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Chatting with Community Host Rosemarie Burke

Article
May 25, 2023

Hospitality is central to everything we do at Shorefast. We believe that every business that serves humans should be built around hospitality: the practice of relationship building and relationship making.

Guest Experience Director, Sandra Cull & Community Host, Rosemarie Burke (left to right) at the Inn. Photo credit: Valerie Howes.

Fogo Island Inn was built to showcase the culture and nature of Fogo Island and add another leg to the economy by complementing the primary and traditional fishing industry. Since opening its doors in 2013, the Inn has become a world leader in the practice of regenerative, community-based travel, and is inspiring other industry leaders to adopt practices that benefit both people and place.  


Initiated through Fogo Island Inn, the Community Host program pairs visitors to the island with community members who are incredibly knowledgeable about the island’s history, culture, and geography. Through informal island orientations, community members bring Fogo Island to life though their own lived experience and offer visitors a nuanced perspective of daily life.


Recently, we chatted with Rosemarie Burke, a Community Host who hails from the community of Tilting on Fogo Island, about her experience as a host and her reflections on Fogo Island Inn’s first decade of community business. The conversation has been edited to reflect highlights of our conversation.  


Becoming a Community Host 


When Rosemarie first heard that the Inn was being built, she was 56. “I’ve got to be a part of that,” she recalls thinking. After three years as the Head of Housekeeping she moved into the Community Host Coordinator role, one that she loved, but ultimately led her to see that a role as a Community Host would suit her best.  


“The thing I didn’t realize about the community host role until I started was that I’ve been doing community hosting my whole life,” Rosemarie adds. “I’m an avid outdoors person, always walking and hiking, and whenever I see someone coming toward me that I don’t know, I introduce myself and ask them where they are from; I’ll point out certain landmarks, such as the best spot to look out on the Atlantic ocean, or where to find Eider ducks nesting, and a conversation is started.” 


“I always want to welcome people; to let them know that they’d be offered help if they needed it; to invite them back for a cup of tea.” 

Managing Director of Fogo Island Inn, Amanda Decker-Penton & Rosemarie during the construction of Fogo Island Inn. Photo credit: Paddy Barry.


Creating the opportunity for exchange & connection  


“Now, before I go to work in the morning, I’m wondering and excited about who I am going to meet today and where they will be from. Will they welcome me as I welcome them?” 


When people first learned about the creation of the Inn there was some worry, Rosemarie explains. “We have had very little change since the first settlers arrived. We didn’t know what this was going to mean. When the Inn opened Zita wrote a personal invite to everyone on the island to ask them to stay at the Inn for a night and experience what was being offered to guests. It made a difference.”  


“This Inn has brought new life to this place,” Rosemarie adds. “The community feels represented through this program. Guests come here knowing some things about the island but after a trip with a community host, they feel at home. They feel that they understand where they are.”  


That sense of understanding goes both ways. For Rosemarie, working with visitors has revealed her own island to her in a new way.  


“Now I have a greater appreciation for some of the things I ignored before I met guests. I just see the beauty of it all. Guests come into the Inn and see the Atlantic Ocean and say “wow.” That’s their first word. And you know, now I do too. I think to myself, How lucky am I to be living in a place like this. Now, I take more moments to stop and recognize the beauty around me.” 


In 2022 – Fogo Island Inn’s Community Hosts spent a combined 9,232 hours providing in-person, community-based island orientations and experiences for visitors to our island. Read more about our community-centric approach to economic development in our latest Impact Report.


Small-scale exchanges can have a big impact 


“The Inn is changing the perception people have of small and rural communities,” Rosemarie says. “Not many people knew about Fogo Island before the Inn. Now there are more artists coming here. They are seeing the beauty and painting the beauty. Everything we look at daily – the architecture, the fishing stages, the flakes – artists are painting them, and people are coming to see them.”  


While Fogo Island has always had a strong local artisan culture, increasing the opportunity for the cross-pollination of ideas, art, and experiences between people with different backgrounds is a vital way to strengthen our social fabric at a local level and at a national level. It brings renewed attention to the value of places big and small across our country and reminds us of our common humanity.  


“People who live in cities are coming now to enjoy the quiet and freedom of Fogo Island. We have a close proximity to nature. You can feel the ocean. I am sure that lots of little communities across Canada have the same beauty as Fogo Island. Small communities have so much to offer.”  

Hiking Fogo Island’s shoreline. Photo Credit: Amy Rowsell.


A cultural asset: Newfoundlander’s sense of hospitality 


“We live on an island. We know just about everybody here. And when people come to the island you are going to welcome them. Historically, this was a tough place to eke out a living – coming together is important.” 


“Fogo Islanders love a stranger. And when a stranger gets to know us, they love us too.” 

In 2015, Fogo Island Inn was awarded the Community Engagement award by PURE, a leading experiential travel show. In this 2-minute clip Zita Cobb, Shorefast’s Founder & CEO, reminds us why community connection is so important to our understanding of travel.  

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Food for Thought: Reinforcing our local economy through an appreciation of our foodways

Article
May 17, 2023

“Eating is an agricultural act.”

— Wendell Berry, American Farmer, Writer, Philosopher. 

Photo credit: Paddy Barry

Food is so much more than sustenance. What we eat, grow, forage, and fish tells us about the culture, environment, and history of a place. Understanding and celebrating our local foodways is another avenue to build stronger relationships between people and place and reinforce the importance of local growing and sourcing to our economy.

Our newly launched Foodways Program on Fogo Island is designed to unite and build on the many food-related initiatives that have animated our work over the years with the goal of creating a more sustainable food system on Fogo Island that can be a contagious example for other rural and remote communities.

The following is a sampling of some of the past, current, and ongoing initiatives that Shorefast has pursued to support a deeper connection to place through food:

Shorefast and Foodways 

Fogo Island Inn 

Ten years ago, Shorefast opened Fogo Island Inn with the intention to activate the cultural heritage and natural assets of the place, including our local foodways. From the Inn’s kitchen, we brought forward contemporary ways of using local ingredients, broadened what can be grown on the island, and increased the focus on local sourcing to support the creation of a widening food entrepreneur landscape on Fogo Island. 

One such example of a new-to-the-island vegetable is fennel. Having asked local growers to cultivate fennel, initially for use in dishes at the Inn, we see its use within our new restaurant–The Storehouse—as an important gateway to sharing ways to cook with this vegetable, as well as other nutrient-rich ingredients that can be found on Fogo Island.  

Photo credit: Andrea O’Brian 

Fogo Island Fish

After opening the Inn, we also turned our thinking to our primary industry, the fishery, and partnered with the Fogo Island Co-operative Society, which operates three seafood processing plants on the island, to start a micro-enterprise called Fogo Island Fish, designed to develop markets for high quality hand-lined Cod. The practice of handlining involves no by-catch, and while it is labour intensive, we pay fishers double the market rate for cod caught by gill-nets. Fogo Island Fish currently sells wholesale to several fine-dining restaurants across Canada.  

Seaweed Cultivation 


In 2021, Shorefast launched an R&D pilot in collaboration with the Fogo Island Co-Operative Society to explore the commercial viability of seaweed farming. As a sustainable, plant based nutritional food that has significant environmental benefits and economic potential, seaweed cultivation could help diversify our island’s economy, with implications for replicability throughout Atlantic Canada. 

Foraging 


Historically, foraging for wild berries allowed Fogo Islanders to survive in this sub-arctic landscape. People foraged and ate partridgeberries, blueberries, marshberries, and bakeapples. The two dozen or so other berries were, not so long ago, collectively called ‘poison berries’ as a precaution from parents to children. Of course, we now understand a lot more about the berry species we share our landscape with, and that knowledge is often enriched by visiting experts invited by Shorefast who share even more. One such expert was able to expand our understanding not only of the other (not poison but very edible!) berries but also some of the mushrooms and herbs that were never previously understood as food. 

Photo credit: Joe Ip

Medicinal Benefits 


The arrival of Dr. John Weber, a Shorefast academic in-residence and a professor at Memorial University, fondly known as the “Berry Man,” helped us understand that blueberry leaves contain even more antioxidants than the noble berry itself. As we spend more time understanding the rich bounty in front of us, we are re-discovering valuable knowledge.  

Wildflowers 


In 2010, Shorefast commissioned Todd Boland of the Botanical Gardens in St. Johns, NL, to produce a Fogo Island wildflower guide book. The goal was to highlight the wide range of plant life on the island with a particular focus on edibles and traditional uses. This important work laid the foundation to better understand the land under our feet – land that Captain Wadham famously said Newfoundlanders, with their over-focus on the sea, had for too long regarded as a “conveniently-anchored ship.” 

Food Circles 


Adapted from the notion of sharing built into our traditional song circles, Shorefast has been bringing people together to share place-specific growing and cooking learnings and stories. Past panelists include Mitchell Davis, James Beard Foundation, and Lori McCarthy, a long-time Shorefast partner and Newfoundland & Labrador foodways expert.  

Food Circle at Big Space
Mitchell Davis, James Beard Foundation, hosts a food circle on Fogo Island

Learn More about our Foodways Program. 

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Know your neighbours, know yourself,” a conversation between Zita Cobb & Michael Bungay Stanier.

Article
May 12, 2023

Recently, Shorefast’s founder & CEO, Zita Cobb, joined Michael Bungay Stanier on his podcast MBS Works to read two pages from one of her favourite books—The Third Pillar —and talk about the importance of community, economic dignity, and finding the right people to help create real change.

Recently, Shorefast’s founder & CEO, Zita Cobb, joined Michael Bungay Stanier on his podcast MBS Works to read two pages from one of her favourite books—The Third Pillar —and talk about the importance of community, economic dignity, and finding the right people to help create real change.  


Written by Raghuram Rajan, The Third Pillar, was foundational to the creation of Shorefast’s first national initiative – a Community Economies Pilot that focused on discovering the key levers and interventions to strengthen local economies.  

“If we can put community at the centre of the economy, there’s a seat for everyone to be there.” -Zita Cobb 

Listen to the full conversation here: 

Know Your Neighbours, Know Yourself: Zita Cobb [reads] ‘The Third Pillar’ » Michael Bungay Stanier (MBS)

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Zita’s Story

Article

Zita Cobb was born on Fogo Island in 1958, part of the eighth generation in her family to call the island home. Forced to leave after the collapse of the inshore cod fishery, she and her family ended up in Ontario, Canada where she studied business in Ottawa. Following a subsequent successful career in high-tech, Zita returned to Fogo Island and established Shorefast in 2004 with two of her siblings, Alan and Anthony Cobb.

The story of her early life inspired the National Film Board of Canada’s immersive, interactive film in 2021 called Far Away from Far Away.

You can experience it here or Far Away From Far Away (nfb.ca)

Listen to Far Away from Far Away here

Far Away From Far Away marks the next phase in the National Film Board of Canada’s continuing relationship with the people of Fogo Island.

More than 50 years ago, a film crew led by Colin Low headed to the island to shoot a series of short videos
and films as part of a larger project known as Challenge for Change.

Learn More Here

Don’t miss these stories about Zita and Fogo Island

View More
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Cauliflower Thinking

Article

Fogo island is a small floret with big stories. Here, we share these stories to present varying views on life, work, and art on this island of the North Atlantic. But first, why a cauliflower?

Why a cauliflower? Shorefast Founder Zita Cobb first encountered a cauliflower after moving away from Fogo Island and it was just about the most exotic food she’d ever seen. Its structure fascinated her and it eventually became a symbol for Shorefast’s community economies theory.

The noble cauliflower is a fractal and its differently-sized florets make up a repeating pattern of beautiful clusters: some big, some small. The stem of the cauliflower directs nutrients to the individual florets. 

At Shorefast, we think about the planet and its individual places as a cauliflower. Communities are the florets, with small places like Fogo Island comprising the little florets, and big places like New York City comprising the larger ones. The stem of the cauliflower is representative of our economic systems, which, when they work as they should, hold us all together and channel nourishment to the florets to keep them thriving. When that stem becomes too self-serving, or prioritizes bigger florets over the little ones, the florets begin to suffer. 

Small places have been disappearing – in other words, small florets have been withering. When we practice business in a way that serves community and place, we ensure that the stem services the whole of the cauliflower. 

The stories told here remind us to think and act holistically and to consider the diverse lifestyles, viewpoints and experiences as making up the whole of our human experience.

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Zita Cobb joins thought leaders to discuss paradigm shifts in how we think about capital and the economy 

Article
March 21, 2023

In late February, Zita Cobb, Shorefast’s CEO & Founder, delivered the keynote address at the 2023 Sorenson Impact Summit. 

A platform for transformative change, the Summit encouraged speakers to consider how the impact investing community can supercharge innovative solutions for the world’s most pressing problems. Over the course of 4 days, top changemakers discussed how we can transform our economy to create a more just, equitable, sustainable, and prosperous future for all.  

Zita was able to share her unique point of view, and elaborate on Shorefast’s proof of concept developed on Fogo Island, as a way to prompt people to rethink how our economic systems can be rebuilt to be in service of place. 

“Asset-based community development is essential to every place. Humans often have a very shallow understanding of what economic development is and what our assets are. That has given rise to a world where people make investments, but they are not development. Development is about uplifting the inherent assets of a place.”

-Zita Cobb

Prior to speaking at the Summit, Zita answered questions on why “Place” is our most important economic gift. 

Read the Interview with Zita Cobb

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Exploring Seaweed Cultivation on Fogo Island

Article
December 7, 2022

Over the summer, Shorefast held a community and information consultation at the Lion’s Club in the community of Fogo to present on the progress of our Seaweed Pilot. The meeting, one of several held over the course of the Pilot, marked a year of exploration into the commercial viability of seaweed farming on Fogo Island. 

The Pilot, led by Shorefast and in partnership with Fogo Island Cooperative Society Ltd and local fishers, along with the support of our funding partners Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation and the Marine Institute at Memorial University, involves understanding whether seaweed can grow reliably in different areas around Fogo Island with the ability to produce enough harvest to make it practical to pursue as a new market diversification product. Nascent business exploration has indicated that small-scale production of seaweed products would fit well with the high-value and niche market that seaweed draws. If seaweed cultivation is successful, the Pilot has the potential to be a scalable diversification opportunity for many parts of Atlantic Canada.

Shorefast’s environmental stewardship coordinator is featured on CBC’s The Broadcast talking about the potential for seaweed cultivation on Fogo Island

Listen Here

An important part of Shorefast’s work under the banner of Environmental Stewardship is to find new ways to create economic opportunity for our community while relying on the inherent knowledge and geographic assets already in place. Crucially, seaweed is a sustainable, plant-based nutritional food that has economic and environmental benefits: growing seaweed is environmentally regenerative and adds to the health of the marine ecosystem, while also capturing carbon. Most published literature suggests that aquaculture – including seaweed – enhances lobster stocks in the vicinity, a relationship that dovetails well with our community’s strong fishing economy.

At the meeting in August our environmental stewardship coordinator and other community engagement facilitators fielded questions and feedback about the next steps of the project with many community members showing interest in getting involved with the initiative. The group, as well as Shorefast and its partners, is enthused by the notion of Fogo Island becoming a pioneer in seaweed cultivation along the North Atlantic coast.

In the current phase of the project, seaweed test plots have been mapped around the island and we are preparing to deploy test lines that will be regularly monitored. Recent results look promising and if all goes well, we anticipate being able to harvest the seaweed in the summer of 2023; at this point we will have a greater understanding of the opportunity going forward.

As part of our efforts to build a market, Fogo Island Inn’s kitchen has been experimenting with potential food products that could result from a seaweed harvest. Two recent small-batch products, which can be found on display at the Orange Lodge on Fogo Island, include Black Kelp Mustard and Sea Buckthorn Sauce. Tim Charles, Executive Chef of the Fogo Island Inn, says the condiments can be paired with anything, but, of course, he highly recommends them with cod!

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Fogo Island’s Annual Scholarship Program

Article
October 14, 2022

Initiated in 2004 as one of Shorefast’s inaugural programs, the Fogo Island Annual Scholarship provides financial support for all eligible Fogo Island Central Academy graduates who are pursuing any form of post-secondary education or training (a portion of funds raised are sent to A.R Scammell school on Change Islands proportional to student population). The Scholarship program is funded through the generosity of local community members, local businesses, and donors who span Canada more broadly. All funds raised are divided evenly among applicants.

There is no formal application process for the scholarship. Instead, to receive their scholarship grant funds, we simply ask the students to provide us their thoughts on issues relevant to our community by composing a short, opinion-based essay, recording a video response, or creating an art piece. It’s a key way we receive feedback from our youth, and it’s a yearly highlight for us to read and experience their thoughts and ideas.

This year graduates were asked to respond to any one of these four questions:

What can we learn from the resiliency Fogo Islanders have shown in the past (such as facing the cod moratorium and resisting resettlement) and how can that help us during times of uncertainty in the present (such as the pandemic and climate change)?

What actions can Fogo Islanders take to create an inclusive community where everyone can be their authentic selves?

Reflect on what it means to be a Fogo Islander. How can we preserve who we are as we continue to open up to the world?

Envision the main street of your community on Fogo Island in the year 2050. What does it look like? How is it different than it is in 2022, and why are those changes important?

With input from the graduates, we mounted an exhibition of their essays and art pieces at the Punt Premises, and we invited the students, their families, and their friends to an opening celebration. It was a great way to share the students’ ideas with the wider community and applaud their accomplishments. 

Quotations from essays are displayed alongside art pieces throughout the outbuildings of the Premises, and the community was invited to come down and read what our young people have to say.

Congratulations to all our graduates. We can’t wait to see where your studies and life experiences take you!

We’re very grateful to the many other businesses and individuals that contribute funds and prizes to the scholarship which allow us to grow the pool of grant money available to our students. The scholarship is a true community effort. To learn more about how you can contribute to the Fogo Island Annual Scholarship program please contact donations@shorefast.org

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Liam Gillick unveils a Weather Station on Fogo Island

Article
July 21, 2022

In October 2022, renowned contemporary artist Liam Gillick launched a weather station on Fogo Island in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada and Fogo Island Arts.

Titled, A Variability Quantifier, 2022, and known colloquially as The Fogo Island Red Weather Station, Gillick’s artwork forms part of a larger collaborative project that unites 28 art organizations around the world through the World Weather Network (WWN). The constellation of geographically-diverse ‘weather stations’ are responding to the climate crisis through the eyes of artists, writers, and communities by sharing observations, stories, reflections and images about their local weather, creating an archipelago of voices and viewpoints. Spanning Nigeria to Iceland to New York, the coalition is bringing increased attention to the importance of artists and writers to the dialogue around climate change. 

Listen to Liam Gillick on CBC’s the Q talking about art, Fogo Island, and a weather station to the global climate crisis

Listen Here

Designed with advice from the Fogo Island community, Gillick’s weather station takes its structural cues from traditional outport fishing stages found throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. The structure is a framework for scientists and local community members to add meteorological instruments to  measure and track local weather and monitor changes connected to an increasing experience of the climate crisis, including changes to the annual passage of icebergs in ‘Iceberg Alley.’ The station will serve as a location for community gathering, creative place-making, education and discussion, as well as a functional weather station.

For Gillick, The Fogo Island Red Weather Station is a continuation of his interest in understanding the origins of climate science and his long-standing appreciation of Fogo Island as a compelling geographic location. For Fogo Islanders, who have a distinct and embodied relationship with weather, this artwork is a reminder of the significant imprint weather has made on the cultural and physical landscape of Fogo Island and the influence it will continue to exert on our evolving modern outport. 

The artwork is being acquired by  the National Gallery of Canada as part of its National Outreach Initiative in which artworks from the collection are sited and maintained at localities across the country. It will be displayed on the island through to October 2026.

Continue scrolling to read more about weather’s influence on Fogo Island and art’s role in a healthy economy. 

Understanding Life in the Pathway of the Labrador Current

By selecting Fogo Island as one of the 28 locations that will host a weather station, the World Weather Network is considering the variety of climates and topographies that dynamically make up our world and each region’s insights into how weather changes will play a determining role in our shared futures. In many of these singular locations, weather is understood acutely by the communities that live there. This contrasts with more densely populated regions where people generally live in more stable climates and interact with the weather in a much more static sense: by checking the internet for updates.

On Fogo Island our relationship to our distinct environment can be viewed as both a challenge and a joy—the Labrador current is the bearer of moody weather shifts and a prolonged winter, and also the provider of the single greatest asset that continues to define our lives: the sea and its prolific marine life.  

In contrast to the traditional four seasons, we count Seven Seasons that tie into the foundational basis of our fishing economy (it should be noted many Fogo Islanders make the case for even more seasons). A close understanding of the natural environment is necessary when your livelihood is dependent on it. Before the advances of larger fishing boats and weather data, fishers had to learn to read the weather like the back of their hand (and still do) as any trip out into the ocean posed significant risk. 

Spring is when Icebergs arrive on the horizon

One of the most poignant examples of our first-hand knowledge as it relates to the human-caused changes we are seeing on Fogo Island is illustrated in ‘Iceberg Alley.’ Watching the glacial ice flow that passes by Fogo Island, carried by the swift Labrador Current, is a local pastime and an unofficial marker of the transition to summer. In recent years however, those majestic Icebergs have substantially increased in concentration and flow—a change that Fogo Islanders have experienced in real-time simply by bearing witness to the same stretch of ocean year over year. This kind of qualitative, knowledge-based data is crucial for understanding what is changing in our oceans. It is knowledge that reflects a lived experience of the weather. 

Berry season on Fogo Island

What does art have to do with the weather?

Fogo Island Arts (FIA), Shorefast’s foundational program on Fogo Island, is underpinned by the conviction that individuals are shaped by place—that our knowledge, culture, and capacity to relate to one another depends on the specificity of our surroundings. Creating a healthy, vibrant community economy relies on integrating art and artists into dialogue and partnerships with diverse sectors of the community to broaden our understanding of what is possible.

The Fogo Island Red Weather Station is a reminder of our shared and embodied experience of weather that ties directly to our culture. This open-air exhibit will be a public space to facilitate community gathering and connection through conversations about the weather. For Gillick, this artwork is built around the relevance of intuitive knowledge to our conversations—big and small—that are necessary to address climate change in a meaningful way. A central theme throughout many of his climate-related projects is an interest in understanding “the history of the maths behind climate research, how and why things are measured as they are, and how different cultural traditions of tracking weather can add to our understanding of it.” 

In the local context, the Weather Station represents a new era of weather data collection on Fogo Island. Owing to our remote location, Fogo Island currently relies on triangulated data from nearby weather stations to provide a ‘best guess’ on the day’s weather events. Quantitative data collection on Fogo Island will increase our capacity to participate in scientific research as commissioned by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Marine Institute at Memorial University, as well as complementing our community science initiatives, such as ice-tracking, lobster-monitoring, and capelin spawning that are being rolled out under Shorefast’s Environmental Stewardship program.

Knowing that coastal cities and communities are at the forefront of the climate crisis, we are a bellwether for changes being felt globally. Our local knowledge and intimate relationship with the natural environment is a key asset in our adaptive and responsive future. 

By looking at the changes to our global weather through the lens of art we are invited to consider what is at stake for all of us.   

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In the Punt with PJ Decker

Article
June 7, 2022

An initiative of Shorefast, the Punt Premises is part of the charity’s work to safeguard Fogo Island’s boatbuilding heritage and associated knowledge for renewed and repurposed use in building a modern outport community. The restoration of the Punt Premises was made possible by the generous support of past Inn guests. Read more about the history of the Punt Premises.

PJ Decker grew up on Fogo Island and has worked at Shorefast in various capacities over the years

“Every day is an opportunity to learn something new,” PJ Decker observes as we sit down to our first cup of tea at the kitchen table of the restored Punt Premises. Of the four traditional outport structures that comprise the Premises, the kitchen is the only room with some modern appliances—an appreciated touch when hosting youth and adult programming on site. Outside the sun is obscured by cloud cover and it’s what would be considered a “mauzy” day in Newfoundland parlance. For the past few weeks Decker has been preparing every detail of the Premises from the mounting of cultural artifacts on the wall to re-corking the fleet of punts that will soon bob within the harbour of Joe Batt’s Arm anchored by a technique affectionately referred to as ‘Punts on a collar.’ The 2022 Punt Premises season kicked off on June 1st and PJ is our new Punt Master. (While the role is new, PJ is no stranger to Shorefast; he has worked in various capacities over the years including maintenance and as an outdoor adventure guide.)


“Spudgel, for example,” PJ continues, “is a term I learned just yesterday from my dad.” His dad, Pete Decker, is a former fisher and trusted advisor to Shorefast’s work around the punts; he stops by the Premises regularly. Born in 1949—the year Newfoundland joined Canada—Pete is of the last generation that grew up when many of the traditional fishing tools and boatbuilding techniques of the inshore fishery were still in practice. With memory to draw on, Pete is quick to provide illuminating anecdotes to this former way of life and it is clear that his first-hand knowledge and the contextual history of the fishery has been an integral part of PJ’s own upbringing.

“My dad loved to be in the company of his father and uncles, all of whom were fishers, and to learn everything he could about fish, stories, and the sea. And I’m the same way. For me, the Punt Premises is where I belong. Punts and stages and coves—that’s what I’ve done all my life. Walking, wading, and exploring the shoreline.”

Punts on a collar in Joe Batt’s Arm harbour

PJ’s new role as Punt Master is both an extension of the informal education that weaves its way from generation to generation, and a concerted effort to bridge relevant aspects of Fogo Island’s history into the future.


The spudgel, as it turns out, is a wooden dipper connected to a long handle. It was a tool used to scoop cod liver oil from the barrel it was housed in (the two main by-products of harvested cod at the time were salt-cod and cold liver oil). In each of the structures that comprise the Premises—a traditional fishing stage, two fishing stores, and a saltbox-style house—various curiosities related to outport culture are mounted with labels identifying their purpose.


Walking through each interior reveals the particulars of every-day-life where some of the most impressive tools are simple design hacks: on a rack meant to carry dried cod the handles have been deliberately carved to arc upwards so that your knuckles don’t get crushed when you place the rack on the ground. At every juncture there is a thoughtful and deliberate attempt to make processes smoother, more efficient. It calls to mind a quote attributed to the author John Durham Peters, “Gathered in a single clock, knife, or shoe are many lifetimes of practical knowledge.” Continuing through the Premises serves as a fascinating reminder that beyond all the inventive tools and process to aid life and work, fishers also had to employ numerous intangible skills including the capacity to navigate by landmark, to read ocean currents, to predict the weather and understand the proclivities of fish. Both hand-crafted instruments and experience born of repetition and intuition were essential for surviving and thriving.


Equally fascinating is the fact that none of this would exist were it not for the proliferation of cod and marine life in this distinct region of the Atlantic Ocean (Fogo Island is in the pathway of the Labrador current colloquially known as “the lungs of the planet”). It was the mighty cod alone that begot an entire industry that encouraged people to settle in a place that required incredible perseverance.
Today, whether you continue to make your livelihood on the water or not, the sea is inextricably linked to the experience of living on Fogo Island.


“The sound of my childhood,” PJ notes, “was the constant thudding of my dad corking the seams of his boat.” It’s a happy memory of course—this constant background music, a comforting thrum that belies a childhood near water and the rhythms of methodical, predictable days. Working with the punts at the premises, PJ reflects on the effort it takes to prepare them for the ocean: He’s been patiently filling each punt with water for a few days, allowing the wood to swell and naturally eliminate any open seams. The traditional process of corking a punt boat – creating a seal between the wood planks—could involve any number of tools but most often came down to the caulking iron (viewable at the Premises) and a hemp-like material called oakem that was malleable enough to fit in between the wood and effectively repel water.


“It’s quite likely that the sound my dad would associate with his own childhood would be entirely similar to the constant thudding I associate with mine.” It is hard to imagine this not being true; Pete’s father and uncles would have spent considerable time repairing their wooden punts. The sheer force of the Atlantic Ocean hasn’t altered with time, and boats, no matter if they are wood or fibreglass, will always require maintenance.

A tally board from 1939
Premises stage and shed
PJ near the splitting table in the fishing stage
Apparatus merchants used to weigh salt cod

While the fishing industry continues to be the most important business on the Island (centered around the Fogo Island Co-operative Society Ltd.)—notably as Fogo Island’s first locally-owned asset and the driver behind the Island’s resurgence after industrial trawlers depleted the cod stocks—creating a bright future depends on developing complimentary economic engines alongside that crucial pillar. Shorefast’s work is about enabling that diversity, so that people, especially young people who are often the first to migrate, have the option to stay and build the life they want. “At the time of my graduation in 2001 there was very little you could do on the island unless you were involved in the fishing industry. Now, all my siblings and I have been able to return home to jobs that previously didn’t exist.”


Before Shorefast commissioned boat-builders to craft new Punts, there were very few of the vessels left and knowledge of the traditional way of life—the harvesting techniques, the boats, the various tools and ways in which merchants and fishers would interact—was little known for community members PJ’s age and younger.


“When speaking with my friends I’m often surprised that they don’t know all of these details,” PJ offers as a way to explain the relevance of the Premises to the Fogo Island community today. This information is new to a lot of people and it’s an opportunity to re-evaluate the ingenuity of Fogo Islanders as they eked out a life in a remote location that by all measures resists easy living. Anyone that lives on Fogo Island or spends time on Fogo Island will instantly recognize the immense impact weather plays on daily life; precarity and adaption have been essential tools for survival on the edge of the northeastern Atlantic.

“How we continue to be shaped by that experience even as we evolve to be a modern outport is valuable and worth holding onto.”

The Punt Premises celebrates all facets of life that surrounded the inshore fishery, including the artisan craft traditions that supplied household textiles and cooking practices, much of which can be explored through interactive programming hosted on site. In this way the Premises has never been a static space purely for reflection; it is also a facility for community engagement and the 2022 season marks a dedicated expansion of its programming.


“With few community hubs on the island, we see the Premises as an opportunity to provide the kind of hands-on programming that kids and their parents are hungry for.” The Punt Premises will gear activation events around environmental stewardship and conservation efforts for kids and adults, as well as cultural programming focused on knowledge preservation.


With easy access to the shoreline there is lots of potential for learning, especially for kids. Simply observing the shallow waters below the fishing stage alone is an exercise in seaweed and fish species identification (hint: look for the eel grass). Tying simple and informative training modules into interactive kid-friendly programming will be an important part of Fogo Island’s adaptive future as coastal communities continue to face the brunt of the climate crisis. Building a modern outport community depends on nurturing leadership and knowledge that is based on the specificity of this place.


PJ attributes a large part of this understanding to the exchange between visitors from away and those who live on Fogo Island. Fogo Island Inn’s emphasis on regenerative tourism means that decisions about how the hospitality sector grows on Fogo Island are rooted in sustainable approaches to the environment and set to a scale that allows people to engage meaningfully with one another. “To see how many people are interested in what we have to offer is a big shift in the way we think of our past, especially as we imagine the future we want to create.”


Thinking back to his own childhood in the 80s, PJ recalls what is likely universal for any kid growing up near an ocean that continues to be both temperamental and life-giving: “When our fathers would return to the harbour after a day at sea, all us kids would run over to the rocks and watch in awe as they unloaded their fish onto the stage.”


The prolific marine life that encouraged people to settle on Fogo Island and develop an inshore fishery that sustained generations is an integral part of what informs culture to this day, and crucially will inform approaches to ocean sustainability well into the future. The continuum of an outport life that is modern, adaptable, and diverse relies on it.

“For things to remain the same, things will have to change,” the adage dictates. 

PJ’s work at the Punt Premises embodies this notion. What we carry with us is important.

PJ and his son investigating the shoreline

Punt Premises hours and activation events can be found on Shorefast’s Facebook page or Instagram @shorefastfogoisland

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