Most in Williams Harbour want to relocate, resident says

Residents of a tiny community on Labrador's south coast are openly talking about whether they should relocate, although there is no consensus yet on whether Williams Harbour will cease to exist.

About 50 people live in the community, which has no road access to other communities. Residents must sail or fly to leave the town.

Resident Vera Russell said living in a small, isolated community is always challenging, especially for younger families.

"There's not a lot of children in the school, and … there's no more children to go to school," she said.

People fished out of Williams Harbour for more than a century, but families did not start staying year-round until the 1970s.

Residents have lobbied for years for road access, but without success.

Russell said about 85 per cent of residents are in favour of relocating to neighbouring communities, like Port Hope Simpson.

But Russell said she and some other older residents want to stay.

"Since [my children are] gone, we got a new home that we built here — well, it's like 10 years old now — but I really don't want to leave my home," she said.

Relocating communities is always a sensitive issue in Newfoundland and Labrador, where "resettlement" — the informal name given to government programs that, forcibly or not, moved residents of tiny outports to larger towns and cities during the 1950s and 1960s — is a politically toxic word.

Residents of Grand Bruit, on Newfoundland's south coast, are currently deciding whether to relocate. Government officials, though, have said they will only step in to provide support for the move if everyone is on board.