The Story of Labrador

The world's richest nickel mine at Voisey's Bay is just the latest important natural resource discovery in Labrador's history. Nine thousand years ago, in the same Voisey's Bay, the aboriginal peoples found and traded an equally choice stone, Ramah chert. The Story of Labrador is the story of the Innu caribou hunters, of the Inuit people of the seal, of French fishermen and Basque whalers, of traders, of absentee governors, and of the fight for life in a harshly beautiful land. It is the story of the coming of the industrial machine and the great air base at Goose Bay. It is the story of great Canadian construction projects: the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway, the rich iron ore operations at Labrador City and Wabush, and, in its time the largest hydro project in the world, Churchill Falls. Bill Rompkey describes an emerging giant of the near north with all its racial, geographical, political, and social history. Using original research, including personal interviews, and his forty-year association with Labrador, Rompkey tells the story of Labrador's people, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike. Above all, The Story of Labrador is the story of Newfoundland and Labrador, two uneasy stepsisters, each with its own strong identity, trying to share a common house.