The Present Status of Brunette Island

Presently, there is only one house left standing on Brunette and it is not in good repair. The only other building on the island has been constructed by wildlife officals. It seems that the people vacated the island and the houses were devastated by vandals.

Some were later torn down, some were burnt and others simply collapsed.

The population steadily declined after 1950 and by 1965 all the people had left and resettled, mainly on the Burin Peninsula and along the coast of Fortune Bay.   The year 1935 also marks the name change of the community from Brunette to Mercer's Cove, which it remained until resettlement had been completed.  Some years earlier, across the beach northeast of Mercer's Cove, a second community, named Forward's Cove, made its appearance. Only three or four families ever lived there, and by 1950 it had totally disappeared.

Brunette was a fishing community from the beginning. The men there were mainly inshore fishermen, catching great quantities of cod fish and some salmon, herring and lobster. However, some of the men would ship out to a larger centre such as Grand Bank, Fortune, or harbour breton and sign on to a banking schooner from April to October.   Moreover, for a ten year period (1865-1975) there were up to four vessels from Brunette itself directly involved in the bank fishery. Of the inshore fish, the cod were dried on flakes, the herring and salmon were pickled and barrelled, and the lobster were canned. This was then bought by fish merchants through their agents and collected by them in the fall.

A great deal of garden farming was also done. This consisted chiefly of back yard plots of potaotoes, trunips, and cabbages, and larger gardens of hay.

The hay was cultivated as winter feed for the few cows that most families had.  The majority had chicken and ducks with some families also having some sheep or even a horse.

The population was ninety-five percent Church of England with one or tweo Roman Catholic families living there form time to time. The school records date back to 1855 and there was at least one teacher there from that time on. The Church of England congregation was consecrated in 1853 and met in the school building until a church was built in 1910's. The church was torn down in the early 1970's after it was learned that smugglers had been using the deserted building to hide their contraband liquor.

In 1981, there were no longer any people living in this once prosperous fishing community. They left becasue of isolation, the lack of teachers and medical personnel, and poor access to the mainland. 

In 1964 an experimental attempt to introduce bison to Newfoundland was made, using Brunette Island as a test site. Although this attempt did not prove to be overly successful, a few of the animals still remain on the island. Since this experment was conducted, wildlife biologists have continued to use Brunette as a site for wildlife observation  and breeding ground for bison, arctic hare, caribou, ptarmigan, and moose. Except for the bison all of the animal studies and experiments attempted on Brunette Island have been very successful.