W have been circling around Fogo island for a while now. It was brought to my mind by my college who happens to be my wife too, who fell in love with Fogo inn and the art studios that was connected to the Inn and to a foundation created to help develop the island to grow into a stronger and more resillient version of itself.
We arrived in the dusk. Not much to see but cold and wintery landscapes with the last snow and a radiant cold that went through your clothes right into your bones!
The island is a fishing community in the most easterly corner of Canada in Newfoundland. The culture is all about fishing and everything connected to fishing like boat building, docks, landings and piers and all the houses and sheds nearby little harbours sheltered from the atlantic ocean.
Fishing was going in the wrong direction, les cod and more efficient boats made the marked less interested in fresh fish so prices went down too.
someone thought of selling the rights to a large company but at the end of the day they would not give up! They formed a fishing co-op and started helping each other to get a better price, produce what they could sell and all together formed a structure that served the common interest. The community survived there back in the 1960ieth.
Zita Cobb was born on Fogo island and grew up there until her father gave up fishing and moved to the mainland.