Red Bay supports research, knowledge dissemination and its touristic exploitation of its Rich Basque past. The Basques were an expeditionary pioneering nation in Europe, accessing and engaging in commerce and industry on the North American East Coast.
Red Bay, Canada will celebrate its “III Jaialdi Red Bay Basque Festival” on July 7-9, 2015 including a conference on its inhabitants in the 16th and 17th centuries. As the most important Basque whaling station at that time, which will be recreated for visitors to also include fishermen’s way of life coming from Biarritz, Baiona, Donibane Lohizune, Pasaia, Donostia, Orio or Bermeo nearly 500 years ago. There will be Basque gastronomic exhibits and the city will be brightened with Basque cultural exhibits.
Donostia-San Sebastian. This last summer, with the support of representatives from Unesco and the Ministers of the Canadian and Labrador-Newfoundland governments, at an event presided by Mayor Wanita Stone, three large plaques were hung in Basque, French and English to commemorate its designation by Unesco as a world heritage site. The Basque Government also awarded Selma Huxley Barkham with its “Lagun Onari” award as a result of her studies that have served as the basis for the continuous finds on these shores, according to Irekia.
Unesco declared the site “World Heritage Site” which multiplies the advocacy initiatives through the work of Parks Canada and the residents of Red Bay who island, Saddle, in the middle of the small bay, includes the cemetery for Basque fishermen who lived there for long periods of time while seeking whale and cod.
This is an informative example of the presence and contribution of Basque pioneers on the East Coast of America. Guillermo Zubiaga has also published a trilogy of comic books through the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno that also relates this Basque epic in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is entitled, Joanes the name of the main character who tells the story of this important European/American chapter in history.
The third edition of Jaialdi in Newfoundland is one of many initiatives that exist in the area, including Basque festivals every August on the French Archipelago of St. Pierre and Miquelon, to the contribution of what amounts to be an interpretation center of major Basque whaling in North America, the Basque Adventure Park, on the banks of the St. Lawrence river in Quebec.
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