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The
results surpassed expectations : 170 men, almost exclusively from
Île-aux-Chiens - a small island in the Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon
archipelago - sailed to the French Shore during the campaign of
1894. These consisted of : Red Island 8 small boats and 15 fishermen
(who, according to the nota to the ministerial dispatch let it
be known that the French shipowner had again that year the concession
at site 4 on Red Island), at Tweed Island 5 small boats and 10
fishermen, at Anse à Bois 7 small boats and 16 fishermen,
at Port au Port (Points des Galets) 27 small boats and 65 fishermen,
at Port au Port (Broad Cove) 29 small boats and 64 fishermen.
These
figures remained steady until the loss of the French Shore in
1904. For the fishermen of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon who hardly
ever saw an abundance of cod around their islands before the month
of June, the French Shore offered the possibility of an excellent
spring campaign. Understandably, in 1899, sensing that France
was ready to give in to the English on the question of fishing
rights, fishermen had written to their representative in mainland
France.
The
abandonment of our rights to the French Shore, carries with it
our ruin, from the point of view of economic living conditions.
At Saint-Pierre and at Île-aux-Chiens, many families live
exclusively by the grace of the results of the French Shore fishing
and, if our rights on the west coast were abandoned, these families
would be reduced to worrying about building a new way of life
(...) We are justifiably afraid for the future as it is easy to
see that the English are today pursuing the complete annihilation
of the economic prosperity of the colony. They well know that
the vitality of the Islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon rests
in large measure in that same maintenance of our rights to the
French Shore.
What
a waste of time ! The French shipowners no longer had any interest
in this remote coast, the French authorities found that their
dispute with England over the French Shore had lasted long enough
and as a consequence, the well-founded fear of the small boat
fishermen of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon weighed but lightly in the
balance. On the 8th of April 1904, France abandoned its exclusive
fishing rights in Newfoundland in exchange for an out-of-the-way
island in Africa for which she will never have the slightest use.
The
fishermen of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon had the right to
one last campaign that year and that was the end of the French
Shore and the Newfoundland fisheries which in the 18th century
represented "the most precious French possession in North America".
From
that time forward, the settlement at Red Island ceased to be used.
The French, for the most part deserted sailors joined the Acadians
who were settling on the coast in the villages of Mainland, Cape
St. George or Three Rock Cove. The English had no further use
for this barren island which quickly became again deserted. The
cabins collapsed, the buildings fell into ruin and soon nature
reasserted her rights.
It
is difficult to believe today, to look at Red Island, that barely
a hundred years ago there could be found here one of the largest
French fishing settlements of the French Shore, in any case, without
doubt, the largest settlement of the Port-au-Port Peninsula.