Bide Arm
The schooner Armistice, built in Bide Arm
Because of the general shortage of buildable land in many outports, when the Provincial government implemented the Resettlement Act of 1969, it was necessary for families moving from the condemned outports to separate from each other. Fortunately the resettlement of Hooping Harbour which prompted the founding of Bide Arm, is a different story. In 1969, Hooping Harbour was still inaccessible by road so the people decided to move as a group and start a whole new community. They put many of their dwellings on barges and moved them, along with their church, to the new location of Bide Arm in Canada Bay. It had originally been a winter tilting community where people from nearby outports moved for the winter to be more protected from seasonal storms and closer to wood lots and traplines.
Bide Arm also became a good place for boat building because of its proximity to timber stands. The first schooner built there was named the Armistice, for the day of November 11, 1918, when its keel was laid. It took master builder, William Hopkins and his crew 252 days to build the three-masted transatlantic cargo ship. Men in Bide Arm continued to build boats commercially until the Cod Moratorium in 1992.
In 2009, Bide Arm consolidated its municipal government with nearby Roddickton.
Bide Arm Photos : ( Click each for full size )
Bide Arm boatbuilding in the 1970s
Bide Arm : Old History at Hooping Harbour
Hooping Harbour, located on the steep shores of White Bay, was frequented by the French migratory cod fishery long before the region officially became the French Shore in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. At that time the harbour was identified on maps as Sans Fond. In 1644 a fishing ship owner named Simon Ninon from Brehat in Brittany died and was buried in Hooping Harbour. His was an eventful life, having been captured by pirates in 1627 and ransomed by his family for 200 ducats in 1644.
Photos : ( Click each for full size )
Residents of Hooping Harbour towing their houses to a new location in Bide Arn, 1968
French fishermen jig for cod - 18th century