Roddickton

Roddickton is a logging community in Canada Bay on the east coast of the Great Northern Peninsula. Originally known as Eastern Brook, the area was frequented for salmon fishing, hunting and trapping by residents of Englee and other headland fishing communities from an early date.

In 1905 the Grenfell Mission sent men from St. Anthony and Hare Bay to Eastern Brook to build a schooner for the Mission. In 1906 the Mission began a sawmilling operation on the site, which was named Roddickton after Newfoundland-born doctor Sir Thomas G. Roddick, a supporter of the Mission. The first settlers, then, were people hired by the Mission from Englee and Wild Cove to be mill hands and loggers. Grenfell also had land cleared, with the intention of growing crops for the St. Anthony hospital. Roddickton had a population of 46 by 1911. By 1921, however, there were only eight people. The next year the mill was closed and the settlement was all but abandoned.

Four years later, however,
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