加拿大将切断这座小岛水电供应 只剩一对夫妇坚守家园

[aottawa]

海外网2019-12-25 08:50

将坚守被遗弃的小岛的帕森斯夫妇(图源：英国《每日邮报》)

海外网12月25日电 几十年来一直居住在加拿大一个小岛上的居民需要在今年12月31日前撤离该岛，因为加拿大政府将切断该岛的水电气供应，以及滑雪和渡轮等基本服务。该计划将为加拿大政府节省2000万美元的开支，但一对夫妇自掏5万美元，坚守家园。

小海湾群岛位于加拿大东部(图源：英国《每日邮报》)

据英国《每日邮报》报道，加拿大东部的小海湾群岛(Little Bay Islands)的几乎所有居民已经完成撤离，加拿大政府将按照原计划在2019年12月31日切断小岛的水电供应和其他基本服务。到2020年，该岛将仅剩2名居民：迈克(Mike)和乔治娜⋅帕森斯(Georgina Parsons)。

据悉，五年前，该岛居民赖以生存的鱼厂破产倒闭，与之配套的企业也随之走上末路。4年前，没有足够的财政收入，连学校也不得不关闭。在多年的复兴尝试失败后，小岛居民今年早些时候投票决定搬迁到别地重新开始。

根据加拿大官方数据，小岛居民们重新安置后，政府将在未来20年从中节省大约2000万美元，节省下来的大部分资金将来自削减到该岛的渡轮服务。

决定继续留在该岛上生活的帕森斯夫妇花了5万美元准备了太阳能发电机和一个淡水井，还囤积了药品、干货和罐装食品，现在有6个装满蛋白质的冰箱，可以维持两年。他们也有六艘船，以备不时之需。尽管由于冬天的北极冰层，他们可能在岛上被困长达六个星期。

乔治娜⋅帕森斯说：“我们一点也不紧张，感觉还是有点不真实。小镇变得越来越安静，每天都有人打包行李离开。作为移民安置计划的一部分，政府已经向这些撤离的居民发放了补助金，帮助他们在加拿大的其他地方重新开始。”(编译/海外网 爱扎大)

责编：薛艺磊

 

[gcy1208]

得有钱才行

 

[charley2]

他们需要向爱斯基摩人学习一些更原始的生存和生活方式才行

 

[Jay Wang]

有钱可以任性
没钱只能认栽

 

[zhangulei]

中国政府应该适时出手接盘了。

 

[ccc]

'Much quieter': N.L. couple prepares for life alone as town resettles

Jonathan Forani CTVNews.ca Writer
Published Sunday, December 15, 2019 7:00AM EST

TORONTO -- By the New Year, Michael Parsons’ hometown will become a private island.

While the Newfoundland property won’t have the tiki bars and turquoise waters of other private islands, it will bring Michael and wife Georgina the peace and quiet of retired life they’ve been craving.

As their neighbours continue to move out around them on Little Bay Islands after a resettlement vote earlier this year, the couple is finishing preparations to stay put. By Dec. 31, the province says it will cut all services to the town -- no electricity or snow removal, no ferry or postal. Past resettlements, which are part of a decades-long provincial initiative to centralize the Newfoundland and Labrador population in growth areas, have saved the province tens of millions of dollars.

“The town has gotten much quieter,” Michael told CTVNews.ca last month. “Every day now people are packing up and leaving.”

All the while, the Parsons are doing the opposite -- beefing up their ability to stay.

They’ve spent about $50,000 on preparations, including a solar power system (the bulk of the prep price tag), a new well for fresh water and a “souped-up first aid kit,” including everything from chewable aspirin to general antibiotics.

They’re stocked up on dry and canned goods and have packed six deep freezers full of enough protein to hopefully last two years, including moose, beef, pork and lamb. They’re even raising their own chickens for fresh eggs.

The couple has multiple boats to get them to the mainland when needed (about 10 to 15 minutes by speedboat). But when the arctic ice comes in during the worst of winter, they could be stuck on the island for as long as six weeks, they said. They aren’t worried about emergencies though. Georgina was recently certified in first aid and CPR, just in case.

It’s the power that could be the biggest adjustment. They’ve been living “off the grid” for more than two months, just to prepare. When they spoke to CTV’s Your Morning back in October, they weren’t scared about their time alone. They still aren’t.

“We’re not nervous at all,” said Georgina. “It still feels a bit unreal.”

Georgina doesn’t anticipate the reality of the resettlement to sink in until the island goes officially off the grid. “When the last few people leave, the big thing will be when they cut the power,” she said.

On a recent evening, she was admiring the beautiful reflection of the street lights on the ocean water and realized they won’t see that anymore.

Chances are they’ll be the only ones on the island at Christmas as fewer than 20 households were left to make the trip to the mainland as of the end of November. The Parsons are the only ones who decided to stay year-round.

They weren’t eligible for the resettlement fund (at least $250,000 depending on household size) since they moved to the island just a few years ago after more than 20 years in Ontario. Only residents who had lived on Little Bay Islands for a specific time period qualified.

It won’t be a full year of solitude since new resettlement agreements allow residents to retain ownership of their homes. Many of the Parsons’ neighbours will use the properties as summer homes.

For the Parsons, the quiet island life is what they’ve wanted for a long time.

“To use the old cliché, people talk about living their dream,” said Michael. “This is exactly what me and Georgina are doing.”

 

[ccc]

An evening view from the dock of Mike and Georgina Parsons in Little Bay Islands, Newfoundland. (Mike Parsons)
By Amanda Coletta

December 29 at 2:33 PM

Mike Parsons always dreamed of retiring to his hometown of Little Bay Islands. But when he and his wife moved back to the four-square-mile outpost off Newfoundland’s northeastern coast in 2017, he never imagined they’d be its last inhabitants.

Parsons, 53, remembers Little Bay Islands as a thriving village of hundreds at the center of the province’s booming cod fishing industry, a postcard of bucolic bliss with its green forested hills, brightly painted saltbox homes, bustling shops and lively dockyards huddled around a small blue harbor.

Now, it’s down to some 54 souls, most of them in their twilight years. A moratorium on commercial cod fishing in 1992 prompted many to look elsewhere for work. The fishing plant shuttered in 2010. The school sits empty. For years, the only items for sale in the village have been the stamps at the post office.

The strains on Little Bay Islands — emigration, resource collapse, aging populations — are familiar to small towns around the world. Local leaders have tried to revive dying villages with offers of $1 homes or promises to pay would-be residents to move in.

Newfoundland and Labrador takes a different approach: It pays you to leave.

Faced with mounting debt and still struggling to recover from a fishery collapse and an oil-price slump, the government pays households in declining, expensive-to-serve communities $190,000 to $205,000 to move — and then cuts off services to the community.

There are a few conditions: The request must come from the community, not the province; at least 90 percent of residents must vote to leave; and a cost-benefit analysis must show a likelihood of net savings.

The people of Little Bay Islands voted unanimously this year to abandon the island — the eighth such community to make the decision in the last two decades. Derrick Bragg, the provincial minister of municipal affairs and the environment, said resettlement will cost $6.61 million but will save the province roughly $15 million over two decades. He gave the green light in April.

Mike Parsons stands on the deck of his home in Little Bay Islands. While the rest of the village is clearing out, he and Georgina plan to stay and live off the grid. (Paul Daly/Canadian Press/AP)

On Dec. 31, the government will cut off all services to the community, including electricity, snow removal and ferry service. Residents may keep their homes but will have to use them off-grid. Volunteers have rescued the islands’ feral cats, after the provincial government said it might euthanize them.

A “palpable sadness” has settled over the town as islanders load their belongings into U-Haul trucks, Parsons said. He ticks off a series of “lasts” in recent weeks: the last church service, the last mail delivery, the last night at the “Poachers Lounge,” an unofficial hangout where villagers played darts and sang songs.

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see these people trying to pack up a lifetime of stuff and move elsewhere,” Parsons said. “Most of these people have only ever lived on Little Bay Islands.”

Trucks and vans line up on Pilley’s Island for the ferry to Little Bay Islands as residents relocate. (Paul Daly/Canadian Press/AP)

Resettlement has a long and controversial history in Newfoundland and Labrador. When the former British dominion joined Canada in 1949, Premier Joey Smallwood struggled to provide services to the 1,200 outposts that dotted the coast.

In 1954, he started the first of several centralization programs that gave cash to households from villages with “no great future” to move to government-selected “growth centers.” From 1954 to 1975, roughly 28,000 people from nearly 300 remote outposts were uprooted and resettled, many of them dragging or floating their houses to their new communities.

The house of Malcolm Rogers is towed by a 40-horsepower motorboat during relocation from Fox Island to Flat Island in August 1961. (Library and Archives Canada/National Film Board)

The programs were controversial from the beginning. Often, the growth centers were themselves isolated, lacking in opportunities and unprepared for the new arrivals. Rumors swirled of a “black list” of places the government would shut down. People said they felt forced into moving.

Jeffrey Webb, a professor of history at Memorial University in Newfoundland, said people “weren’t explicitly threatened,” but there was “gossip and rumor and fear” that if they didn’t take the money, services would be cut anyway, and they’d still be forced to move, without compensation.

In a letter to a concerned resident in 1958, Smallwood said he didn’t “intend to spend public money to help people jump from the frying pan into the fire.” But to this day, resettlement is highly charged, and the programs have been memorialized by writers, artists and in protest songs.

Robert Wells, an official with the provincial justice department, discusses resettlement with villagers in Dover, Newfoundland, in August 1961. (Library and Archives Canada/National Film Board)

In 2002, Great Harbour Deep became the first community in a generation to resettle. Six others followed suit. Little Bay Islands is the next. Bragg said the province is considering a request from one other community.

Little Bay Islands considered resettlement for nearly a decade in a process that pit neighbor against neighbor, generation against generation — and illustrated how informal coercion can be necessary for the program to work.

In 2015, 95 voters cast ballots in a referendum on resettling. They needed 86 votes. They got 85. In a small community, word of who voted “no” spread quickly.

“That created a lot of bad feelings,” Parsons said. “People stopped talking to each other. Those who voted against leaving were kind of shunned by the community, and now they sort of just succumbed to the pressure.”

A rift between permanent residents and seasonal residents emerged.

Under the program, only a person who “lives and sleeps year-round” in a community is eligible to vote on relocation. Seasonal residents, who outnumber permanent residents in Little Bay Islands, are not. (The locals call seasonal residents “stouts,” after a bloodsucking deer fly that’s hard to shoo away.)

Carolyn Strong spent the first 16 years of her life on Little Bay Islands. As a little girl, she would eat dinner with the European ship captains who sailed their trading vessels to the island in search of salted fish. As an adult, she learned the sand she had played in as a child had been brought as ballast for ships from as far away as Europe and Africa.

Strong, 81, moved from Little Bay Islands to start a nursing career. But she has two homes on the island and returns each summer, but is among those who were not allowed to vote.

“Money drove this vote,” Strong said. “The summer people had no acknowledgment from the government at all.”

During the days of Smallwood’s programs, she said, she would “pray that nobody would touch Little Bay Islands.” Today, she questions whether such programs should even exist.

Several seasonal residents who were not allowed to vote are considering legal challenges.

Bragg acknowledged the process can be “a little contentious.” It’s impossible, he said, “to please 100 percent of the people.”

Does he think Newfoundland’s resettlement program is a success? “I guess you would have to ask the people who move,” he said. “I’m just the person who is writing the checks.”

A mother and daughter fox on Little Bay Islands groom each other. (Mike Parsons)

Bob Pittman was the last resident to leave Great Harbour Deep. He and most of his former neighbors have done well since resettlement, he said. But he likened the feeling of leaving to “almost like having a death in the family.”

“I didn’t want resettlement myself,” he said. “But I voted [to leave] because it would create so many problems if you tried to stop it.

“I still miss my home.”

Parsons was also denied a vote — he hadn’t lived on the island for a full year when the village requested relocation in 2017. But he and his wife, Georgina, 44, have decided to stay behind. They’ve spent more than $38,000 on solar panels, generators and other items so they can live off-grid. They’ve stockpiled goods and completed first-aid training. They expect some neighbors to return in the summer.

On Dec. 31, the power will be cut, leaving Little Bay Islands in the dark. Then Mike and Georgina will throw the lines for the MV Hazel McIsaac ferry as it makes its final trip.

Parsons’s mother worries, he said. But other islanders have told them they’re relieved someone is staying behind.

“It gives them a sense of peace that the island won’t be completely dead,” he said. “There’s someone who is going to be carrying the torch forward.”

An early snowfall at sunrise on Little Bay Islands. (Mike Parsons)

 

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Michael Parsons always planned to live his life in solitude when he retired from his job at a California-based software company.

But the Little Bay Islands resident probably never envisioned being the only man living in his hometown.

When the last ferry leaves the wharf at Little Bay Islands on Dec. 31, the home of Michael and his wife, Georgina, will be the only one with the lights still burning.

Everyone else has left — some on the last ferry out, others in the weeks before.

People packed up their belongings and moved away, in a modern-day resettlement that was more than a few years in the making.

Compensation cheques from the province enable them to relocate to the island of Newfoundland, within and closer to larger towns.

The Parsons didn't meet the criteria for relocation assistance. They had not lived there long enough.

Michael Parsons takes a quick look over the harbour in Little Bay Islands. Parsons, his wife Georgina and their dog Trinity will be the only residents in Little Bay Islands once resettlement hits on Dec. 31.

Now they are alone on the island — save for a grey fox they feed.

“We look at it as an adventure. We’re looking forward to the solitude,” Michael told The Central Voice. “We’ll miss our family and friends, but just the idea of being out here alone, for most people it would be a scary proposition, but for us, it’s not.

“We have zero anxiety or anxiousness about it.”

The departure of island residents was bittersweet, especially so since the sadness of leaving was also marked by tragedy just a couple of weeks before.

Town clerk Jerry Weir, who played a vital role in helping prepare people and the community for the move, was killed in a car accident near Robert's Arm on Nov. 24.

Known as a hero for his community, Weir was school principal on the island for many years until his retirement in 2011.

He had been headed to Springdale on that fateful day, to square away some last minute details for his own move.

His death added another line of sadness to the final chapter of the story of Little Bay Islands.


Settled in
The mid-morning sun streams through the large dining room windows of the Parsons’ homestead. Heated by a woodstove in the corner of the living room, Michael and Georgina are calm as they sit on the precipice of being alone.

The pair figure they’ve put $50,000 to ready their palace of solitude, adding solar panels, propane stove, cellular phone signal booster, snowmobile, and the aforementioned wood stove.

Undated photo of Little Bay Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador.

They’ve dug a well at the property for water and the house they will occupy is properly insulated. The pair toyed with going without Internet service but decided to keep that modern amenity.

They have supplies they believe will carry them for two years. They're well-prepared to survive any length of time if they can’t get off the island because of sea ice in the harbour or other circumstances.

“We’ve played out the scenarios in our mind and we’ve anticipated what it is going to be like,” said Michael.

Admittedly, Georgina is little more social than her husband. In the two-and-a-half years since the couple moved to Little Bay Islands, she developed a circle of friends who gathered weekly.

“Every weekend, we’d get together for some darts, play some tunes and have a few sociables,” she said. ”That’ll be a bit of a change, but the way I look at it is I’ll still do it, but just not as often.

“In the winter I’ll plan to go see these same people (but) it’ll probably be once every month or every six weeks instead of every weekend. That’ll be the biggest change for me.”

This sign of welcome to Little Bay Islands seems ironic now after the resettlement process has been completed.

Residue
Little Bay Islands is a town typical of any found in the inlets, coves and bays around Newfoundland and Labrador.

It is unlikely this wharf will be repaired by the time people are supposed to be off the island.

Built around the fishery, a large wharf represents the epicentre from which the town extends.

There was a time it had three churches, a grocery store and a fire brigade.

A faded Pepsi sign on the front and some boxes of winter boots in a back room are all that remains of the store.

Rock of Ages was the last hymn sung at Faith United Church, which held its deconsecration service a year ago on July 17. It had been closed for more than four years.

Tablecloths dress the tables in the basement and Bibles sit in the pews.

They aren’t the only items left behind. There are boats abandoned on the shoreline and books left in the library of H.L. Strong Academy, the school closed four years ago.

A pair of sneakers lays in the school foyer as if waiting for the start of the next school day when a young child would swap their outdoor shoes for those crisp runners.

A television, couch, glasses and VHS movies sit in the abandoned home used as a bunkhouse for the workers at the crab plant. In the entryway are notices informing workers of problems with people leaving shift early, not having doctor's notes and other reminders.

The memories of the town live in the items left behind.

Some people are worried about looters and having their properties ransacked after they relocate. They remember what happened in Petites, a community on the South West coast, years earlier and want to avoid similar things happening here.

Some residents have installed solar panels and small security cameras in hopes of deterring any possible damage to their properties, which will now be places to come to from time to time for a visit.

Indirectly, Michael has been asked to serve as an island-wide neighbourhood watch.

“We’re not going to take on the responsibility of anything, but obviously, we see everything and if a boat goes in or out of this harbour, we’ll know about it,” he said.

Take the Poacher’s Lounge for instance. Otherwise known as the shed of Michael’s father, it acts as a living memorial to the people of Little Bay Islands.

It was a community gathering spot, sometimes cramming in 60 people for a scuff. There is a fooseball table, stacks of vinyl records of Kenny Rogers and the Oak Ridge Boys, early pictures of the community and plenty of local artifacts.

There is even a portrait of iconic and divisive Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Joey Smallwood hanging on a wall. It was saved from the local dump by Michael’s father.

And it’s somewhat ironic it would be one of the items to stay, given that Smallwood is considered to be the brainchild behind the original resettlement program of the 1960s.

“(My father) has a lifetime of stuff there and he can’t take any of it,” said Michael.

One of the many homes with ‘For Sale’ signs in the window.

Favourite place in the world

Michael Konkle discovered Little Bay Islands almost by accident while on a motorcycle trip with his wife Mary in 2012.

The Hamilton, Ontario, resident had just left Lark Harbour in the Bay of Islands on the west coast of the province and had reservations to stay in Baie Verte the next day.

When they failed to reach their contact in Baie Verte, they took a chance on visiting Little Bay Islands.

They had initial reservations as they pulled onto island's ferry dock. Travelers to the community are greeted by a short, winding drive through wilderness before the town opens up in front of them.

What Konkle and his wife saw took their breath away.

These children’s toys sit on an asphalt lot and are unlikely to be played with again.

“I said, ‘I think this might be the spot,’” Konkle recalled.

Not long after they bought the red two-story home minutes from remnants of Eveleigh’s Seafoods fish plant.

The roar of an excavator fills the air near Konkle’s home on this afternoon as its driver deftly lowers a septic tank into a hole near the ground.

At times, Konkle grabs a yellow level and ensures everything is being installed as it should be.

“There isn’t whole lot of time left,” said Konkle, noting solar panel technicians were also expected soon.

The Konkle plan to return to their home in the summer.

There is an inherent beauty on the island.

A protected harbour gives way to rolling hills, a dense forest and bay that sparkles in the fall sun.

It is easy to see why Konkle and his wife immediately fell in love with Little Bay Islands, why the Parsons are staying put and why it hurts for people to leave this place, their home.

“(Mary) loved it here and so did I,” said Konkle of his adoptive home. “This was her favourite place in the world.”

Approaching the end
Michael begins every morning with the same thing — a walk across Little Bay Islands and back. It is something the couple and their dog Trinity do four or five times over the length of a day.

It won’t be the only thing to keep them busy as winter rolls in.

As the snow builds and the plows disappear, walking will become more difficult but they’ll still be able to kayak, cross country ski and hike.

The couple are keeping a Facebook log of their journey on Little Bay Islands. Called "Kintsugi", the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery, Michael and Georgina share feelings and pictures of their beloved Little Bay Islands.

This bridge connects one part of Little Bay Islands to the other. The fishing gear in the foreground belongs to fisherman from Springdale who plans to return every spring.

Over the last couple of weeks, posts have been melancholy as they've watched friends pack their lives in moving vans. There were pictures of the last gathering at the Poacher's Lounge and inside an abandoned home where dishes and appliances were discarded.

The Parsons have a car on Little Bay Islands and they have plans to store it for the winter at a residence they bought in Miles Cove.

A relatively short run in one of their boats from dock to dock, the place will serve as somewhere to stay should Georgina, who still has clients as a chartered accountant, or Michael become snowbound or need to stay the night while off the island.

Getting the car to Miles Cove might require Georgina to be on the last ferry out with Michael meeting her at the wharf.

They plan to be there when the boat pulls away from Little Bay Islands wharf on New Year's Eve.

“We want to be there to throw that last ferry line,” said Georgina.

 

[耶书仑]

I wish to live there, at least for 1/2 year each year!. House must be cheap.

 

[ccc]

I wish to live there, at least for 1/2 year each year!. House must be cheap.

Houses are for sale over there!

 

[ccc]

On a clear Friday morning in mid-November, the MV Hazel McIsaac is packed with a gaggle of chatting passengers.

U-Hauls and pick-up trucks are parked on the ferry's bottom deck, waiting to make the crossing to Little Bay Islands.

Ten years after talk of relocation first started in the Newfoundland island community, it's finally about to happen.

Street lights will go out, the daily ferry will stop running and other services will be cut off as of Jan. 1, less than a year after the town's 55 permanent residents voted to accept money from the provincial government to shut down the town.

The ferry is running full out in the last few weeks, carting Little Bay Islanders back and forth. Some are preparing to move, while others who left years ago are coming home to say goodbye.

Maurice Levor, from Florida, who spends each summer at Little Bay Islands, N.L., prepares to leave the community on Nov. 14, 2019. Levor plans to be back next summer. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)

First-time guests have also been rolling through the town, seizing their last chance to tour the once-bustling community on Notre Dame Bay on the island's northeastern coast.

Maurice Levor calls them "lookers."

Levor is locking up his ATV and other treasures in his shed, preparing to head back to his home state of Florida for the winter. But he's not happy about it.

The lineup for the ferry to Little Bay Islands, N.L., from Pilley’s Island on Nov. 15, 2019, includes trucks and U-Hauls as residents prepare to leave the community. Ferry service will end on Dec. 31. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)

"It's gonna go down in history as a big blunder by the government," he says.

The Floridian married a Newfoundlander and has been spending half the year here with his family since the town was "booming" in the 1980s. Levor doesn't beat around the bush when asked to share thoughts on the government's relocation policy. He resents that the promise of money — between $250,000 and $270,000 per permanent household — drove a wedge between people and left seasonal property owners like himself unable to sell for a profit.

But he's still keen to return, and resists labelling the town as "dying."

"We're going to do everything we can so this doesn't go to ruin," he says.

Mike Parsons stands on his deck at Little Bay Islands, N.L., on Nov. 15, 2019. Parsons doesn't plan on leaving the community, and will live there, off the grid, with his wife. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)

People will always want to come back
Like many rural Newfoundland coastal communities, or outports, Little Bay Islands was hit hard by the 1992 cod moratorium. A crab-processing plant kept jobs in the town for a little longer until that too closed in 2010. Working-age people trickled out, leaving mostly retirees living in the town year-round.

Amy Glavine says she fell in love with the place the second she arrived to start her summer job two decades ago. She now owns a house a few doors down from the crab plant where she met her common-law husband Wayne Grimes.

On a short break from packing, the couple walk down to the dock by the now-collapsing plant where they first met, reflecting on happy summers there. Glavine says she'd stay in Little Bay Islands all year, but the couple live about 90 minutes away in Springdale so their young son can attend school.

They hope to return in future summers, though there are logistics to work out, including purchasing a boat and outfitting the house to run off-grid.

Grimes, who grew up in Little Bay Islands playing sports, attending school and later working side-by-side with his grandmother at the plant, says the process hurts, but he doesn't think relocation will be the end of his hometown.

"There's always going to be people who want to come back," he says.

The community of Little Bay Islands, N.L., on Nov. 14, with just weeks left before resettlement. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)

Community resettlement programs carry heavy baggage in Newfoundland and Labrador. The practice peaked in the 1950s and '60s, when more than 150 villages emptied out as people left the only homes they'd ever known for larger centres.

The province has since opted for a gentler term, "relocation," to describe the current policy. A town asks the government to calculate if it would cost more to keep services running or to pay homeowners to leave. If the math works out in favour of relocation, a vote decides whether the process will go ahead.

Little Bay Islands will be the eighth community to relocate since 2000, but its story has attracted national and international media attention because for years, residents couldn't agree on whether to stay or go. A 2016 vote fell just shy of the required 90 per cent consensus, with some complaining at the time that residents were being "held hostage" by a few dissenters.

Years went by and people continued to leave Little Bay Islands. Yolande Pottie-Sherman, a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland who has studied the relocation program, says the policy's slow, uncertain nature has a degrading effect on morale, as people lose interest in community groups and it becomes harder to sell property.

In February, 100 per cent of the town's remaining permanent residents voted to relocate.

A for sale sign is shown in the community of Little Bay Islands, N.L. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)

But unlike in previous cases, the people of Little Bay Islands will retain ownership of their properties. Municipal Affairs Minister Derrick Bragg says it's a fair alternative to the government assuming liability for dozens of empty homes and other infrastructure.

"I don't know how we would dispose of it, to be honest," Bragg said in an interview. "If people want to use that as a summer cottage or the seasonal retreat, why not let them use it?"

'We're sad about all this'
Throughout the town, window signs now declare "private property," warning would-be looters that owners are planning a return. People are boarding up windows and doors and assembling wharves by waterfront properties to accommodate small boats.

But not everyone is packing up.

Mike and Georgina Parsons have become Little Bay Islands' most famous residents through their Facebook blog, where they write about their decision to live in the town year-round. Mike, 53, says it's been a lifelong dream to live somewhere he can unplug and be close to nature. As it turned out, the opportunity came to him.

Mike Parsons stands on his dock at Little Bay Islands, N.L., on Nov. 15, 2019. Parsons doesn't plan on leaving the community, and will live there, off the grid, with his wife. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)

"It's kind of bittersweet," he says. "We're sad about all this, but we're also kind of excited about this next phase for us, being here, living off the grid."

The Parsons are installing a solar panel and have wireless internet set up so Georgina can continue her accounting work. Nearby towns are a boat trip away if they need to make a run for supplies or visit friends. Otherwise, Mike says, "All of the things that we love to do, we can do from here."

The couple's isolation may be short-lived. NL Off-Grid Solutions, a power systems company, says seven households in Little Bay Islands have started installing solar panels, and more have expressed interest.

Former town councillor Dennis Budgell, who initiated the resettlement talks, looks out of his window at home in Little Bay Islands, N.L. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)

Dennis Budgell, a former town councillor who first raised the idea of relocation, acknowledges he's taken criticism from neighbours over his role in the saga. He hasn't been fazed by the harsh words, but he has some regrets as he faces the looming reality of leaving home.

"In hindsight, I think I wouldn't have done it," Budgell said from his house overlooking the town harbour. "You're leaving behind everything you've ever done."

The resident of 48 years is dreading his December move to Springdale but swears he'll be back for the summer to enjoy the solitude and proximity to water.

Budgell doesn't have any major plans for his relocation cheque. He'll leave most to his daughter and grandson, he says, but he's set aside enough to make his way back to Little Bay Islands.

"The only thing I took was enough money to buy a speedboat," he said.

Carol Hull holds a feral kitten she rescued, at her home in Little Bay Islands, N.L. Cat lovers across Atlantic Canada fighting for the future of wandering feral cats in a soon-to-be empty town as Newfoundland and Labrador's government proposed euthanizing the animals. (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press)

 

[今剩叹]

人少了，就可以开发旅游啊！

 

[ccc]

得备多个液化气罐。

 

[那年以后]

渔业应该很有钱途啊？咋就破产了？

 

[冰中取火]

Houses are for sale over there!

觉得关键的是如果没了各种市政之类的基础服务，比如垃圾处理，化粪池处理等等，就基本没法在那待了。