Breathing new life into a remote Canadian fishing community

Fogo Island, a secluded jewel off the coast of Canada, lies in the northeastern corner of northeastern Newfoundland and Labrador at the fingertips of the continent. Floating. The place could be ridiculously gorgeous. But it was not immune to the fate that befell so many small, isolated communities in North America. Its only industry declined rapidly, and so did its population. Then, about ten years ago, a local had just returned home and made a fortune in his tech sector. Her pockets were deep. So did her desire to lift the place and bring people back. So she started a kind of economic experiment. As we first reported last fall, we took her two planes, a long drive and a ferry to get to Fogo Island and see early results.

The saying here is: They will be the ones you want to come home to. And this adage comes alive on Fogo Island, her 90-square-mile patchwork of ten small fishing villages. The clapboard house has jellybean colors clinging to her 400 million year old rock. Among its quirks, Newfoundland has its own time zone, half an hour ahead of the mainland. But as you wander through the villages of Fogo Island, you might as well turn your watch back to her 18th century.

Back then, what was needed to survive here Called patches and punts, which were only hogs or potatoes - small wooden fishing boats used to track North Atlantic cod, the species that once floated this place.  

All structures on the island appear to have been built to catch and store fish. There is one gleaming exception. $40 million luxury inn. Part of a destination on the edge of the earth, part of an economic engine on stilts, this inn is the brainchild of 8th generation Fogo Islander Gita Cobb. And when she first came up with her idea, her locals gave her a weird look. 

John Wertheim: What kind of response did you get?

Zita Cobb: "Why are you here?" We love this place, but it wasn't obvious that there are nicer places in the world where people go. Our assumption is that everyone wants to go somewhere warm. (laughter)

John Wertheim:  Someone suggested to us that it looked like a ship.

Gita Cobb: The building of the inn -- obviously a lot of talk. Think of it as a metaphor. Both here and far away. It's about the future and the past.

A great past looms over Fogo Island. To fully understand the ryokan, you need to understand Fogo's history, even as a metaphor.

John Wertheim: It's just that.

Zita Cobb passed through the dozens of small islands that dot the seas of Fogo, and Little She took us to a place called Fogo Island. Her ancestors landed here from Ireland and Southern England. They came for only one reason.

Zita Cobb: Fish, fish, and fish.

Jon Wertheim: When you say fish, do you take it for granted?

Zita Cobb: Of course. when yes When I say fish, I mean cod. 

Jon Wertheim: Is it possible to overstate the importance of cod to this place?

Zita Cobb: No. It is impossible. Because everything you need to know about anyone here can be learned just by studying that despicable fish. It's actually quite a noble fish.

John Wertheim: Noble Fish.

Zita Cobb: Asks for nothing, gives much. They are present in almost everything. I mean, I think cod can eat rubber boots if he wants.

Like Noble Fish, the family of Gita Cobb survived without fuss. 

They trusted Tara. Here families worked side by side, exchanging fish for goods. No bank account, no cash. Cobb's parents were illiterate. She and her six siblings grew up in a home without electricity. She said she had a happy childhood. until it isn't. 

John Wertheim: What's wrong?

Zita Cobb: The worst of the 20th century has quickly fallen upon us in the form of the industrialization of fishing. So these huge factory ships appeared here - along the coast of Newfoundland. And we fished day and night until almost every last fish was gone.

In this one small punt that sailed from one of her docks, Cobb's father was no match for the merchant ships that came to the North Atlantic from all over the world.

John Wertheim: How bad it is for him.

Zita Cobb: The thing is - he went out and brought nothing back. But one day in particular he returned with one fish. Then he brought the fish home and slammed it on the kitchen floor and said, And it was the next day that he set the boat on fire.

Jon Wertheim: He set his boat on fire.

Zita Cobb: He set the boat on fire. 

Jon Wertheim: Like a sacrifice.

Zita Cobb: Yes. he did it as a statement. He did it as an expression of pain and anger. 

When Lambert Cobb realized that big ships were turning fish into money, he made this sacrifice.

Zita Cobb: He said to his 10-year-old me, "Because if we don't, we'll eat all the things we love."

He was not wrong. As fish stocks dwindled, so did the island's population, from 5,000 to 2,500 he. The Cobb family reluctantly left for the mainland in his 1970s. Zita Cobb's father died shortly thereafter. But she heeded his advice. She earned a business degree, worked in fiber optics, landed in Silicon Valley, and eventually became America's third-highest-paid female executive. She cashed in tens of millions of dollars in stock her options in her early 40s, dropped out of her winner-take-all economy, and brought the business savvy home to her to revitalize Fogo Island. decided. Instead of writing her check, she asked a question.

Zita Cobb: What do we have and what do we know? And how can we propose that in a way that has dignity for Fogo Islanders, generates an economy and connects us to the world.

Spend a night at what the locals call a hut party and the answer will emerge.

Zita Cobb: If there's one thing we're really good at when it comes to the people in this place, it's hospitality. 

John Wertheim: What do you mean by hospitality?

Zita Cobb: Hospitality in its purest form is the love of strangers. We didn't see many strangers. As my mother used to say when they arrived, it's always better to see the light coming into the harbor than the light going out. 

I built a beacon. port. She made Fogo Island Inn the center of a charitable trust (called Shorefast) to reinvest her profits in the island. At $2,000 a night, the inn is profitable. But there were other considerations as well.

Jitacob: She intends to build a 29-room inn on an island that had no inn. what is the result? Well, more people will come. Now, how many more? As one woman said, "We are only 2,500. Only so many can be loved at once." It employs over 300 islanders. But the real payoff is the ripple effect.

First, all the furniture in the ryokan is locally made. 

Same with pillows and blankets. It just so happens that the women of Fogo Island have made it for their homes during her 400 years. 

Lillian Dwyer: They're here. I'm half done. 

announced. This quilt is for a customer in Baltimore. I joined Quilting Bee.

Lillian Dwyer: Watch out for him, Millicent.

But it didn't last long.

Jon Wertheim: Everything was very good except this one square of his.

Dwight Budden: This is our lettuce room…

Shorefast is also fundingnew businesses - so far he is $250,000.

Hayward Badden: And put the plants in. Correspondent John Wertheim

A $7,500 microloan went to Dwight Budden and his father Hayward. Hayward is a former fisherman who left Fogo Island when the industry collapsed. He is now back as a hydroponic farmer, growing vegetables for the inn.

Dwight Badden: Yes, there's kale.

John Wertheim: Does Hayward eat kale?

Hayward Budden: Not too many. (laughter)

Beyond kale, a new culture is taking root. Futuristic-looking studios now speckle the landscape. This is part of Shorefast's ambition to bring an artist-in-residence to Fogo. And back at the inn, the chef transforms the cod into haute cuisine. 

John Wertheim: If your father sees cod with magnolia oil and sea foam,

Gita Cobb: And porcini. 

John Wertheim: And Porcini--

Zita Cobb: Cini-- Yes. (laughter)

John Wertheim: What would he say?

Zita Cobb: Yes. First, he said, "Can you really eat it?"

You can do more than eat cod. You can fish again. Fogo fishermen are catching cod after decades of bans have been lifted. We adventured Fogo Harbor with Glenn and Jerry Best brothers . 

Glenn Best: You go east, your next destination is Ireland.

John Wertheim: Ireland.

Glenn Best: I'm not going today. (laughter)

The Best brothers showed us how to fish traditionally in Newfoundland. We hand fished 150 feet below, no rods, reels or nets.

John Wertheim: Now we're talking

Glenn Best: That's beautiful.

Cod arrived without much of a fight.

Glenn Best: Nice cod. That's probably a 20 pound fish. 

Tara has returned to the North Atlantic. Canada still imposes catch limits, but when Best gets down to business, they use an automated system to drop thousands of hooks into the water at a time. We watched them unload his 20,000-pound cod in one trip. 

Moreover, crustaceans have accomplished the unimaginable, dispossessed cod. Crabs and shrimp now make up 80% of Glenvest's business. And he's had the best year ever.

John Wertheim: You said you caught 400,000 pounds of snow crab. $7.60 per pound.

Glenn Best: Yeah, pretty good.

John Wertheim: $3 million.

Glenn Best: Total.

John Wertheim: Good.

Glenn Best: Well, it was a good year.

us. Best's three children have left Fogo to pursue other careers.

John Wertheim: Your family has been doing this for generations. You named this boat after your father. 

Glenn Best: Unfortunately, Jerry and I may be the last generation in our family to fish. When that day comes, it will be a sad day.  

Still, the population of Fogo Island remains stable. Expect to see a rise in the next census. Babies are the island's biggest celebrities. But, as always, with growth comes pain. 

He became one of the islands you must pray to get on the ferry. 

Jennifer Sexton spent the summer on Fogo Island visiting her grandparents. She recently moved here from western Canada to open this coffee her joint.

Jennifer Sexton: Everyone asks about the inn.

John Wertheim: What are you going to tell them?

Jennifer Sexton: Well, it's a blessing and a curse. 

Her regulars complain that not so long ago she could get a house for $25,000,000 — a Canadian. Housing is now 10 times more expensive than hers.

Jennifer Sexton: For someone from afar, it wouldn't be a big deal. But for someone here, it's a lot of money.

The woman who turned the tide, Zita Cobb, also says she doesn't want to grow up unchecked.

Zita Cobb: As the economy grows, it becomes a smaller share of the overall economy.

John Wertheim: A Rare Business He Wants Smaller Market Share. (laughs)

Zita Cobb: We want to reduce market share. exactly.

John Wertheim: You say that with a smile, but there's a lot of responsibility here.

Zita Cobb: Yes. So the results are huge. Because, as her brother says, yes our parents are coming out of the cemetery and if we screw this up they're going to strangle us.

John Wertheim: Capitalists will say why limit their growth.

Zita Cobb: It's a matter of techno-economy. But I'll start with another question. What are you optimizing for? We are optimizing the location. We are optimizing for our community.   

This community pillar has won. If Cobb's experiment helps diversify the economy, Glenn Best says he's all-in. 

Glenn Best: We are not overwhelmed by tourism. it doesn't work here. Those of us who aren't the Venice of Newfoundland haven't lost our patience with people yet. 

On our last night, at a hut party, we cleared Fogo Island. Its hospitality and contrasts on the table, cod and crab, young and old, warmth and wit. And the traditional song delivered with the handshake is a kind of hope softened by history. 

Zita Cobb: This disruption of the traditional way of life has been very painful. I think I still have those heartbreaks. When I think about it... the pain just doesn't go away. 

John Wertheim: To what extent has it been repaired by your work since your return?

Zita Cobb: Yeah, I think it's actually useful. You can heal a broken heart.

Produced by Natalie Sommer and Caylee Tully. Broadcasting Associate Elizabeth Germino. Edited by Peter M. Berman.