Outports be gone

Most of us live a dry-land life. Even fisherfolk and light-ship servicers mostly sleep in beds ashore. Huge amounts of treasure, steel and concrete has been poured into railways [19thC] then roads [InterstatethC] to deliver goods and foods to factories and homes. It was not ever thus. Since the beginning of history it has been more efficient to transport freight and people by water: hence the development of extensive canal systems across these islands [18thC]. But canals are only needed where there is no convenient access to seaways. And there is a reason why towns grew up around the first bridge upstream on all the rivers of Europe.

When Newfoundland was settled [17thC], from the Déise and elsewhere, everything looked seaward - indeed largely codward [that's Gadus morhua L and it's rellies] . While settlers might keep a few chickens and try a few hard-scrabble fields of oats, barley or potatoes behind their cabins; there was no need, maybe no possibility, for a metalled road joining the several "outports" [technical term]. Folk found it was quicker to take the hron rad [whale-road] on their byrviggs [wind-horse] [lingoprev] instead. But progress came inevitably to the remotest parts of Newfld: not only metalled roads (even if only local), but dispensary, church, shops, chandlers and post-office . . . school, water-treatment, garbage-collection, electric, street-lighting. All the infrastructure that the rest of us take for granted and pretend costs nothing.

The Provincial Government has been pursuing a policy of drawing in the tentacles of its reach, so it's limited tax bucks can get better bangs - as defined by minimizing payment per tax-payer. Case in point is Gaultois a tiny settlement on a biggish (5x bigger than Inishmore or ½ the size of Nantucket) island. Long Island used to support several other small communities but Gaultois is the only one left - perhaps because, until 1990, a fish-processing plant employed many of the people. They closed because their weren't enough fish coming in to justify paying wages and electric bills.  In 1992, the  Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, John Crosbie, shuttered the Atlantic cod fishing industry . . . 500 years after it started. In 2007 commercial salmon fishing was banned in Ireland, followed by the end of the eel fishery in 2008.

In March last year, the government polled the people of Gaultois as to whether they would be prepared to accept a resettlement grant and move nearer to Newfoundland Centraal. Half the province's population live in the six largest communities. But there's a loonnnng tail of tiny isolated communities which are inefficient in the sense that thousands of homes across Ireland with their own septic-tank and drain-field are inefficient. The grant is ~$250,000 for  voting age householders and $10,000 for landless voters - presumably renters. Simms-the-Shop was offered twice the assessed value of his emporium. But a few weeks later the ballots had been counted and only 64% voted to shift their duff. That fell short of the 75% threshold, so the deal was off. It's all about the money for the government. Paying out $10 million now will have a pay-back time of about 10 years as services are terminated. The biggest cost is the subsidized ferry service that bumbles along the South coast on the regular connecting the larger communities with Hermitage, a port which has a road which goes somewhere. Hundreds of point-to-point trips each year are made with zero passengers. This don't bother the employees of the ferry company none, but it sure does rile up the bean-counters in St. John.

And what about the feral cats? I posted to Metafilter whc commented. Newfoundland? Prevs: Change Is - Fogo