Cassie Lambert, whose spirit name is Little Rabbit Woman, in her traditional regalia, ready for dancing at a mini pow wow at Conne River, Miawpukek First Nation. (Jacqueline Louie photo for Vacay.ca)
When I told friends I was heading to Newfoundland, on what would be my very first trip to “The Rock” — everyone, bar none, said it was one of their favourite places in the world to visit.
It’s easy to see why. The scenery — ocean, lakes, rock and forest — is magnificent. The history is fascinating. There is a lot of delicious food to be savoured. And the people are pretty much as I’d always heard — friendly, warm, fun, kind, and authentic. On a whirlwind trip to St. John’s and across Central Newfoundland, on a trip tracing the story of the Beothuk, everyone I met felt like a friend I’d known for a long time — open and easy to talk to, down-to-earth, and very willing to extend a helping hand (which I am extremely thankful for, after I inadvertently misread the tour plan and missed a key logistical detail).
“There’s a lot more to Newfoundland than just Gros Morne National Park,” says Wayne Broomfield, an Inuk cultural guide from Labrador who teaches about Inuit and Indigenous culture and history. “People come here for the national parks (Gros Morne and Terra Nova). But the Indigenous history here is so rich as well. The Indigenous history, for many people, is something new. Now we’re seeing more and more people who want to know more about different cultures, and cultures within Canada, especially with Truth and Reconciliation.”
Indigenous History in Adventure Central
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this trip — an Indigenous history lesson in Central Newfoundland. Indigenous tourism destinations in Alberta, my home province, showcase vibrant and rich cultures. The Beothuk (which means “the people”) were the Indigenous people of Newfoundland whose ancestors are believed to have lived on the island for several thousand years. After European contact, however, their numbers dwindled, and, eventually, their culture disappeared.
Three hundred years ago, this site in Boyd’s Cove on Notre Dame Bay was a Beothuk village. The statue pictured is the “Spirit of the Beothuk, Shawnadithit” (Jacqueline Louie photo for Vacay.ca)
Finding the Beothuk in Newfoundland
The Beothuk Interpretation Centre at Boyd’s Cove is situated where a historic village stood 300 years ago. A Provincial Historic Site, it is “the only building totally dedicated to Beothuk history in Newfoundland,” says site supervisor, Karen LeDrew Day.
Boyd’s Cove was a seasonal home for the Beothuk families who lived at Boyd’s Cove in the spring and summer, from about 1650-1720 CE. The Beothuk travelled in groups of anywhere from 35 to 55 people, and in late fall they would return to the island’s interior, to the place now called Beothuk Lake. In an attempt to avoid European contact, they left Boyd’s Cove around 1730.
When reflecting on the original habitants of Newfoundland, LeDrew Day says, “I’m sad, because we could have learned so much more from the highly intelligent, adaptable people the Beothuk were.”
At the Beothuk Interpretation Centre, you can follow a 1.5-kilometre (0.93-mile) trail to the site of a former Beothuk village. All that’s left are oval depressions in the ground where summer houses, known as mamateeks, once stood. Seven out of 11 house pits have not yet been excavated, and the ground here is considered sacred.
Another trail, just outside the interpretive centre’s doors, leads to a viewing deck and spirit garden. Visitors receive a small token — such as a shell or feather — along with a piece of sinew, to fasten to a tree branch in the garden, to leave behind as a dedication.
A lovely smoked mackerel lunch after a busy day of adventure on Exploits Island. (Jacqueline Louie photo for Vacay.ca)
Take Advantage of Exploits Island
Gazing out over the water on the boat ride to Exploits Island, looking at the land, rock and forest, with summer homes dotting the coastline, I wished it would never end, entranced by the beauty of the place.
“This island, this bay, tells the story of what most people believe was the last generation of Beothuks,” says fifth-generation Newfoundlander Paul Langdon, who together with his wife, Joanne, owns and operates Adventures Newfoundland, offering customized tours from spring through fall.
On Exploits Island, Langdon takes the tour group to the cemetery where settlers John Peyton Sr. and his son John Peyton Jr., key figures in the final days of the Beothuk, were buried. Langdon tells the story of what happened after John Cabot’s arrival in 1497 and the beginning of European colonization.
From the start, there was conflict with the Beothuk. As more and more English and French settlers arrived, the Beothuk were forced off their traditional hunting and fishing grounds and were pushed farther and farther inland, where their last refuge was in the area of the Bay of Exploits, the tributaries that feed the bay, and the headwaters of Beothuk Lake.
Paul Langdon of Adventures Newfoundland was born and raised in the seaport town of Botwood. He spent 37 years as a conservation officer in the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. (Jacqueline Louie photo for Vacay.ca)
The government of the day hoped to establish amicable relations between the European settlers and the Indigenous peoples of Newfoundland. It’s at that point in history where the Peytons enter the picture. Peyton Sr. came to Newfoundland from England working as an explorer, and eventually became a major entrepreneur in the Bay of Exploits.
When Peyton Jr.’s schooner was cut loose in the fog by a Beothuk raiding party, he wrote the governor of the day, asking for permission to go up the Exploits River to take back his personal belongings. The governor agreed, with the stipulation that Peyton Jr. bring a Beothuk back with him, to St. John’s, in hopes they would learn English and that some kind of rapport could be established.
While Peyton Jr. did find some Beothuk, things went horribly wrong with the plan. Demasduit, the wife of a Beothuk chief, Nonosabasut, was captured; her infant son died shortly after. Nonosabasut was shot, and possibly his brother as well. Demasduit later contracted tuberculosis and died.
Several years afterward, Shawnadithit — Demasduit’s niece and one of the last known Beothuk — was brought to Exploits Island, where she lived with Peyton Jr. and his family for five years. She started a dictionary of Beothuk words and recorded, through her drawings, the tragedy at Beothuk Lake. Visitors to The Rooms — Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest public cultural space, in St. John’s — can see a replica of her drawings.
Today, Exploits Island is a recreational seasonal destination. Adventures Newfoundland offers day tours, as well as multi-day tours. The experiences the Langdons offer are designed to provide guests with an authentic taste of Newfoundland. For example, picking wild mussels, boiling them up and eating them on the beach; or sitting down to a lobster dinner in season.
The Langons’ beautiful off-the-grid home on Exploits Island has everything needed for a comfortable stay, with solar power, running water, and hot water on demand.
Our group sat down for a scrumptious, hearty lunch with a choice of squash soup or moose soup, smoked mackerel, sandwiches, desserts, and more.
Duane Collins of Hare Bay Adventures shows an example of rhyolite flakes, debitage (stone fragments), and partial biface spear points at the Beaches, near Hare Bay. (Jacqueline Louie photo for Vacay.ca)
Archaelogy Comes Alive at The Beaches
Duane Collins, operations manager and lead tour guide at Hare Bay Adventures, led our group by boat to the Beaches — an Indigenous archaeological site dating approximately 5,200 years.
The Beaches was likely one of the main locations in Bonavista Bay where pre-European contact Beothuk, known as the Little Passage People, lived from spring through early fall. The area offered the Beothuk a rich and diverse ecosystem to sustain themselves, Collins says, with marine animals like seals; fish, including salmon; and a variety of seabirds, including murres, puffins, guillemots, and the now extinct great auk. With the arrival of autumn, the Beothuk would go inland to hunt caribou and then return to the coast in late winter to hunt seals. The Beothuk travelled on the water in canoes with very high gunwales and a high mid-section, designed for use on the ocean.
There are nine house pits at the Beaches, some eroded. As we walk along the shoreline along the edge of the quiet woods, I try to imagine what it might have looked like, with Beothuk families living out their normal lives, as their ancestors had done for so many generations before them.
What happened to the Beothuk “is without a doubt, one of the darkest chapters of both Newfoundland and Canadian history,” Collins says. “This is truly a tragic story. I’d like people to understand that on the island of Newfoundland, the human story goes back far longer than English, Irish, and French fishermen settling here; it goes back farther than the Vikings. This story is so much deeper, and multifaceted. There’s a more than five-millennia human story here that continues to this day. We want people to remember them, and we are still learning their story. While the Beothuk chapter was tragically cut short, it is still extremely important, and it’s important that people can come here and learn about that story, learn about the Beothuk, and that as a people, as Canadians, we reflect on how did we become the country we are today? What’s the full story of that?”
Every people and every nation has moments in their history of both light and dark, Collins notes. “It’s just as important to understand those dark moments, so hopefully we never repeat them. And to understand that the act of remembrance is an ongoing one. I think that’s part of the reason that makes the Beaches special — you really get a sense of place and a picture in the mind’s eye of the millennia and of families living there.”
As a culture, the Beothuk are 100% extinct, Collins points out. However, there is both oral tradition and some genetic evidence that suggests some Beothuk did inter-marry with people from other Indigenous groups, including the Mi’kmaq, and the Innu, Montagnais, and Naskapi people in Labrador.
A view of Exploits Island. Settled in the late 18th century, Exploits was for much of its history a bustling fishing and saw-milling town on Burnt Island in Notre Dame Bay. The population fell from a high of more than 600 in 1874 to less than 300 by 1966. (Jacqueline Louie photo for Vacay.ca)
Hare Bay Adventures, which offers customizable authentic tours, can prepare a variety of meals for guests, from box lunches, to open-air meals cooked over a campfire, featuring fresh seafood, and a dining setup complete with tables, chairs, and a glass of wine. As part of the stop at Hare Bay, the group tucks into a refreshing lunch at the company’s headquarters. It featured croissant sandwiches and salads made from locally grown ingredients. Dessert includes tea buns, a Newfoundland classic — a lighter, fluffier version of a scone — blueberry and partridge berry, baked in-house.
Contemporary Indigenous Culture at Conne River
On the last leg of our journey, we stopped for the day in the community of Conne River, Miawpukek First Nation, for a mini pow-wow, complete with joyful dancing and drumming performances, and a delicious soup served to all guests. Conne River holds a pow-wow in July each year, open to everyone. While you’re there, you can also tour the Conne River Community Centre, visit its garden, and learn more about the Mi’kmaq people’s history and culture.
“It would be worth your while to get off the highway and come visit our community,” says Mi’sel Joe, Traditional Saqamaw (Chief) of Miawpukek First Nation, situated at the mouth of the Conne River on Newfoundland’s south coast. “It’s an incredible education for people to visit us. When you visit us, we all learn from each other — it’s not just one-sided.”
Adds Mi’kmaw woman Cassie Lambert, a healer and cultural guide from Miawpukek First Nation: “Learn with them and hear their perspectives. A big question I get when it comes to our pow-wow, is ‘Who is allowed attend?’ If are you willing to learn and to listen, a pow-wow is the best place to go.”
Indigenous people are rebuilding their lives after their culture was lost for many years, says Daphne March, a Mi’kmaw from the Bay of Islands on Newfoundland’s west coast, and an Indigenous cultural ambassador who owns and operates ShaMaSha, offering experiential travel with one-to-one coaching services and group retreats, centered around connecting with self and with the land.
“When you go to places like Conne River, it shows how resilient the people of this land are,” March notes. “They are still enjoying their culture, learning their culture and teaching their culture to others, for the next seven generations. How excited the people are in those areas, to share their knowledge, their history and their culture with others. It brings a lot of resilience.”
Caroline Swan, executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Indigenous Tourism Association (NLITA), adds, “There is so much going on. The really beautiful thing is when you can have interactions with people — it makes sense to connect with someone who is originally from the land.”
MORE ABOUT NEWFOUNDLAND INDIGENOUS CULTURE
Tip: Consider a self-driving tour that allows you the time to explore different communities and learn more about the island’s Indigenous history.
Adventure Central: adventurecentral.ca
Beothuk Interpretation Centre: In 2025, the Centre is open from May 17 to October 10, seven days a week. Call ahead for visiting hours and more information: (709) 656-3114.
Website: seethesites.ca/sites/beothuk-interpretation-centre
The Rooms: therooms.ca/visitor-information
Adventures Newfoundland: adventuresnl.ca
Hare Bay Adventures: harebayadventures.com
Shamasha: www.shamasha.ca
Newfoundland and Labrador Indigenous Tourism Association: nlita.ca
The NLITA website showcases Indigenous-owned accommodations, restaurants, experiences, tours and cultural sites. The website also includes information on transportation, from airports to ferry routes to bus tours.
Miawpukek First Nation: Facebook Page
