Page 599 |
Save page Remove page | Previous | 97 of 184 | Next |
|
small (250x250 max)
medium (500x500 max)
Large
Extra Large
large ( > 500x500)
Full Resolution
|
This page
All
|
Loading content ...
RIGOLET 599
environment for pregnant women, a Pregnancy Dis¬ tress Service and a crisis phone line which offered advice and practical help to women experiencing prob¬ lems with respect to pregnancy. Philomena Rogers (interview, Sept. 1991), Right to Life (association bro¬ chures). James Wade
RIGOLET (inc. 1977; pop. 1991, 334). Rigolet was originally founded as a trading post, on the northwest side of the Narrows, at the entrance to Hamilton Inlet, Labrador. It takes its name from rigoulette (channel). Continuous operation of trading posts at Rigolet likely dates from 1788 and the estabhshment of the French Canadian trader Pierre Marcoux qv. Prior to the dam¬ ming of the Churchill River for hydro-electric power, the Narrows were subject to tidal currents of up to 12 knots, which had the effect of keeping Rigolet ice-free for more of the year than other Labrador ports and making navigation into Lake Melville difficult for large trading ships.
Under a succession of Quebec-based traders, Rigo¬ let became the hub for a network of Inuit and settlers trapping, hunting and fishing for salmon at a number of locations at the mouth of Groswater Bay, in Double Mer and eastern Lake Melville. In 1836 Hudson's Bay Company qv agent Simon Macgillivray recognized the geographic advantages of Rigolet for trading and es¬ tablished a trading post there, in opposition to the Quebec trading firm of D.R. Stewart. The next year Macgillivray bought out Stewart on behalf of the Company, and the post became the H.B.C headquar¬ ters for Labrador. For more than a century thereafter Rigolet was "really only a Hudson's Bay Company post", albeit perhaps the most important Company post in Labrador. The trappers and fishermen who supplied the Company lived at scattered locations for trapping (such as Double Mer, Pottles Bay and Rocky
Cove qqv) in the winter and at a number of salmon and cod fishing stations along the Narrows and in Groswa¬ ter Bay in the summer (such as Mulliauk, Snook's Cove and West Bay qqv) making only infrequent visits to Rigolet. Still, many of the family names of Rigolet in 1992 appear regularly in the earliest H.B.C. post diaries — such as Blake, Broomfield, Campbell, Flowers, Michelin, Oliver, Palliser, Pottle, Shiwak and Woolfrey — several of the men being brought to Labrador as Company servants and settling after mar¬ riage to local women. Although chief factor Donald A. Smith qv (later Lord Strathcona) had the H.B.C head¬ quarters relocated to North West River in the 1850s, Rigolet again became the main post in the 1870s, until the Company moved its Labrador headquarters to Cartwright in 1913.
Rigolet first appears in the Census in 1901, with a population of 24. At the close of World War I George Budgell began his long tenure there as Company man¬ ager. In the inter-war period the population of Rigolet consisted of the Budgell family, the family of carpenter/ mechanic Will Shiwak qv, cooper James Dickers and the family of John Blake, master of a small H.B.C. schooner which transhipped Company cargo from Rigolet to North West River and other sites in Hamil¬ ton Inlet. The first school was taught in a Company building by Budgell's daughter, and the manager usu¬ ally read Church of England services for the residents and "comers and goers", who were quartered at the H.B.C. "kitchen". During Worid War H there were several hundred Canadian soldiers stationed at Rigolet to guard the Narrows and a small naval base to the south. The Canadian Army also built a school in 1944 for the use of local children. It was later refurbished as an Anglican church.
After the War the winter population of Rigolet began to increase — to 129 in 1951 — but the majority
Rigolet, at the tum ofthe century
Object Description
Description
| Title | Page 599 |
| Description | Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, volume 4 [Extract: letter R] |
| PDF File | (31.58 MB) -- http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/cns_enl/ENLV4R.pdf |
| Transcript | RIGOLET 599 environment for pregnant women, a Pregnancy Dis¬ tress Service and a crisis phone line which offered advice and practical help to women experiencing prob¬ lems with respect to pregnancy. Philomena Rogers (interview, Sept. 1991), Right to Life (association bro¬ chures). James Wade RIGOLET (inc. 1977; pop. 1991, 334). Rigolet was originally founded as a trading post, on the northwest side of the Narrows, at the entrance to Hamilton Inlet, Labrador. It takes its name from rigoulette (channel). Continuous operation of trading posts at Rigolet likely dates from 1788 and the estabhshment of the French Canadian trader Pierre Marcoux qv. Prior to the dam¬ ming of the Churchill River for hydro-electric power, the Narrows were subject to tidal currents of up to 12 knots, which had the effect of keeping Rigolet ice-free for more of the year than other Labrador ports and making navigation into Lake Melville difficult for large trading ships. Under a succession of Quebec-based traders, Rigo¬ let became the hub for a network of Inuit and settlers trapping, hunting and fishing for salmon at a number of locations at the mouth of Groswater Bay, in Double Mer and eastern Lake Melville. In 1836 Hudson's Bay Company qv agent Simon Macgillivray recognized the geographic advantages of Rigolet for trading and es¬ tablished a trading post there, in opposition to the Quebec trading firm of D.R. Stewart. The next year Macgillivray bought out Stewart on behalf of the Company, and the post became the H.B.C headquar¬ ters for Labrador. For more than a century thereafter Rigolet was "really only a Hudson's Bay Company post", albeit perhaps the most important Company post in Labrador. The trappers and fishermen who supplied the Company lived at scattered locations for trapping (such as Double Mer, Pottles Bay and Rocky Cove qqv) in the winter and at a number of salmon and cod fishing stations along the Narrows and in Groswa¬ ter Bay in the summer (such as Mulliauk, Snook's Cove and West Bay qqv) making only infrequent visits to Rigolet. Still, many of the family names of Rigolet in 1992 appear regularly in the earliest H.B.C. post diaries — such as Blake, Broomfield, Campbell, Flowers, Michelin, Oliver, Palliser, Pottle, Shiwak and Woolfrey — several of the men being brought to Labrador as Company servants and settling after mar¬ riage to local women. Although chief factor Donald A. Smith qv (later Lord Strathcona) had the H.B.C head¬ quarters relocated to North West River in the 1850s, Rigolet again became the main post in the 1870s, until the Company moved its Labrador headquarters to Cartwright in 1913. Rigolet first appears in the Census in 1901, with a population of 24. At the close of World War I George Budgell began his long tenure there as Company man¬ ager. In the inter-war period the population of Rigolet consisted of the Budgell family, the family of carpenter/ mechanic Will Shiwak qv, cooper James Dickers and the family of John Blake, master of a small H.B.C. schooner which transhipped Company cargo from Rigolet to North West River and other sites in Hamil¬ ton Inlet. The first school was taught in a Company building by Budgell's daughter, and the manager usu¬ ally read Church of England services for the residents and "comers and goers", who were quartered at the H.B.C. "kitchen". During Worid War H there were several hundred Canadian soldiers stationed at Rigolet to guard the Narrows and a small naval base to the south. The Canadian Army also built a school in 1944 for the use of local children. It was later refurbished as an Anglican church. After the War the winter population of Rigolet began to increase — to 129 in 1951 — but the majority Rigolet, at the tum ofthe century |
