The resettlement of Pushthrough, Newfoundland, in 1969

• Published in: Newfoundland and Labrador studies Vol. 30; no. 2; pp. 220 - 245
• Main Author: Blake, Raymond B
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, Faculty of Arts Publications 22.09.2015; Memorial University of Newfoundland, Dept of English
• Subjects: Analysis; Culture; Economic development; Forced migration; Land settlement; Rural areas; Newfoundland and Labrador; Newfoundland & Labrador Canada
• ISSN: 1719-1726

One of the largest internal state-sponsored migrations of people within Canada occurred in Newfoundland and Labrador between 1954 and 1975.' Some 300 rural communities were vacated and 30,000 people relocated to larger communities, greatly reshaping settlement distributions and patterns in out-port regions, particularly along the south coast, in Placentia, Bonavista, and Notre Dame bays, and on the southeast coast of Labrador. Many who moved under the program welcomed their relocation from small, isolated outports as improving immensely their social and economic prospects even if their communities were dismembered in the process. There was little public opposition until the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the program had largely run its course. Resettlement then became a cause celebre of what journalist and writer Sandra Gwyn called the Newfoundland cultural renaissance, led primarily by a St. Johns artistic and intellectual class that considered resettlement a misguided policy imposed by callous state elites, insensitive social and economic planners, and ill-informed politicians that recklessly interfered in the lives of ordinary, hard-working people. It indicted Joseph R. Smallwood, the provinces Premier from 1949 to 1972, for his failure to appreciate the uniqueness of outport life in his relentless search for modernity and North American consumer culture.