“I don’t feel too good. It’s going to be a change. That’s for sure,” said Mr. Billard from his home.
Although the phones were still working Wednesday morning, power to everything except the government wharf had been cut the previous day.
Mr. Billard has a generator. He plans on returning to his home periodically, at least in the summer months.
“If nobody beats it up,” he added.
The last ferry and the cutting of the power marked the official end to Grand Bruit as a Newfoundland outport with full-time residents.
Although slated to end at the end of June, the provincial government extended the ferry service for one week to give residents more time to ship out their final belongings.
Residents knew the end was coming for some time. First the final two school students left in June 2007. Then came the closure of the store. The post office shut down in 2008. The church was decommissioned last month. The end of ferry and power services were just two more things in a long list of lost services.
With the writing on the wall, the final residents voted to ask for government assistance in resettling from the community in 2009.
Each resident received $80,000 for their home, plus $10,000 for each additional resident in the home up to a maximum of $100,000 in assistance.
Everyone had the option of leasing back his or her property as a summer residence.
Last Days
It was appropriate that Mr. Billard saw the last passengers on their way. For years, he has been welcoming tourists and locals alike into his retrofitted fishing shed, aptly named The Cramalot Inn.
The shed operated as an informal community watering hole, with a ‘bring your own bottle’ policy. Teetotalers were equally welcome when people gathered in the building almost every evening to sit on the benches and swap yarns. The door was never locked.
On the final night before the last boat, Mr. Billard had only two guests at the Cramalot: Gordon and Linda Farrell.
Mrs. Farrell took a break from last-minute packing long enough on Wednesday morning to talk about her last night in the community.
“Grand Bruit will live on. We’ll just take our memories with us.” - - Linda Farrell
“We were kind of just reminiscing, talking about things years ago, and kind of talking about what the future will hold for us,” she said.
The Farrells already have a house in Port aux Basques. Mrs. Farrell is working for the Western School District. Mr. Farrell is a fisherman, and he may return to the community for fishing.
“You can’t dwell on the final days because you probably wouldn’t be able to get thought it,” said Mrs. Farrell. “Last night when the lights were all out except for a couple over at the government store, it was pretty obvious that the final days are here.”
She said as residents got older, they came to terms with the notion that for their own well-being, both physically and mentally, remaining in the community was no longer an option. Summers were beautiful, but winters were long, cold and lonely according to Mrs. Farrell.
“It is a sad time. We realize that it had to happen,” she said. “The Grand Bruit we’re leaving today is not the Grand Bruit we grew up in and raised our family in. It’s been steadily declining over the years.”
For now, they Farrells are trying to focus on the positive aspects of moving, such as being closer to their grandchildren in Stephenville.
For his part, Mr. Billard isn’t sure how long he will hang around the deserted community. He purchased a house in Burgeo, where his sister lives. Although repaired and renovated, he has yet to spend a night in the home.
He said he is in no hurry to leave. Yachts were stopping in on the weekend before the closure, and he wants to see who else will drop in.
“If nobody comes around, I’ll head down to Burgeo in the speedboat,” he said
He promises to be back and forth all the time, meaning there will still be a few windows glowing in the community now and then.
Mrs. Farrell also believes she will be back with her husband later in the summer.
“Grand Bruit will live on,” she said. “We’ll just take our memories with us.”
reporter@gulfnews.ca
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