History of Quirpon
(pop. 1986, 212). A fishing community on the extreme northeastern
tip
of the Great Northern Peninsula, about 35 km north of St.
Anthony qv.
Quirpon Harbour is the most northerly sheltered harbour on
the Island
and has been frequented by migratory fishermen since the
sixteenth
century. Quirpon Harbour is formed by Quirpon Island and is
entered
from the north, where the approach is somewhat sheltered
by Jacques
Cartier Island. Little Quirpon Harbour is entered from the
east, a better
approach in some respects, but is quite shallow,
while the tickle between
the two anchorages is not navigable by most craft. The
name of the
harbour comes from its resemblance to Le Kerpont, near
St. Malo,
from whence came some of the earliest fishermen. Quirpon
has been
spelled a variety of ways, including Carpon, Carpunt and
Karpoon, and
is pronounced locally to rhyme with harpoon.
Fishing premises at Quirpon in the 1960's
The explorer Jacques Cartier qv probably knew the harbour
by reports
from Breton fishermen before he anchored there in 1534
(and again in
1541). The rich fishery in the waters around Quirpon made
it one of the
centres of the French migratory fishery on the Petit Nord qv.
Though ice kept ships from arriving before early June,
during the summer large numbers of French boats fished the
grounds less than 5 km from shore. In 1763 James Cook
charted the area and described Little Quirpon Harbour as ``a
very snug place for mooring ships''. Though settlement was not
encouraged on the coast of the Petit Nord, increasing numbers
of English fishermen kept fixed establishments there in the
nineteenth century. Quirpon was also the site of one of the
earliest meetings of Inuit people
with a Moravian missionary. In 1764 the missionary Jens
Haven was
brough to Quirpon by an English ship, and in September met
with a
small group of Inuit who came into the harbour from
Labrador. He
followed them across the Strait to begin his missionary
work. It is not
certain whether Inuit peoples had come to Quirpon solely to
trade with
European fishermen or whether they had been visiting the
area
since theprehistoric period.
The French continued to fish in the area in significant
numbers into the
nineteenth century. (An 1818 convention gave American
fishermen
access to Quirpon Island, but not to the occupied shore). In
the
mid-1850s establishments from St. Servan and St. Malo
dominated the
fishery. By this time Newfoundland fishermen, out of
Conception Bay
ports such as Brigus, Bristol's Hope, Cupids and Harbour
Grace, had
begun summer fisheries in Quirpon. Eventually some
settled
permanently, the first being Fred Pynn, who was gardien of
the French
premises there in 1872. Little Quirpon and Quirpon Island
tended to be
used for the most part for seasonal fishing stations. A
permanent
population was first recorded in the 1857 Census, with 10
families
comprising 69 inhabitants. Family names recorded there in
1869 were
mostly common family names of Conception Bay: Bartlett,
Bessey
(Bussey), Crabb, Tucker and Simmonds. Three people, all
with the
surname Pynn, owned fishing premises. Many of the
settlers wintered
at sites in Pistolet Bay to the west, as both Quirpon Island
and
the adjacent mainland were quite barren. As late as
1874, when 109 French fishermen were at Quirpon,
Newfoundland fishermen wereoutnumbered.
In the 1880s, with the decline of French influence and the
increasing
involvement of Conception Bay ports in the Labrador
fishery, Quirpon
took on added importance. It was the usual ``last stop'' in
Newfoundland for Labrador schooners preparing to make
the dash
across the Strait of Belle Isle to Battle Harbour and, through
the firm of
J. & J. Maddock, a minor supply port for Labrador
``stationers'' out of
Carbonear. There were also families coming each year to
L'Anse au
Pigeon qv on Quirpon Island and year-round residents at
Fortune, just
outside Little Quirpon harbour to the southeast. By 1884 a
Wesleyan
church had been built. The population of 194 shown in that
year's
Census may have included a number of short-term
residents. In 1891
the permanent population was 77 at Quirpon and 37 at
Little Quirpon.
There were approximately 250 Newfoundlanders fishing
from the
harbour with two schooners and 40 other boats. The French
still
maintained two fishing rooms in the vicinity and English
schooners
were present in the fall and spring.
After the turn of the century, migratory fishing in the area
decreased, coming to a virtual halt after the decline of the
Labrador fishery in the 1920s. Quirpon then became the base for a
resident inshore fishery, with a population approaching 150 by the
1940s.
Common family names of Quirpon mostly originated in
Conception Bay, members of the Bartlett, Hedderson, Patey, Pynn,
Roberts, Taylor and Tucker families having been involved in the
fisheries in the area for generations.
Nearby communities, such as St. Lunaire-Griquet and St.
Anthony qqv,
had become the local mercantile and service centres in the
early 1900s,
and by the 1930s provided most services to Quirpon. In the
1960s,
when Quirpon was connected by a dirt road to the highway,
47 people
from the community were resettled to larger centres,
especially St.
Anthony. And the last few families left Little Quirpon,
Fortune and
Jacques Cartier Island, so that by 1970 Quirpon proper was
the only
settled part of the community. In 1992 Quirpon was still
reliant on the
inshore fishery and a small fish plant operated seasonally.
W.G. Gosling (1910),
C. Grant Head (1976),
Harold Innis (1940),
D.W. Prowse (1895),
E.R. Seary (1959),
JHA (1872),
Lovell's Newfoundland Directory (1871),
Archives (A-7-2),
Newfoundland Historical Society (Quirpon). ACB
ENL:7119 Quirpon Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador Quirpon
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