July 12, 2009Murray’s is a beautiful spot and our first experience with an abandoned outport. Outports are the name for small communities that sprung up close to the fishing grounds, anywhere from a few houses to over 500 people. The government has been encouraging movement to more centralized places so they don’t have to provide services to these isolated communities. Abandoned outports litter the coast, stark evidence of the old way of life. It begs the question, “Are the residents better off today than when they were living more independently?” “What’s necessary for happiness?” It’s easy to romanticize the outport life but lack of medical care and schooling were balanced against independence and proximity to fishing. When the fishery collapsed it spelled the end for most of the remaining outports.
It’s a strange feeling to look out our ports and see all these silent houses, some falling down and some obviously still used as weekend get-aways. No lights warm the windows. No children play on the swing set.
Russ went ashore last night to get us snow from a snowfield for our icebox and in the process lost one lens to his prescription sunglasses. It felt like a fruitless mission to find them. Eureka! It was laying on the edge of the snowfield. Our lucky day.
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