Gaultois is a small settlement in the Coast of Bays area in

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Gaultois had a population of 100 people as of 2021. The town has a K-12 school called Victoria Academy (as of 2022-23, there are 4 students enrolled), as well as a fire department, public library, Lion's Club, and town hall. The town is only accessible by

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

. The ferry runs from the nearby town of Hermitage several times daily and the crossing takes approximately 20 minutes. This ferry also services the more remote community of McCallum once to twice daily with a crossing time of around one hour and fifteen minutes. In 2015, Gaultois voted against resettlement. Before confederation with Canada in 1949, Gaultois was the customs town for those wishing to travel to the islands of

Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Pierre and Miquelon (), officially the Territorial Collectivity of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (french: link=no, Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Pierre et Miquelon ), is a self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France in t ...

. Prior to resettlement, the population had declined to 107 in 1956 from a peak of 252 five years earlier. After resettlement in 1966 Gaultois population rose to 594 with the fish plant and its draggers as the main employer of the town. The first Waymaster in 1877, was Richard Bradshaw. A fishing community, Gaultois went into a decline when the Lake Group first announced the closure of its fish plant in 1981 and again in 1990 when Fishery Products International closed the plant. The Gaultois fish plant permanently closed in 2010. As of 2017, the population has plunged by 80 percent since the 1990s. Though small, Gaultois has four distinct areas: #The Room near the wharf where, traditionally salt fish was dried for market, on flakes. #The Valley up the hill a little then surrounded by high rock faces, home to about 10 homes. #The Point across the harbour from the rooms. The most populated part of town. The point and the rooms are joined by a wooden boardwalk at the base of the rock face. #The Bottom up the hill and down the other side from the point. The most isolated part of town.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Gaultois had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

References

Populated coastal places in Canada Road-inaccessible communities of Newfoundland and Labrador Towns in Newfoundland and Labrador Car-free zones in Canada Fishing communities in Canada {{Newfoundland-geo-stub

Demographics

See also

References