Archaeologists Investigate an Early Whaling Community

The archeological site at Hare Harbor has revealed information about the relationships between the Inuit peoples of Northern Canada and the European Basque whalers of France and Spain.

The 2010 excavation site of an Inuit house.

A 2011 excavation led by the Arctic Studies Center uncovered this fragment of decorated European stoneware called a bellarmine jug. Uncovering this fragment, that was likely manufactured in the 15th and 16th centuries, reveals information about European trade and influence in the Hare Harbor whaling community.

Archaeologists have uncovered a cookhouse, a blacksmith shop, and the remains of several Inuit winter houses. These discoveries, and several underwater finds, have proven that the site was a whaling and fishing station occupied by Basque and Inuit assistants ca. 1680-1730.

Researchers have discovered large piles of ballast, butchered whalebones, and other cultural materials like ceramic vessels, roof tiles, and barrel parts at an underwater site in Hare Harbor. Here, divers Frederic Simard and Erik Phaneuf display two two ceramic vessels that were found during in an underwater excavation in 2007.

This stratigraphy reveals that the harbor's deepest level of soil (labeled G) contained wood chips, possibly the residue of construction in the Harbor. The second level contained large whale bones (labeled E), marking a period when whales were caught and processed. The third level, the top-most, was full of codfish bones (labeled B). This means that after whales had declined, people turned to processing fish for the commercial market in Europe.

Surveys of Hare Harbor in Quebec, Canada have revealed evidence of a long history of Native American occupation. The discovery of a cache of stone blades at Kegaska indicates that early Innu peoples living here ca. 1000 AD were in contact with peoples of Ramah Bay in northern Labrador. Here, the ASC's Lauren Marr poses with an ancient Maritime Archaic Indian point made of Ramah Chert.

Early Eskimos, known as Groswater Dorset, occupied the Gulf of St. Lawrence about 2,500 years ago. Seen here is a Dorset point made of Ramah Chert that was recovered at Hare Harbor.

An Inuit soapstone cooking pot found at an Inuit house in Hare Harbor, which is evidence of Inuit occupation in the region. In the 1500s when Basque whalers were active, Inuit conducted raids in Southern Labrador and the Strait of Belle Isle to get iron, boats, and other European materials. However, their ancestral homes remained in central and northern Labrador. After Basques departed, Inuit began moving into the Strait of Belle Island and into Québec, establishing winter villages at Brador, Belles Amours, and Petit Mécatina where they begin working for Basques at Petit Mécatina.