger strike in a desperate plea to the government to release funds owed to them. Those monies that they were successful in obtaining have been used to turn the Miawpukek First Nation reserve into a thriving community with homes with modern day expectations, education for the community in jobs to help them be sustainable and move forward, industry building nearly 100% employment on the reserve, Miawpukek cultural education in their schools and through their community centre, and a community garden with the believe that “we will secure our future by investing in our past.” In honour of those warriors, in 2024 a documentary entitled The Forgotten Warriors was released on the CBC.
While others may have forgotten those warriors and how Conne River was turned into a thriving, sustainable community, the Miawpukek First Nation have not. They beam with pride at their warriors, hang their posters and share their stories through the community centre, and introduce them with well earned respect and a great deal of warmth.
We were fortunate to meet one of these warriors and the apprentice of one of the warriors, who continue to not only work creatively to preserve their Miawpukek culture, but that of the Beothuk too. The warrior we met was Saqamaw Mi’sel Joe, along with Derek Stride, apprentice to warrior and Mi’kmaq master builder Billy Joe.
Aside from all of the amazing work that Saqamaw Mi’sel Joe has done throughout his life to create a thriving, prosperous and sustainable community for the Miawpukek First Nation at Conne River, Mi’sel Joe has also worked with Sheila O’Neill of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation to reclaim the story of Sylvester Joe, the Mi’kmaq guide engaged by William Epps Cormack to take him across Newfoundland in the early 1800s in search of the last remaining Beothuk people. Mi’sell Joe and Sheila O’Neill have created two books to date, a historically based fictional account of Sylvester Joe’s journey with Cormack based off of Cormack’s diaries, entitled ‘My Indian‘, and a sequel to that story entitled, ‘Suliewey‘, based on the idea of Sylvester Joe’s own quest to find the last remaining Beothuk people on his own, after parting ways with Cormack. Both are interesting stories that helps one to better envision Indigenous Newfoundland in the 1800s.
Meanwhile Billy Joe, the boat builder behind Spirit Wind, has now built with Derek Stride a replica of a Beothuk canoe, in the traditional way, with the goal of keeping these skills alive in their community and passed down through the generations.
While the Forgotten Warriors of 1983 may now be among the Elders of the Miawpukek First Nation, from their footsteps emerge young Miawpukek warriors intent on sharing their culture with pride to lead the way for future generations. Among them, we were fortunate to spend time with and learn from Cassie Lambert, both a warrior in the Canadian Armed Forces and as a Jingle Dancer, and to meet Director Noel Joe, who is determined to share more of his people’s stories. Stories that I will look forward to from them and from other member of the Miawpukek First Nation who join them.
I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of the Beothuk, to be honoured in sharing in Indigenous Newfoundlander & Labradorian stories, to have the friendship and guidance of our Indigenous Mi’kmaq and Inuit guides, and to have spoken with Miawpukek First Nation warriors and learned from them. While what I have learned and experienced may seem like a lot in writing and reading here, I realise it is just the tip of the iceberg. I have so much more to learn about and experience of Indigenous Newfoundland & Labrador.
References
I have strived in writing this to be as accurate, respectful and factual as possible, but with history, especially oral history, accounts can differ, depending on who you speak to and who has past the stories down to them. Below you will find some of the sources I used, along with our guides, but if you feel I have shared something inaccurately here, please let me know in the comments below.
Barry, G. (2018, September 20). How Conne River’s Miawpukek First Nation brought back Birchbark Canoe Building. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/conne-river-birch-bark-canoe-1.4828408
Beothuk Institute. (n.d.). https://beothukinstitute.ca/
Cuff, R. (2011, January 10). The cultural landscape of The Beaches and Bloody Bay Cove, Bonavista Bay. . Heritage NL. https://heritagenl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/9-The-Beaches-and-Bloody-Bay-Cove-Quarry.pdf
Hanrahan, M. (2003). The Lasting Breach: The Omission of Aboriginal People From the Terms of Union Between Newfoundland and Canada and Its Ongoing Impacts. Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada.
Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador. (1998). Beothuk Housing. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/indigenous/beothuk-housing.php
Heritage Newfoundland & Labrador. (1998). The Recent Indians of the Island of Newfoundland. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/indigenous/recent-indians.php
Heritage Newfoundland & Labrador. (2002). Eastport Peninsula: The Indigenous Period. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/society/indigenous-period.php
Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador. (2008). Disappearance of the Beothuk. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/indigenous/beothuk-disappearance.php
Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador. (2009). Indigenous Peoples and Confederation. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/indigenous-confederation.php
Hewson, J., & Diamond, B. (2007). Santu’s Song. Newfoundland & Labrador Studies, 22(1). Retrieved from https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/NFLDS/article/view/10104
Joe, M., & O’Neill, S. (2021). My Indian. Breakwater Books.
Joe, M., & O’Neill, S. (2023). Suliewey. Breakwater Books.
Joe, N. (2024). The Forgotten Warriors. [Film]. Canada. Retrieved from https://gem.cbc.ca/absolutely-canadian/s24e18.
Newfoundland and Labrador Indigenous Tourism Association . (n.d.). A guide to indigenous culture in Newfoundland & Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/trip-ideas/travel-stories/guide-indigenous-culture-newfoundland-labrador
Ricketts, B. (2014, October 30). Beothuk People – What happened to them?. Mysteries of Canada. https://mysteriesofcanada.com/newfoundland/beothuk/
Wikimedia Foundation. Beothuk. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk
Wikimedia Foundation. Demasduit. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demasduit
Wikimedia Foundation. Shanawdithit. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanawdithit
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