Newfoundland and Labrador: A History (review)

Sean T. Cadigan's Newfoundland and Labrador: A History is an excellent survey and provocative interpretation of the province's history. Drawing on extensive scholarship, much of it completed over the last generation, Cadigan argues that a cold-ocean environment and rich maritime resources have played a key role in the province's history. The men and women of Newfoundland and Labrador "made" their own history but the nature of the resources restricted their options and provided limited margin for error. Following Cadigan's argument, maritime resources deeply affected the history of the first peoples, the early European adventurers and settlers, and early British policy towards Newfoundland and Labrador. However, by the early 19th century a clear view had emerged within the developing colonial society as to how best to make use of the colony's resources to support its people. Influenced by a nascent nationalism, many of Newfoundland's political leaders came to favour the development of landward resources as a way to reduce dependence on the resources of the sea. As the colony's leaders had greater control over landward resources, they believed that their development would lead to "national" prosperity and independence. Influenced by similar policies throughout the western world, the focus on landward development and "modernization" and the neglect of the fisheries continued through the 20th century including during the period of the Commission of Government in the 1930s and 1940s and the postwar governments of Joey Smallwood.

Since the 1970s, a new generation of "neo-nationalist" provincial politicians have followed similar development policies which exploited now degraded fish, mineral, and forest resources and new ones such as offshore oil. In Cadigan's view, Newfoundland and Labrador's nationalist development policies, based on a mythic Newfoundland national identity invented by political elites, which long neglected the resources of the sea, have had a ruinous impact on the province and its peoples. In Newfoundland and Labrador, nationalism is often closely connected with a deep pride in the province's unique cultures and identities. Cadigan does not deny that these cultures and identities exist; he simply states that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are too divided along class, gender, and ethnic lines to constitute a nation. This persuasive argument will make for lively discussion in Newfoundland and Labrador history courses at Memorial University and at watering holes in downtown St. John's.

In a broad way, Cadigan gives attention to the active role that diverse peoples have played in their own and in the province's history. In particular, Cadigan gives extensive coverage to the often neglected and romanticized history of the province's First Nations. In support of his argument regarding the paramount importance of maritime resources, Cadigan details the ways that Newfoundland and Labrador's first peoples made the products of the sea the central focus of their lives. By the 18th century, the Beothuk were clearly affected by the loss of access to maritime resources as European settlement expanded. However, rather than fleeing, as is commonly thought, they made a choice to retreat into the interior and focus their lives around the caribou hunt. Cadigan also shows that the Innu of Labrador, while affected by a long history of oppression and racism, were far from helpless and demoralized. They fought hard to protect their interests and traditional territories when threatened by low-level flying and the development of the Voisey's Bay nickel deposits.

The lives and experiences of the ordinary people who made the province are also well covered in Cadigan's survey. Whether it is a Basque whale hunter writing his will, a fishing crew drinking cider to lighten their burden, wives of fishers defending their property, or loggers seeking solace at Methodist services, we see the active role that people took in their lives as well as the dangerous and onerous work that made Newfoundland and Labrador. Cadigan acknowledges the danger and hardship of work in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador in his reference to Cassie Brown's vivid Death on the Ice, an account of the...