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    On the plateau could be found the main settlement, that is to say the manager's cabin, that of the doctor, and at the other end of the plain on the hillside, a bakery. On the heights could be found gardens and a stable for the livestock that served to feed the fishermen whose number, as we have seen, often surpassed a hundred persons. The gardens comprised some salad plants, radishes, parsley, potatoes that grew quickly and without much care and cabbages which one brought from France in sacks of earth to transplant. All this was used in the preparation of the ever-present codhead soup or soundbone soup which was the everyday fare of the fishermen.

    Nothing occupied the centre of the plain since it was there that the cod was dried. Lacking beaches they built stages which could be turned to suit the wind. On these the cod was left to dry. Once dried, it was put in piles to be covered with oil cloth on days of fog or rain.

    There is no brook on Red Island and there is at present no evidence of wells, although it is certain that a settlement of such importance enjoyed a supply of fresh water.

    It should be mentioned also that there was a cemetery - certain of the older people of the village of Mainland knew the general location not long ago but such a site has never been discovered. It is on the other hand probable that some graviers or fishermen died on Red Island and were buried there. How did they live on this "tiny" island, battered by winds, with no forest, not even a single tree, isolated by a frequently bad-tempered ocean? Arthur de Gabineau gives us some idea: