Bonavista

According to tradition, John Cabot, the Italian explorer sailing for Henry VII of England in the Matthew from Bristol, made his landfall here in 1497, and on first sighting land reputedly cried "O buon vista" — "Oh, happy sight!" — giving its name to the town and to Cape Bonavista. Cabot's men went ashore, raised banners and found signs that the land was inhabited: a trail inland, the remains of a fire and a carved, painted stick.

Through the 16th century Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and English fishermen worked off Cape Bonavista, and the French and English came to dominate. The harbour was poor and needed breakwaters, but nearness to rich fishing and sealing grounds made Bonavista one of Newfoundland's most important towns. The French tried and failed to burn it in 1704, and from 1713 it marked the eastern end of the French Shore. The first school in Newfoundland was built here in 1722. In the busiest years, 1891 to 1901, about 20,000 people lived on the peninsula, with Bonavista at its centre, and merchant firms such as James Ryan Ltd. ran the trade in salt fish.

The early 20th century made the town a centre of the Fishermen's Protective Union; in 1912 its convention in the Orange Hall adopted William Coaker's Bonavista Platform, calling for sweeping reform of the fishery. A cold-storage fish plant took over as salt-fish markets declined, and the town was incorporated in 1964. Over the 20th century the economy turned towards tourism.

Bonavista's identity rests on the sea and on history. The Cabot landfall tradition is central to how the town presents itself: a replica of the Matthew was built for the 500th anniversary in 1997, when Queen Elizabeth II visited, and a silo on the town's highest point was painted with a blue mural for the occasion.

The town was long a Protestant merchant and fishing centre. Its Orange Lodge grew into the largest in British North America, with more than 470 members by the early 1900s, acting as a mutual-aid society that supported the families of fishermen lost at sea. Its domed hall of 1907 is believed to be the largest wooden gathering hall ever built in Canada.

Old customs are kept alive in summer. The Church Street Festival in early August includes a mummers' parade, reviving the Newfoundland Christmas tradition of disguised visitors, and the Garrick Theatre dates from 1945. Historic churches — Memorial United, completed in 1923, and St Joseph's Catholic, completed in 1842 — still hold services, and the old courthouse keeps its whipping post and stocks. Nearby Elliston is known as the root cellar capital of the world.

About 3,200 people lived in Bonavista at the 2021 census, a fall of 7.5 per cent since 2016. The town covers more than 31 square kilometres, unusually large for an outport, because it spread across an open plain rather than being squeezed into a cove.

The closure of the cod fishery in 1992 hit hard, and the population shrank sharply. A snow crab fishery provides work, but tourism now drives the economy: in 2023 up to 80,000 people were reported to visit each summer. More than 120 houses had been turned into holiday rentals by 2023, so a town that twenty years earlier had many empty houses now has a housing shortage, and a freeze on new rental conversions was declared.

Life follows the seasons. Summer brings visitors, boat tours, festivals and icebergs off the cape; winter, from December to April, brings heavy snow, wind and a much quieter town, with most restaurants closed. A plan discussed in 2010 to merge with neighbouring Elliston did not go ahead, and the two remain separate towns.

Bonavista eats like a Newfoundland fishing town. Cod is the staple — as fish and chips, in chowder and as fried cod tongues — and snow crab from the local fishery is served in season. Fresh local crab, lobster and mussels are also sold in town.

Traditional dishes from the salt-fish economy remain home cooking. Fish and brewis combines salt cod with hard bread softened in water, topped with scrunchions, small pieces of fried pork fat. Toutons, fried bread dough, are eaten with molasses, and Jiggs dinner — salt beef boiled with cabbage, potatoes, carrot and turnip — is a traditional Sunday meal. Nearby Elliston is known for its root cellars, 135 of which exist in the community.

Wild berries go into jams, pies and sauces, including bakeapples, the local name for cloudberries, and partridgeberries. Most of the town's restaurants, bakeries and pubs are on or near Church Street and the harbour, and many open only for the summer season.