What's happening in the area has been decades in the making
Andrew Waterman Kicker
John Norman is a hard man to keep up with.
Calls from the Bonavista town hall, and several construction sites - all at different stages of development - mean his phone is never far from his ear, and his feet are in near-constant motion.
But for all the new businesses popping up in this eastern Newfoundland town and the people moving there to run them, Statistics Canada still records a five per cent drop in the population between 2011 and 2016.
While that’s a population decline of only a couple hundred people, Norman, who was elected mayor of Bonavista in 2017, says it's the difference between having essential services and not.
"It's incredibly important," Norman says.
"That's how most government services are eroded in rural Newfoundland. If they see steady population declines, . . . there goes this, there goes that.”
"If you lose those types of core services and you don't have 24-hour care (or) an acute wing in your hospital, . . . that diminishes the potential to recruit young families or retirees to the community."
Sensing the Statistics Canada numbers were betraying what they were watching unfold in front of their eyes, the town began collecting its own data.
By updating the voter list, adding that number to school enrollment, and accounting for the zero to four age group, town staff say the population is 3,602.
Statistics Canada records 3448 – a difference of 154 people.
"Most of the people that have been opening up businesses the past few years here are not from the community," Norman says. "Many of them are young . . . They're moving in with children or they're having children once they arrive.
"That's really encouraging, to see young families move into a community."
Among those who moved to the area in recent years are Katie and Shane Hayes, who now have three children. While they live a short drive from Bonavista in Upper Amherst Cove, their restaurant -the Bonavista Social Club - is part of the "entrepreneurial ecosystem" that Norman credits with fostering economic growth in the area.
Shane is originally from Ireland, but for Katie, this is a return home. Upper Amherst Cover is where she spent most of her childhood, next to the sound of the ebb and flow of the Atlantic Ocean smacking against solid rock – its slanted face many millennia in the making.
This is where she learned to live off the land, raising animals and growing vegetables, traditions she shares with her children and the community.
Katie didn't think she would return after leaving to become a chef. Despite people thinking she was crazy for wanting to open a restaurant in a community with an aging population, she set up shop in 2012 and hasn't looked back since.
But whether this trend will continue requires careful consideration, foresight and hard work, Katie says.
"Every second person asks me when (we are) going to expand," said Katie. "That's not feasible.”
"Coming in, setting up these businesses - this is all a lifestyle. If you're coming out to get rich - that's not what's going to happen."
Having the ability to carve out a small part of the world to raise a family is all part of the payment for the Hayes.
Upper Amherst Cove is not getting any younger, Katie says. She does, however, agree with Norman that the Bonavista Peninsula's population, as a whole, is growing.
"It's changing rapidly," said Katie.
For the Bonavista Social Club, Katie says one of the most important elements is keeping the local population’s interests in mind.
Norman agrees with Katie, but believes sustaining economic growth in the long run will also require the exporting of locally made products, which will inject money from abroad.
Exporting is something Peter Burt and his wife and business partner, Robin Crane, are focused on.
"We sell direct off our website anywhere anyone wants it," Burt says.
"We've shipped to Hungary, we've shipped to the UK, we've shipped all over the US, Australia . . . It's pretty amazing."
In 2011, after 24 years working as a professional chef in kitchens all across the world, Burt returned home to Newfoundland and Labrador to work at Raymonds, an award winning and world-renowned restaurant in St. John’s.
Despite Burt’s extensive knowledge in high-end cuisine, his focus became trained on one of the simplest and smallest ingredients there is. An ingredient so widely used, it's considered a given in every dish, has a permanent home on most tables and one that just happens to surround the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador - salt.
Bonavista didn't immediately come to Burt's mind when he was thinking about opening the Newfoundland Salt Company. He simply needed to be in an area close to a clean water supply.
"I didn't spend a night (in Bonavista) until I moved here," Burt says. "But locals are very welcoming once you spend a year here."
Some in the community expected him to leave once the winter months came and the tourism swell began to deflate.
"Come October, (locals) were like, 'I suppose you're going home, back to town.' I said, 'No, no, I moved here.'
"And then they learned my name."
Bonavista is an exception in an otherwise declining rural Newfoundland. That achievement didn’t come about by chance but rather because of decades of foresight and investment.
"There's a lot of behind-the-scenes work," Burt says. "It didn't just happen overnight."
Norman had a front-row seat as a kid growing up in the area.
"As the economy began to change in Bonavista, especially in the late eighties and early nineties, . . . there was a real worry about loss of community vitality," Norman said.
"The town council at the time, town management, as well as not-for-profits were really keen on trying to prevent greater loss."
The town resolved to stop the demolition of heritage buildings and to focus on how to make Bonavista a great place to live, which they believed, in turn, would make the area a great destination to visit.
And it would appear they were right.
In 2012, the town estimated, 25,000 to 30,000 people visited the area. By 2018, that number had risen to between 65,000 and 70,000.
"We have a wonderful problem now, especially seasonally," Norman said. "(We) have traffic issues, we have parking issues, we have limited real estate available."
He says there's not enough space at the moment for all the businesses looking to move to the area.
With regard to how many tourists the town can manage, Norman says by 2020 or 2021, 80,000 a year would be a comfortable number.
"If we were to get to 90,000 - 100,000 visitors, I don't know how manageable that would be without major investment," Norman said.
"If residents become completely inundated with what would become a solely tourism-based community, it creates its own problems."
The town has to weigh what's good for tourism against what's good for the community and meet in the middle, Norman says.
"It's kind of a double-edged sword. . . We approach it very carefully."
Norman stresses the importance of avoiding a boom-or-bust economy in the long run.
"Yes, tourism is a great industry, but it cannot be the be-all and end-all," Norman said.
For a few years now, Norman has been travelling to other municipalities across Canada - and in some parts of the U.S. - to share how the community developed its plan and saw it through.
"In the late nineties, Bonavista was nearly broke," Norman said. "There were discussions of what streetlights we were going to keep on."
Between 1999 and 2003, Bonavista Town Council and the Bonavista Heritage Foundation devised a master plan, which laid the ground for how to revitalize the community.
At the time, people were worried about jobs, having to leave their homes behind and the loss of government services, Norman says. "We are still implementing that plan," Norman said. "We're on Phase 5 now.”
Yet, despite their economic struggles, the town decided to raise taxes, hike water-and-sewer sewer fees and invest in the town's heritage buildings.
"Some communities like to think they need to do major initiatives, major pieces of infrastructure to create success,” Norman says. “I suggest they stay away from that."
Instead, he suggests communities that are looking to revitalize need to look first at any existing assets they already have.
By approaching it this way, Norman believes a community might be able to spend the least amount of money to get them the farthest distance.