Blaketown: In 1888, the community of Blaketown was settled in the same area as the Beothuks had lived earlier (see section on Beothuk place names).

Thirty two families were encouraged to move to the area for the purpose of farming the land. They were given free land and were subsidized in order to purchase the items they would need.

In 1890 a Church of England school/church was built. Unfortunately, the experiment failed - the land was not suitable for farming and the fishermen were not trained to be farmers.

By 1911 there were only 3 full-time farmers left. The town was named after Sir Henry Arthur Blake, Governor of Newfoundland (1887-1889) and who was a staunch proponent of the agricultural.

For a while the lumbering business supported the town and then in another attempt to support the citizens of Blaketown in 1955 the Government of Newfoundland centralized the mink fur faming industry in the area.

The fur farmers were subsidized so that they would be able to provide fish and whale meat to feed the mink, but when the whale hunt was banned in 1972, the fur industry also collapsed and many farmers in the area were again without a job.

Even with all its strikes, in 2016 the population of Blaketown was 605, a hefty 18.4% increase over 2011.

A second Beothuk archeological site is located at Russell's Point (Blaketown) in the Trinity Bay area.

John Guy, an early colonist (see Chapter 3), reported in his journal, visiting a Beothuk camp on October 26, 1612 and after a lot of research William Gilbert and Ken Reynolds discovered the same site.

Between 1994 and 1997, twenty-six weeks were spent working at the site, 158 square metres were excavated, 23 major features were located, mapped and photographed and 1225 artifacts recovered (Gilbert, 2002).

The following comes from the Newfoundland Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation website: In October of 1612 John Guy and 18 others set sail from Cupids on a voyage of discovery into Trinity Bay.

The main purpose of this voyage was to meet and establish friendly relations with the Beothuk. Guy and his party sailed into an arm at the bottom of Trinity Bay which Guy called Savage Harbour where they found several Beothuk structures and a trail leading into the woods.

Following the trail, they came to what Guy described as "a great fresh water lake" about a mile from the salt water.

On the shores of this lake they found a Beothuk camp consisting of three houses. The Indians had taken shelter on an island in the lake.

However, the colonists spent some time examining the camp and both Guy and Henry Crout, another of the colonists, wrote detailed descriptions of it.

A careful analysis of the documents related to the voyage indicates that Guy's Savage Harbour is present day Dildo Arm and that the fresh water lake is Dildo Pond, a 5 km (3 mile) long lake located roughly 1.6 km (1 mile) south of the bottom of Dildo Arm in the community of Blaketown.

A thorough survey of Dildo Pond produced evidence of a Beothuk presence at only one location: Russell's Point.

Test pits dug there produced numerous fire cracked rocks, flakes, calcined bone and a small corner notched projectile point typical of the early historic Beothuk.

Used with permission from "Uncovering the Origin of 1001 Unique Place Names in Newfoundland and Labrador" 2021 Jennifer Leigh Hill

Address of this page: http://nl.ruralroutes.com/Blaketown