Standing on a narrow strip of shoreline just off the coast of Hare Bay, Newfoundland, it’s difficult to grasp just how much history lies beneath your feet.
This windswept peninsula, known simply as “The Beaches,” has been a place of human activity for more than 5,200 years. Maritime Archaic peoples, Dorset peoples, and eventually the Beothuk all lived here, leaving behind thousands of years of archaeological evidence.
But today, the site faces another chapter in its history, and it’s one that’s unfolding in real time. Storms, rising seas, and coastal erosion are steadily washing parts of The Beaches into the Atlantic Ocean.
Wanting to better understand what was at stake, I visited The Beaches with local guide and historian Duane Collins of Hare Bay Adventures, who has spent years sharing the story of this coastline.
What started as a tour of one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s most important archaeological sites quickly became a conversation about climate change, reconciliation, and what happens when an important piece of Canada’s history begins to disappear.
Ktaqmkuk, the Mi’kmaq name for the island of Newfoundland, is the traditional territory of the Beothuk and the Mi’kmaq.
Where is The Beaches Archaeological Site?
The Beaches is located in Hare Bay, on Newfoundland’s northeast coast, about 40 minutes east of Gander.
The site sits on a narrow strip of sand connecting two of Hare Bay’s islands. This distinctive landform is what gives The Beaches its name, with sandy shoreline on both sides.
When we visited, Duane explained to us that the landscape looked different a century ago. Originally, it was a long, vegetated spit stretched across the bay before a major storm breached it in the 1920s.
Today, there’s a small wharf, making it easy to arrive at The Beaches by boat (this is the only way to access the site), and there’s also picnic tables and an outhouse.
Because of this, I could have easily assumed The Beaches was simply a pleasant spot for a picnic or a walk along the shore, without realizing I was standing on one of the most important archaeological sites in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Getting there is part of the experience, because The Beaches is only accessible by boat.
Duane keeps his boat in a harbour in Dover, a town about 10 minutes from the Hare Bay Adventures gift shop. The day we went out was overcast and windy, so we knew it would be a choppy and rainy ride out to The Beaches.
My motto in when weather is unpredictable is that there is no bad weather, only bad clothes, and so I wore my long rain-jacket with water-proof shoes and lots of layers underneath to keep warm. And this did the trick, even when it did rain sideways for a good few minutes!
On the roughly 20-minute boat ride across Hare Bay we passed working fishing boats, small islands filled with seabirds, and we admired the beautiful views of Newfoundland’s coastline.
“The fishing boats go out every day, rain or shine,” Duane told us.
More Than 5,000 Years of Human History
The Beaches can look a bit unremarkable at first glance, but archaeologists consider the site one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s most significant Indigenous archaeological locations because there’s evidence of more than 5,000 years of continuous human occupation along this stretch of land.
Evidence shows the site was used by successive Indigenous cultures over thousands of years.
It was first occupied by the Maritime Archaic people beginning before 3000 BCE, later by the Dorset, a pre-Inuit culture, from around 500 BCE to 1500 CE, and finally by the Beothuk, who lived here from about 1500 CE until likely sometime in the 1700s.
When we arrived, we docked the boat along the wharf and then followed a short trail through the woods that brought us out on the spit of land known as The Beaches. Along the trail, Duane pointed out black bear and moose scat. Newfoundland and Labrador has a large bear moose population, he explained.
When we arrived on the beach, Duane brought us first to a wooded area and pointed toward a series of shallow depressions in the grass.
“These depressions are house pits,” he explained. These shallow circular depressions are the remains of Beothuk mamateeks, semi-subterranean winter homes.
The Beothuk built them by excavating a shallow pit, building a cone-shaped wooden frame inside, and then piling the removed earth and sod around the outside to help insulate the house during the cold winter months.
Archaeologists have uncovered 11 Beothuk house pits at The Beaches, dating to one of the final periods of Beothuk life, before European contact.
But the story of The Beaches actually extends much further back. “Every human story you can think of unfolded here,” Duane told me. “When the first Maritime Archaic people were living here, the pyramids hadn’t even been built yet.”
Hearing this really put the age of this place into perspective.
Thousands of years before Vikings, and eventually European settlers arrived in Newfoundland, generations of Indigenous peoples were already living, travelling, hunting, fishing, raising families, and thriving along this coast.
Why The Beaches Was Such an Important Place
I was curious to know why The Beaches were such an ideal place for people to settle. As it turns out, the location wasn’t chosen by accident.
“Well, why go out into deep water when you’ve got salmon, trout, herring, smelt, and eels coming right to your feet?” Duane pointed out.
The Beaches sits in a relatively sheltered bay, and with water access on either side, Indigenous Peoples had easy access to seafood without having to venture too far offshore.
It wasn’t just the fishing that made this an ideal place to live. Forests, sheltered waters, and stone perfect for making tools were all easily accessible.
Duane then pointed to dark pieces of rock scattered along the shoreline. The stone, called rhyolite, was quarried nearby to make tools, and even today, flakes continue to wash out of the eroding banks after storms.
I was amazed by how Duane could look down and quickly identify these pieces of rhyolite, which to me, would have looked just like any other stone.
At one point, he picked one up to show us, explaining that it was a rhyolite flake, the “debitage” (debris) from stone tool-making.
During the tool-making process, the maker would use another stone or an antler to strike the piece of rhyolite, shaping it into a tool. This flake of rhyolite Duane was holding would have come off during this process.
Understanding the Beothuk Peoples
Before visiting The Beaches, I had extremely limited knowledge about the Beothuk Peoples. I’d only ever heard a brief explanation in school, that they were the Indigenous people of Newfoundland who disappeared after European colonization.
But the story of the Beothuk People is actually more complex.
For thousands of years, the Beothuk lived throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, relying on rivers, forests, the ocean and coastline for food and survival.
As Europeans began settling in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Beothuk were gradually displaced from their traditional territories.
They were pushed into the Bay of Exploits and Newfoundland’s interior, cut off from vital coastal food sources, exposed to introduced diseases, and subjected to violence. By 1829, the Beothuk as a distinct people had been lost
Over time, their population declined as surviving families were pushed farther inland and became increasingly isolated. By the early 1800s, their population had shrunk drastically.
Shanawdithit, widely believed to be the last known Beothuk and whose drawings and stories have shaped much of what we know about her people, died of tuberculosis in St. John’s in 1829.
Duane explained that Shanawdithit’s death is widely recognized as marking the end of the Beothuk as a distinct culture.
But, oral histories suggest that some Beothuk survivors joined neighbouring Indigenous communities, including the Mi’kmaq and Innu, and recent genetic research has found that some ancient Beothuk genetic lineages appear in living people.
Climate Change Is Washing This History Away
The Beaches is the site of more than 5,000 years of human occupation. But today, evidence of that past is slowly being washed away. Duane explained that this Beothuk archaeological site is disappearing as rising sea levels and increasingly powerful storms erode the coastline.
As waves undercut the shoreline, sections of the bank collapse into the ocean, taking artifacts and the layers of soil archaeologists use to understand how people lived with them.
Once they’re washed away, much of that history is gone forever.
According to Duane, the coastline has receded by an estimated two to three metres over the past two decades. As we walked, he showed us the areas where the shoreline has visibly retreated during his lifetime.
“The ocean always wins,” he emphasized.
It wasn’t something I would’ve noticed on my own. But once he pointed it out, it was impossible to ignore how close the edge had crept toward parts of the archaeological site. We could clearly see that the trees closest to the shoreline would soon be taken by the ocean.
One big reason for that is the loss of winter sea ice. Historically, Hare Bay froze over every winter, and the thick ice acted like a natural barrier, protecting the shoreline from powerful winter storms.
“As recently as the 1990s, I’d walk across this bay on the ice,” Duane told me. But today, that rarely happens. Without that protective ice, storms crash directly into the shoreline, eating away at the banks year after year.
During one major January storm just two years ago, more than 100-year-old fishing stages nearby were destroyed after surviving generations of storms.
Duane described it as witnessing “the collision of climate change, sea level rise, and the loss of heritage all in one place.”
There isn’t enough funding to excavate and document every part of the site before it’s lost. Meanwhile, every major storm risks washing away more of it.
He told me that, in the spirit of reconciliation, we shouldn’t allow an Indigenous heritage site like this to simply wash away.
Because when those soil layers wash into the ocean, archaeologists lose the ability to understand how the site was used over thousands of years.
“Once they’re washed out, you lose the context,” Duane explained. “The relationships between the soil layers, the hearths, the houses, those stories are gone when this land is washed away.”
The Difficult Reality of Saving The Beaches
Saving The Beaches is complicated, and expensive.
Newfoundland and Labrador has thousands of kilometres of coastline and hundreds of archaeological sites, and many of them are facing this same threat.
There simply aren’t enough resources to protect or excavate every site before erosion reaches it.
Duane described the process of saving archaeological sites like The Beaches as “triage.” Archaeologists have to decide which sites need attention first and where limited time and funding can have the greatest impact.
I hadn’t really considered that archaeologists have to make these kinds of decisions. In a lot of cases, the goal isn’t to stop the erosion, because ultimately, you can’t stop nature. Instead, archaeologists hope to record as much as possible before the site is lost.
They have to carefully excavate, document, and preserve what they can, an approach known as preservation by record. Because, as Duane put it, “You don’t beat the ocean.”
We spent about an hour exploring The Beaches, with Duane stopping along the way to point out archaeological features, signs of erosion, and small details I never would have noticed on my own.
This is what made walking around the site with Duane so special. To an untrained eye like mine, it would be easy to miss the significance of this place. Duane helped me see the clues hidden in the landscape and provided the context to understand the stories these clues tell.
Planning Your Visit to The Beaches
Before visiting the site, the Beothuk Peoples were something I’d only briefly learned about in school. Spending an hour walking through one of their former communities made their story feel much more real than any textbook ever could.
I hope more people get the chance to visit The Beaches while they still can. It’s an important place to learn about Newfoundland’s Indigenous history, and one that’s changing with every passing year.
I also recommend pairing your visit with the Beothuk Interpretation Centre in Boyd’s Cove. The exhibits and archaeological site at this centre give you even more valuable context about the Beothuk people, making it easier to understand what you’re seeing at The Beaches.
There’s one last thing to note about visiting The Beaches with Duane. After your visit to The Beaches, you can head back to the Hare Bay Adventures gift shop and cafe! Duane’s wife Renee bakes delicious (nut-free!) goodies like scones, cakes, tarts. Enjoying a hot coffee and tasty treat is the perfect way to wrap up the trip.
You can book a day trip to The Beaches with Duane Collins through Hare Bay Adventures.
I want to thank Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism and Hare Bay Adventures for hosting Lucas and I as media. All opinions expressed are my own. If you enjoyed this blog, you’ll love my newsletter, as well as my Facebook group. You’re welcome to join these communities – would love to see you there!
