Strait of Belle Isle, Newfoundland and Labrador

21-27 June 2005

Organized by the Canadian-American Center, University of Maine

The Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine will be hosting an EHGA meeting in the Strait of Belle Isle area of Newfoundland and Labrador in June 2005. The conference will begin and end in St. Anthony, Newfoundland. The first two days of the conference will consist of field trips. On the first day, we will visit the Grenfell Mission museum and house in St. Anthony, the Norse settlement at L'Anse-aux-Meadows (UN World Heritage Site), and Old Ferrolle (Plum Point). The second day will consist of crossing the Strait of Belle Isle to Labrador and visiting the old French fishing settlement at Blanc Sablon, the Basque whaling settlement at Red Bay, and taking a boat from Mary's Harbour to the offshore island of Battle Harbour. The paper sessions will be held over two days at Battle Harbour, the best-preserved fishing station in Newfoundland and Labrador. The return trip will take a full day via Blanc Sablon to St. Anthony.The conference theme will be the Historical Geography of the Atlantic World, with a particular focus on Canada and the Atlantic World. Several sessions on these themes are planned. Papers on other topics will also be considered. Papers will be given in the atmospheric second floor room of the Battle Harbour merchant store.

Given the limited accommodation at Battle Harbour, the number of participants will be restricted to 40 and the number of paper presentations to approximately 15.

Details of registration, accommodation, and travel will be posted in the coming months at the Canadian-American Center's website http://www.umaine.edu/canam/

The Strait of Belle Isle region is of extraordinary historical interest. It includes the only authenticated Norse site in North America; sixteenth-century fishing and whaling settlements at Blanc Sablon, Forteau, and Red Bay; the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century fishing station at Battle Harbour; and the early twentieth-century Grenfell Mission. All these sites are set in a forbidding glaciated landscape, Jacques Cartier's "land that God gave to Cain." Icebergs and whales are present in the Strait in late June. The daylight is long and the bugs have yet to come out. All in all, an EHGA meeting along the shores of the Strait of Belle Isle promises to be a memorable experience.