Middle Bay

Middle Bay is one of three communities in the modern municipality of Bonne Esperance. Although tiny, it was a place well-known to thousands of Basque whalers and fishermen who frequented the harbour in the 16^th and early 17^th centuries. Near the present-day fish plant is the site of an early Basque whaling station, easily identified by the terracotta roof tiles characteristic of southern European architecture. These tiles were brought as ballast on Basque whaling ships, used in the building of rough housing and sheds, and then left behind as the ship holds were filled with whale oil.

By the mid-1600s the whaling industry became a victim of its own over exploitation of the resource and the whaling stations were abandoned. During the period of New France concessions, fishermen from Quebec and France utilized most of the harbours along the north shore of the Labrador Straits. After 1763 and the defeat of France by Britain, English mercantile companies took over the business of fishing and fur trading. Eventually settlers from around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland and Europe’s  Channel Islands arrived to provide a permanent population.