Sop's arm
| Sop's arm | |||
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| Location in Newfoundland and Labrador | |||
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| State : |
 Canada
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| Province : | Newfoundland and Labrador | ||
| Region: | Census Division No. 5 | ||
| Coordinates : | 49 ° 46 ′ N , 56 ° 53 ′ W | ||
| Area : | 7.42 km² | ||
| Residents : | 157 (as of 2016) | ||
| Population density : | 21.2 inhabitants / km² | ||
Sop's Arm is a settlement ( designated place ) on Newfoundland in the southeast of the Great Northern Peninsula on White Bay near the mouth of the Main River . The population was 157 in the 2016 census. Five years earlier it was 197. The location is used in the census of Subdivision G of Census Division No. 5 assigned.
History
The location was moved there from the nearby Sops Island in the 1950s and 1960s . Whole buildings were sometimes taken away. The basis for this was one of several resettlement programs of the then government of Newfoundland and Labrador under Joey Smallwood , which affected the entire province.
Until then, a significant part of the population lived in scattered, very small settlements that could often only be reached by ship, which on Newfoundland are usually referred to as outports . The government hoped that these programs would, among other things, improve the province's economic development and reduce the cost of public education, mail delivery, the transport of goods, and more. In the case of Sops Island , there was also the fact that the water supply on this island was restricted, as well as that the island could not be reached in spring due to ice drifts, which also represented a restriction for the health care of the residents.
The small-scale settlement structure on Newfoundland can be traced back to the fact that the first settlers were mostly fishermen who settled near suitable fishing grounds and then made their livelihood by trading self-caught fish for other goods as well as through self-sufficiency and the inaccessible Newfoundland was late with Roads was opened up. So it was hardly of any consequence if an outport was located on an offshore island, since most of the traffic was handled by sea anyway.
Sops Island
The previous settlement on Sops Island existed until the mid-1950s and had a school, two churches, cemeteries and a sawmill. In 1921, 85 people lived there and in 1935 the population had risen to 220. There are now fewer than ten summer houses on the island, most of which belong to families of the original islanders. The west side of the island is lushly forested while the east side is rocky and barren; their fauna also includes moose and caribou.
Economic
After a paper mill was opened in Corner Brook , besides the cod fishery, forestry, for which wood is felled around Sop's arm, gained importance. The Main River is also known locally for recreational activities such as white water kayaking and salmon fishing.
Others
Around 100 km away from Deer Lake , the northernmost soils of arable land in Newfoundland, known as "The Rock" due to its general geology, appear to be.
Pits have been found near Sop's arm which local resident Kent Budden claims to be caribou-hunting pits created by Viking Age Scandinavians. Some renowned researchers support this view (insofar). Watson Budden, the uncle of the above named, showed these pits to Helge Ingstad as early as 1961 , who together with his wife Anne-Stine Ingstad excavated the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows , which is about 200 kilometers away. Two of the pits were archaeologically examined in 2010 by a research group led by Jónas Kristjánsson . However, the excavation did not provide any compelling evidence that these pits were dug by Scandinavians of the Viking Age. Nevertheless, they argue for this possibility in their study. This, among other things, because the use of such hunting pits can be proven very frequently in Norway, while there was hardly any evidence of such a form of pit hunting by Indian or Eskimo cultures. In the meantime, the Beothuk built trapping gates for hunting caribou, and for other remote parts of Canada there are reports that some Inuit built traps in the snow. In another part of the study, based on the relevant information in Icelandic literature and the topographical conditions on the east coast of Newfoundland, they argue that the area at Sop's Arm is Straumsfjordr .
The previous is clouded by the fact that Mr. Budden presented some rather dubious artifacts in a "Viking Museum", including a 'sun stone' with an incised map of Newfoundland on the back and, moreover - as the owner in a self-published publication available online - by Thorfinn Karlsefni himself is said to have been signed with his initials.
Kevin McAleese , curator of archeology and ethnology at the Provincial Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador , who was involved in the aforementioned study, said that no other culture in the area is known to have dug such pits for hunting, but he doubted it that Budden's artifacts can be attributed to the Vikings.
Web links
- Sop's Arm at Natural Resources Canada
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Sop's Arm, Census 2016 . Statistics Canada. Accessed December 1, 2018.
- ^ "Newfoundland 1921 Census: Sops Island, St. Barbe District" on Newfoundland's Grand Banks - Retrieved April 22, 2016
- ↑ The American elk (Alcis alcis) was introduced to Newfoundland in the late 19th century: Memorial University of Newfoundland: Newfoundland and Labrador Biosphere , Parks Canada: Gros Morne National Park - A Place Mammals Can Call Home - both accessed April 22, 2016
- ↑ on this: W. Stewart WALLACE: Agriculture in Newfoundland (to 1949) in ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada. Newfoundland Supplement, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1949, 104p., Pp. 1. (published on the Marianopolis College website) - accessed April 22, 2016
- ↑ a b Jónas Kristjánsson, Bjarni F. Einarsson, Kristján Jónasson, Kevin McAleese and Þór Hjaltalín, "The First Attempted Settlement in North America", "Falling into Vinland" , Acta Archaeologica 83.1, December 2012, pp. 145-77, pp. 148-53, doi: 10.1111 / j.1600-0390.2012.00627.x .
- ↑ Owen Jarus, "Searching for the Vikings: 3 sites Possibly Found in Canada" , Live Science , April 18, 2016.