Old Fort
Aerial view of Old Fort Bay
Old Fort Bay is located at the western end of the Strait of Belle Isle. It is a little town with a big history. On early maps of the region, there appears a place named by Breton fishermen called Brest, near present day Old Fort community. It was a seasonal French fishing harbour when Jacques Cartier landed and participated in possibly the first official Catholic mass in Canada. He also built a large cross near the mouth of the Old Fort River at Baie des Rochers, a bold statement of ownership and a landmark for passing ships. So far, no one has found any remnants of Brest or any plausible documentation as to its size. It remains one of the big historical mysteries of the Strait of Belle Isle.
As New France began to grow, a seigneurial concession system was established to encourage the exploitation of the region’s natural resources. In 1702 French military officer Augustin Le Gardeur de Courtemanche was given a large portion of the coastal territory where he built a business around fur, fish and trade. He put his first post at Old Fort but shortly thereafter moved to Bradore where there was better access to fishing and sealing grounds. His first post was referred to as ancien etablissement or Old Fort.
At the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, France lost its territory in Canada. The French were forced to withdraw from their fishing and fur trading concessions along the Quebec-Labrador coast. Some were eventually consolidated into what became the Labrador Company, run by the English in Quebec. The company’s control over fishing rights prevented permanent settlement until it ceased operation in 1820. After that, fishing families slowly began moving in from Newfoundland, the Channel Islands, and the Gaspe region, building up settlements like Old Fort along the coast.
Similar to other fishing communities in this region, Old Fort is characterized by the numerous small islands just off shore. A number of the islands became summer homes for families needing to locate seasonally near good fishing grounds. Several of the islands, such as Dog Island, still have houses that are now used mostly for recreation.
Old Fort remains the western terminus of the Labrador Straits road. Communities on the Quebec Lower North Shore hope that someday the road will continue all the way west to Natashquan.
Old Fort Photos : ( Click each for full size )
1960s view of Old Fort Bay waterfront. Salt cod is drying on a flake in the foreground.
The rock that gives its name to Dog Island, a summer fishing community of Old Fort
Old Fort : Old Maps and What They Tell Us
The famous British naval explorer, Captain James Cook, mapped the Strait of Belle Isle in the 1760s. Using new technology, his charts were so accurate that mariners continued to rely on them for over a century. Cook’s maps were far from the first made of the region. By the early 16th century, European map makers were mining the observations of Atlantic sailors in order to visually define an outline of the New World. Their maps tell us much the worldview of people living in those earlier centuries.
In the case of the place name Brest that appears on numerous early maps of the Strait of Belle Isle, we are left with more questions than answers. There is no physical trace of Brest along the coast today. Oral history reveals little about its exact location, size or function. Was there any real relationship between Brest on the Labrador coast and Brest in France? Who knows, but we wait for some dogged archeologist to finally uncover the site of Brest and answer our questions about that mysterious place on the Quebec Lower North Shore.
Photos : ( Click each for full size )
Detail from 16th century map showing the place name Brest