Red Bay Basque Whaling Station

Nearly five centuries ago, one of the busiest industrial sites in the New World stood on the rocky shore of southern Labrador. Basque whalers from the Bay of Biscay in northern Spain and southwestern France began sailing across the Atlantic to the Strait of Belle Isle in the 1530s, and by the second half of the century Red Bay was the centre of a whaling industry of astonishing scale. Each summer, hundreds of men arrived in galleons, hunted bowhead and right whales from small boats called chalupas, and boiled the blubber in stone ovens on shore to render oil that lit the lamps of Europe. The Red Bay Basque Whaling Station is the archaeological record of that enterprise, and it was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.

The remains are unusually complete. On Saddle Island, in the harbour, archaeologists have found the foundations of the try-works, with scatters of red clay roof tiles that were brought from Spain to cover the ovens, as well as the cooperage where barrels were made and the graves of whalers who died here. Whale bones lie on the beaches, and under the water the wreck of the San Juan, a Basque galleon that sank in a storm in 1565, was found in the 1970s and studied by underwater archaeologists in one of the most extensive projects of its kind. Several chalupas were also discovered, and a restored example is displayed in the interpretation centre.

The centre in the village of Red Bay, run by Parks Canada, tells the story through displays of artifacts, bones, tools and a reconstruction of a whaling boat. Staff can arrange boat trips or ferry crossings to Saddle Island in the summer, where interpretive trails lead past the sites. The setting is stark and beautiful, with low spruce, black rock and a cold, clear sea, and icebergs sometimes pass offshore in early summer.

Red Bay lies on the Labrador Coastal Drive, Route 510, on the Strait of Belle Isle coast. This road joins the Trans-Labrador Highway, Route 500, to the north, and a ferry links the Newfoundland side of the strait with Blanc-Sablon in Quebec. The season runs through the summer months, so check with Parks Canada for dates, tours and access to Saddle Island.

Visitors come as history lovers, archaeology fans and travellers on a Labrador road trip.