Then we took the last stretch of the loop back toward our temporary home. We walked almost all of the way back before turning right onto Flat Rock Road. On the long (and steep) walk up there, I told Aaron about resettlement. For a while, Newfoundland was its own little country - I have to look into that - it may have been sort of a colony of England or something, I'm not too sure. Anyway, in 1949 Newfoundland became part of Canada. The Canadian government decided that many of the small villages were too remote and that providing services to them would be too difficult and expensive.
Resettlement began, and during the 1950's and 60's entire villages relocated. Some people took their houses with them, floating them on barges across the bays, or dragging them across on the ice in the winter.
Flat Rock was such a village. It was relocated in 1966 - probably among the last to be uprooted.
Now there are power lines up there, and some of the people from there have come back and built summer cottages. The road - dirt, and full of potholes - is lined with rocks that have been painted with scenes of the former Flat Rock buildings.
"Used to be a nice little town up there," was all that Dad Noel had to say.
I turned off the road at the point where the date of resettlement was marked on a rock. |
