Globe article featuring Rushoon

A past blog post on Rushoon has been getting lots of hits in the past couple of years, and quite a few in the last several weeks, including a visit from the Globe and Mail. Many readers are aware that just a few days ago, the Globe did a story on Newfoundland & Labrador's workforce, economy, in/and out-migration. It featured Rushoon and people from the community, who migrate out west for work. For anyone interested here is the link to the Globe article.

The author of the article was correct when writing that the money is/was good in Alberta, and the example of Anne Marie's salary was an excellent example. It's amazing how much one can make, or could make, as the Alberta 12 cylinder, four-barreled economic engine is not firing on all cylinders these days. Still, there are many people continually working out there, and going back and forth. This is going to continue for a long time to come. NL's coffers will have large deposits in years ahead, but there is no miracle going to happen for most outports, which have been steadily dwindling in population certainly since the early 1990's.

For towns and communities on the outskirts of St. John's, there are tangible signs of prosperity. Many new and generously spacious homes are going up on the tip of the eastern Avalon. Maddox Cove, just 10-15 minutes from town, has a new subdivision underway. This is a small community that used to depend on the fishery for much of it's existence. It is somewhat unusual to see a batch of new homes being built in such a small, (and pretty) place.

Oil, nickel, and other ores are mega resource industries, but one should not wait for it to happen around them. You are indeed your own best resource. We probably know ourselves best and cannot rely on others to determine how best to use our own specific talents, skills and creativity. Seek ways to make the best use of your personal abilities.

Singer Bette Midler said to "cherish forever what makes you unique". That's so true and it needs to be emphasized more than ever in a place where there has been great reliance on resource based industries.

Some words of advice on becoming successful, and independent are always a useful and handy motivator for anyone wondering what the future holds. Here are a few words of wisdom for people anywhere, any age, to consider:

Studies indicate that the one quality all successful people have is persistence. They’re willing to spend more time accomplishing a task and to persevere in the face of many difficult odds. There’s a very positive relationship between people’s ability to accomplish any task and the time they’re willing to spend on it.
Dr. Joyce

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can somehow become great
Mark Twain

Time is the coin of life. Only you can determine how it will be spent.
Carl Sandburg"

For better or worse, you must play your own instrument in the orchestra of life.
Dale Carnegie

A Piece of Rushoon

Click to enlarge

One segment of Rushoon
Read a quick history on the community here.

A Snapshot of Rushoon, Newfoundland

Update (more pictures here from 2008). Also, click here to see a panoramic shot of Rushoon. It is still not the entire community but it will give you an idea of how the community looks from a different hilltop. Be sure to click the picture to enlarge it.

The town of Rushoon. The picture shows much of the place but the older part near the harbour is hidden behind the right hill. The name may have come from the French word "ruisseau", meaning stream. The river runs parallel to the road winding through the community.

First settled around 1830 by a couple of fishermen from England, it gradually grew in size. By 1921 the population was 130, and swelled to 232 by 1945, a good reflection of healthy fish stocks, and source of reliable work. With the help of resettlement transplants in the 1960's from other Placentia Bay places, the population was over 500 in the 1970s. But in 1991, the population had declined to 482, 442 by 1996, and 359 by 2001. Last year, 2006, the number of "Rushoonites" was 319, an 11% drop from five years previous. (Here's a link to compare NL community population for 1991, 1996, and 2001 (NL Stats)).

For most of the 2o^th century Placentia Bay was a thriving multi-lane seaway as fishermen from Rushoon and every other community traveled to their fishing grounds. People risked their lives at sea, worked hard in fish stages, farming, cutting firewood, and lumber, basically surviving. Young people also made huge contributions to family chores. One 90 year old woman recalls as a "tween" going to the frozen well and chopping through ice to get water for the household. It was expected. To name a few, other regular chores included gathering firewood, helping with fish by cleaning, carrying, salting, and spreading for drying, and planting/harvesting vegetables. For many years in the early 1900s, the nearby community of Baine Harbour had the school. Students walked a round trip of approximately 5-6 miles daily for schooling and they were often expected to bring junks of firewood for the pot belly stove.

Like many fishing communities, there were tragedies at sea. Having just swept through the Maritimes, and leaving 86 dead, and communications lines down, The August Gale of 1927 gave no warning to people on Newfoundland's South coast. Of the 23 fishermen lost in Placentia Bay alone, three were from the tiny settlement of Rushoon.

(Rushoon harbour meeting Placentia Bay)

It was decades away from getting electricity. In fact, the first switch was pulled in 1967, and thus, the lantern was no longer a necessity, but more a museum piece. From the 1960s and 70s especially, more and more people left the island for work, usually to the mainland, and out West, working with the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1980, another major tragedy rocked Rushoon. Seven young workers who worked with the CPR near Swift Current, SK were being transported on a bus back from a days work, when a collision occurred between the bus and a tanker carrying hot tar. Four of the seven were killed, including two brothers. Sudden grief devastated not only Rushoon but other surrounding communities.

In years since, fewer people were going away to work with the CPR. More and more people sought trades, certified skills, and university, and is has been a continuing trend for many years now.

Despite the life threatening work on the water, uninsulated homes, high infant mortality, and many other daily hardships of life, the community survived and even grew. Unfortunately the population trend is downward nowadays. Leaving home is a necessity for work, income and experience. Depending on the individual it may be ideal, or not. Though compared to leaving home for work on the sea, the risk is minimal.

Looking back at how communities came to be, it makes one appreciate the hard work ethic, the unbreakable spirit, the determination of generations gone by, and brings to mind the saying, where there's a will, there's a way.