Along Newfoundland's Shores

• Watchlist

Three vignettes are presented showing life on the shores of Canada's newest province, Newfoundland. In "Island of the Birds", Gull and Green Islands off the province's east coast are shown, they, uninhabited by humans, being a sanctuary for a plethora of different sea birds, including murres and puffins, the latter locally referred to as sea parrots. In "Caplin Harvest", fishers are shown in June harvesting a species known as caplin, who are very obliging in being caught in literally washing on shore in their spawning ritual of laying eggs in the gravelly shore. The uses for caplin are numerous, including for fertilizer, for bait, for dog feed, and for human consumption. And in "Outports on the Move", an activity of the province's move toward centralizing the plethora of small isolated fishing villages all along the coast is shown: the actual move of the houses. Without manufactured power in some of these villages such as on Fair Island, the move requires pure manpower to get a house onto the raft, in this instance to travel to its new locale in Centerville eight miles away. These moves and the work to get it done are all voluntary, but the province compensates to do so.