PAGE 1/2/3/4

    The first deserters and other settlers no doubt took advantage of such gardens planted with vegetables brought from France. But life must have been hard in the first winters, even if the inhabitants could catch fish, rabbits and birds taken with snares, and pick berries. It was not an extravagant diet. Their dwellings, until they were able to acquire carpenter's tools, were as unpretentious as the shacks made of branches described by Gobineau. Yet, at the time when the first census was taken on the French Shore, each community recorded seems to have been well stocked with life's necessities. But before taking a closer look at questions of a material nature noted in the census figures, concerning the number of animals, fish catches, buildings and the like, it is useful to consider briefly the question of population.

    The 1857 census, the first to include data on the Port-au-Port Peninsula, indicates a total of 39 inhabitants in 'Port a Port Bay West and Bay East.' Of these, 26 were born in Newfoundland, the remainder in British colonies, no doubt Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. No mention is made of any French presence. Of course, the 1857 census did not cover the whole peninsula; yet we know that the principal French villages already existed, without counting the French working on Red Island, of whom there were well over 100 at the time. The French geographer Pierre Biays, however, notes the arrival, in 1837, of a Guillaume Robin from La Roche, one of the very first Frenchmen to settle at Cape St. George. One may surmise, if Biays' information was correct, that Guillaume Robin did not spend twenty years in total isolation.