Roddickton

Roddickton is located on the inner shores of Canada Bay. It was originally called Eastern Brook by area fishermen who frequented the bay to cut wood and hunt. Roddickton’s early history is entwined with the Grenfell Mission. Soon after Dr. Wilfred Grenfell’s arrival on the coast, he realized that a major problem for fishermen and the development of their outport communities was the fishing industry’s truck system. Fishermen rarely saw cash for their catch and were kept in dept to the merchant fish buyers. Grenfell made several attempts at developing a counter system using co-ops and new businesses such as a craft industry, saw mills, fox farms, farming, and even a reindeer herd. Along the inner shores of Canada Bay, in 1906 he built a sawmill and farm, which eventually developed into the community of Roddickton. The first saw mill workers and settlers of Roddickton came from Englee. However, when the Grenfell mill ceased operation, many people moved away, leaving only Grenfell’s name for the town honouring Newfoundland doctor, Sir Thomas Roddick.

The mill was opened again four years later by John Reeves of Englee. Eventually the loggers turned to cutting pulpwood for Bowater’s Pulp and Paper Company and firms out of St. John’s. The subsequent history of Roddickton has been one of boom and bust related to the fortunes of logging, and the pulp and paper industry.  In spite of the difficulties of sustaining a woods operation and the more recent loss of a crab processing plant, Roddickton has become the service centre for a portion of the northeast coast.