by Andrea O’Brien
When most people think of heritage buildings they call to mind stately, elaborate homes in historic city districts, impressive stone churches or quaint country estates. There also exists the notion that buildings must be old to be considered heritage places, with an ideal vintage falling somewhere around the one hundred year mark. These ideas of what constitutes a heritage place sometimes discount sites that have made an impact on the history and development of more modern towns and cities.
On the island of Newfoundland, where the cultural, social and economic focus was historically
on the sea, heritage structures associated with a way of life detached from fishing have in the past been viewed as modern interlopers on a much older, purer tradition. Yet a large part of the province’s history and its economic evolution revolves around the establishment of several industrial operations in the early 1900s, relatively recent developments in comparison to centuries of settlement along the island’s east coast. These industries, particularly pulp and paper operations, opened up the previously undeveloped interior of the island and were the impetus for building a railway link between the east and west coasts. They also resulted in the construction of new towns established with an eye to the future - an ideal reflected in the built heritage of these places.
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