Satellite, planned resource communities: Deer Lake, Newfoundland, 1923-35

Planning Perspectives

Volumn 22, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 225-243

  White, Neil ^a  

^a MCMASTER UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HYDROELECTRIC POWER; PLANNING METHOD; SATELLITE; UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT;

CANADA; NEWFOUNDLAND; NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR; NORTH AMERICA;

CERVIDAE;

EID: 33947529433     PISSN: 02665433     EISSN: 14664518     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02665430701213606     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. Between 1925 and 1926 major cost and time overruns for the Corner Brook project forced Armstrong, Whitworth to undergo massive financial restructuring. The Bank of England operated Newfoundland Power and Paper until 1927 when the International Paper Company of New York purchased the mill and associated enterprises. International Paper gave the Armstrong subsidiary Newfoundland Power and Paper Corporation the new name of the International Power and Paper Company of Newfoundland. To avoid confusion, I have continued to use NP&P in reference to Deer Lake and Corner Brook even after 1927. International Paper, in turn, sold the operation to England's Bowater's Limited in 1937. Neil White, Creating Community: Industrial Paternalism and Town Planning in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, 1923-1955. Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine 32, 2 (Spring 2004) 45-58.
2. Neil White, Creating Community: Industrial Paternalism and Town Planning in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, 1923-1955. Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine 32, 2 (Spring 2004) 45-58.
3. See Institute of Local Government, Single-Enterprise Communities in Canada: A Report to Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Kingston, ON: Queen's University Press, 1953, pp. iii, 5 and 18-19. Also, very little of a scholarly nature has been written about Deer Lake and what exists deals with labour relations instead of urban planning and development.
4. See Malcolm MacLeod, A Death at Deer Lake: Catalyst of a Forgotten Work Stoppage. Labour/Le Travail 16 (autumn 1985) 179-91
5. John Dufferin Sutherland, 'We Are Only Loggers': Loggers and the Struggle for Development in Newfoundland, 1929-1959. PhD dissertation, Simon Fraser University, 1995.
6. Institute of Local Government, ibid., pp. 75-6.
7. Oiva Saarinen, Single-sector communities in northern Ontario: The creation and planning of dependent towns, in Gilbert Stelter and Alan Artibise (eds) Power and Place: Canadian Urban Development in the North American Context. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986, p. 235.
8. Rex A. Lucas, Minetown, Milltown, Railtown: Life in Canadian communities of single industry. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974, p. xi.
9. Ibid., p. xi
10. O. Saarinen, op. cit. [4], p. 219.
11. Rex A. Lucas, ibid., p. 390
12. Alex Himelfarb, The Social Characteristics of One Industry Towns in Canada, in Roy T. Bowles (ed.) Little Communities and Big Industries: Studies in the Social Impact of Canadian Resource Extraction. Toronto: Butterworth, 1982, p. 17
13. L. D. McCann, Heartland and Hinterland: A Geography of Canada. Toronto: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1987, p. 10.
14. Ewart Young, Grand Falls, Botwood, Bishop's Falls, Badger, Millertown, Terra Nova, Newfoundland: Paper and Pulpwood Towns of the Interior. Montreal: Guardian Associates, 1951
15. Institute of Local Government, op. cit. [2], pp. 18-19.
16. Peter Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929-1949. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988, pp. 8 and 368-9.
17. James K. Hiller, The Origins of the Pulp and Paper Industry in Newfoundland. Acadiensis 11 (spring 1982) 42.
18. Peter Neary, Traditional and Modern Elements in the Social and Economic History of Bell Island and Conception Bay. The Canadian Historical Association: Historical Papers (1973) 105-36
19. Richard MacKinnon, Company Housing in Wabana, Bell Island, Newfoundland. Material History Bulletin 14 (spring 1982) 67-71.
20. House of Assembly, Journal of the House of Assembly of Newfoundland. St. John's: The House of Assembly, 1920, p. 526.
21. Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador (PANL), MG17, Box 1, File 22, Reid Newfoundland Company correspondences with Armstrong Whitworth Company Ltd, 13 July 1921
22. The Times (London) (3 August 1922) 14.
23. For a useful summary of the political and economic context of the 1920s and 1930s in Newfoundland and the Humber Valley/Bay of Islands region, see R. M. Elliott, Newfoundland Politics in the 1920's: The Genesis and Significance of the Hollis Walker Enquiry, in James Hiller and Peter Neary (eds) Newfoundland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Essays in Interpretation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980
24. James K. Hiller, The Politics of Newsprint: The Newfoundland Pulp and Paper Industry, 1915-1939. Acadiensis 19 (spring 1990) 3-39
25. J. D. Scott, Vickers: A History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962, pp. 152-3.
26. Department of Industry, Trade, and Commerce, Community Profiles of Newfoundland, Volume 11: Deer Lake. St. John's: Dept. Industry, Trade, and Commerce, 1979, p. 4.
27. Roberta Prowse, The Story of Deer Lake. St. John's: Newfoundland Historical Association Archives: File name 'Deer Lake', pp. 5-9
28. The Western Star (16 May 1922).
29. Gerald L. Pocius, Tourists, Health Seekers and Sportsmen: Luring Americans to Newfoundland in the Early Twentieth Century, in James Hiller and Peter Neary (eds) Twentieth Century Newfoundland: Explorations. St. John's: Breakwater, 1994, p. 61.
30. Joseph Smallwood (ed.), Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, Volume I. St. John's: Newfoundland Book Publishers, 1967, p. 608
31. Roberta Prowse, op. cit. [16], p. 10.
32. Colonial Secretary's Office, Census of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1921: Volume I, Population, Sex, Condition, Denomination, Profession, etc. St. John's: Government of Newfoundland, 1923, pp. 290-5. There were small numbers of residents in the surrounding communities of Nicholsville, Grand Lake and South Brook. All told, the Deer Lake area had a population of about seventy permanent residents.
33. J. K. Hiller, op. cit. [14], pp. 6-16
34. W. J. Reader, Bowater: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 32. Hiller describes the arduous negotiations between Armstrong-Whitworth, the Reid Newfoundland Company, and the government of Newfoundland. The original business plan called for Armstrong-Whitworth to build the pulp and paper mill and associated projects and for the Reid Newfoundland Company to run them. Wary of an increased monopoly for the Reids, the government was willing to sanction the project only if Armstrong-Whitworth built and ran the mill. The drawn-out negotiations also led to hasty construction and were partially responsible for Armstrong-Whitworth's later cost overruns and ultimate bankruptcy.
35. Province of Newfoundland, Report of the Royal Commission on Forestry, 1955. St. John's: David R. Thistle, 1955, pp. 4-7.
36. N. White, op. cit. [1], p. 48.
37. The Western Star (24 May 1922).
38. PANL, MG17, Box 1, File 22. Reid Newfoundland Company Correspondences with Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Company, Ltd, 23 April 1921
39. PANL, MG17, Box 2, File 24. Reid Newfoundland Company Correspondences with Honourable W. R. Warren, 26 November 1921. The plan to base a massive regional industrial network around Deer Lake power plant was the plan Armstrong's operated under when they partnered with the Reid Newfoundland Company in 1921. It was not, however, the first plan. The original developer sought a pulp and paper mill at Deer Lake and a small hydroelectric plant at Corner Brook. The switch to a Deer Lake-centred development was the first, but not last 'radical' alteration in site plans for the Humber development.
40. The Western Star (24 January 1923), (13 June 1923).
41. Willis Goulding interview, Bowater Oral History Project. Corner Brook: Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, 1980-3, tape B-45, side A. Goulding says that his father, a construction worker at Deer Lake in the early 1920s, believed that the company was going to build the mill at Pasadena, another small community in the Humber Valley between Deer Lake and Corner Brook.
42. The Western Star (28 March 1923), (9 May 1923). The local candidate in the May 1923 elections was elected because of his support for the Humber development.
43. Newfoundland Royal Commission, Report 1933. London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1933, p. 146
44. The Times (9 June 1926) 24.
45. The Western Star (6 August 1924).
46. Harold Horwood, Corner Brook: A Social History of a Paper Town. St. John's: Breakwater, 1986, p. 33
47. Llewellyn C. Hounsell, A Brief History of the Humber Valley Development, 1915-1927. Undergraduate paper, St. John's: Memorial University, 1971, p. 19.
48. The Times (17 May 1923) 11
49. M. MacLeod, op. cit. [2], p. 179.
50. J. Smallwood (ed.), op. cit. [18], p. 608.
51. J. A. deJong, Deer Lake Municipal Plan, 1976. St. John's: Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, 1977, p. 14
52. Mark Dwyer, Salute to Newfoundland Communities: Deer Lake. Newfoundland Herald (20 January 2001) 24-5.
53. N. White, op. cit. [1], pp. 50-1.
54. Department of Public Health and Welfare, Tenth Census of Newfoundland and Labrador (Nominal), Volume 10. St. John's: 1935, pp. 17-19, 24-65 and 76-86.
55. Thomas Adams, Recent Advances in Town Planning. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1932, pp. 162-3.
56. M. Dwyer, op. cit. [33], pp. 24-5.
57. Margaret Collins and Gertrude Caines, The Development of Hospital Services in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, 1923-1976. Corner Brook: Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, 1976, pp. 4-5. Available at Memorial University of Newfoundland's Centre for Newfoundland Studies.
58. Willis Goulding interview, op. cit. [26], side A.
59. R. Prowse, op. cit. [16], p. 14.
60. Ibid., p. 13.
61. J. Smallwood (ed.), op. cit. [18], p. 608.
62. The Western Star (13 February 1971).
63. Willis Goulding interview, op. cit. [26], side A.
64. J. A. deJong, op. cit. [33], p. 16.
65. O. Saarinen, op. cit. [4].
66. Between 1928 and the onset of the Depression in 1932, International Power and Paper was the first company to turn a profit with the Humber operation.
67. William C. Wonders, Parasite Communities of Newfoundland. Community Planning Review 2 (1953) 27-9.
68. A. E. Safarian, The Canadian Economy in the Great Depression. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970, pp. 201-3. For a case-by-case analysis of the financial difficulties of the Canadian pulp and paper industry in the 1920s,
69. see Barry E. C. Boothman, High Finance/Low Strategy: Corporate Collapse in the Canadian Pulp and Paper Industry, 1919-1932. Business History Review 74, 4 (2000) 611-56.
70. PANL, GN 38, Box 56-1-6, File 4, Report on the Corner Brook Labour Situation, 29 March 1938
71. Thomas Heinrich, Product Diversification in the U.S. Pulp and Paper Industry: The Case of International Paper, 1898-1941. Business History Review 75 (autumn 2001) 493-5.
72. PANL, GN 38, Box 56-1-6, File 7, Report on Changes to the Logging Act, 18 February 1938.
73. Willis Goulding interview, op. cit. [26], side A.
74. The Amulree Commission was a British-appointed body charged to investigate the state of Newfoundland's finances at the beginning of the Depression. Shortly after June 1932, Newfoundland's newly elected Prime Minister Frederick Alderdice called for the Commission to allay fears among British lenders of a default on development loans. In its 1933 Report, the Commission recommended that Newfoundlanders surrender democratic self-government for an undefined period of time and accept rule by six appointed Commissioners (three British and three Newfoundlanders) who would endeavour to place the islands' economy on a sound fiscal footing. The 'Commission of Government' administered Newfoundland up to 1949 but largely failed to fix the economic problems. The boom in military base construction and general World War II-era prosperity got Newfoundland out of economic peril.
75. See David C. MacKenzie, Inside the Atlantic Triangle: Canada and the Entrance of Newfoundland into Confederation, 1939-1949. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986
76. P. Neary, op. cit. [9].
77. P. Neary, op. cit. [9].
78. Newfoundland Royal Commission, op. cit. [28], p. 151
79. The Times (2 May 1933) 13, (30 September 1933) 9. In early 1933 International Paper reduced loggers' contract pay to CAN$1.10 per cord in their efforts to achieve significant 'economies' in production. Approximately 500 loggers struck to protest the cuts and, by October 1933, the company agreed to raise the amount on a sliding scale to between CAN$1.25 and CAN$1.65 per cord. It still meant a significant decrease in income for loggers.
80. The Western Star (5 May 1937).
81. The Times (2 May 1933) 13, (30 September 1933) 9. In early 1933 International Paper reduced loggers' contract pay to CAN$1.10 per cord in their efforts to achieve significant 'economies' in production. Approximately 500 loggers struck to protest the cuts and, by October 1933, the company agreed to raise the amount on a sliding scale to between CAN$1.25 and CAN$1.65 per cord. It still meant a significant decrease in income for loggers.
82. Institute of Local Government, op. cit. [2], p. 120.
83. John Dufferin Sutherland, op. cit. [2], pp. 164-208.
84. Ibid., p. 48.
85. Willis Goulding interview, op. cit. [26], side A.
86. Department of Public Health and Welfare, Tenth Census of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1935, Volume I: Population by Districts and Settlements. St. John's: The Evening Telegram Ltd, 1937, pp. 140-1.
87. Department of Public Health and Welfare, Tenth Census of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1935, Volume 2: Families, Dwellings, Occupations and Earnings, Buildings. St. John's: The Evening Telegram Ltd, 1937, p. 65.
88. David Reid, Townsite Heritage Conservation District Development Scheme. Corner Brook: Development Control Department, 1983, pp. 14ff
89. N. White, op. cit. [1], p. 52.
90. Department of Public Health and Welfare, Tenth Census of Newfoundland and Labrador (Nominal), Volume 10. St. John's: 1935, pp. 17-19, 24-65, 76-86
91. N. White, op. cit. [1], p. 52. In contrast, skilled workers in Corner Brook's Townsite averaged CAN$1500 per year, and fringedwellers just less than CAN$1000.
92. J. D. Scott, op. cit. [14], pp. 163-6
93. The Times (9 June 1926) 22.