Built circa 1940, Indian Cove School is a one-storey building with a low-pitched roof. It is located in the resettled community of Indian Cove on Great Caribou Island, Labrador, NL. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.
Formal Recognition Type
Registered Heritage Structure
Heritage Value
Indian Cove School was designated a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2023 due to its aesthetic, historic, and cultural value.
Indian Cove School has aesthetic value as its design and construction provide an example of how many schools were built during the twentieth century in small outport communities. This simple, rectangular-shaped, one-room design – featuring a low-pitched roof, small porch, and multiple 6/6 window openings – is an example of a trend in school construction that lasted well into the twentieth century. Given its construction date, it is possible that the windows were recycled from an earlier building, as the 6/6 style was more common decades before.
Indian Cove School has historic and cultural value for its continued use as a community space. In 1942, an issue of The Diocesan Magazine (published by the Literature Committee of the Anglican Diocesan Synod of Newfoundland) reported on the Anglican bishop’s trip to Labrador, noting that the community of Indian Cove had built a new school two years previous. In addition to its function as a schoolhouse, it was also used for religious services. Although no longer permanently settled, seasonal residents and visitors continue to maintain and use Indian Cove School, including recently for baptisms, weddings, and funerals.
Schooling along this section of the Labrador coast was historically sporadic, due to the seasonal nature of settlement and of the local economy. For generations Indian Cove had a permanent population of residents of settler and Indigenous ancestry, but it was also a community that saw influxes of seasonal workers during the fishing season. The Journal of the Legislative Council of the Island of Newfoundland from 1884 reports that a school was open during the winter in Indian Cove. The Journal of 1885 suggests that the school was in the upper storey of a fishing store and that it was staffed by an uncertified teacher. An 1890 report in The Diocesan Magazine notes a “small School-chapel” at Indian Cove. A photo from 1893 shows a schoolhouse in the community, with the note that it “had no master the last 6 [years].” The census of 1901 shows one child of school age and that they didn’t attend school. Ten years later, in 1911, the census records Indian Cove as not having a church or school building.
By 1917, the International Grenfell Association (IGA) was sending teachers to communities along this stretch of the Labrador coast to hold summer schools. An article by Ethel Gordon Muir in the October 1917 issue of Among the Deep Sea Fishers details ten weeks she spent in Indian Cove the previous summer. She noted that “The people of Indian Cove have had very little opportunity for education” and that “Some of the children have, however, made wonderful progress this summer.” An article from the April 1963 issue of Among the Deep Sea Fishers, referring to the summer schools, noted that parents along the coast didn’t want to send their children away to other communities in the winter to attend schools and that “anyway, there wasn’t enough accommodation for them at [the IGA] St. Anthony Orphanage.” An image taken in 1920 shows a building in Indian Cove described as “IGA school,” suggesting that either the Grenfell Association built it or was using it. The census of 1921 records an Anglican church at Indian Cove but no school building. It is possible that the “IGA school” was in fact a chapel used as a schoolroom. In 1922, another IGA teacher, Margaret B. Woodford, described how she had spent fourteen weeks the past two summers at Indian Cove, and that another teacher had been there three summers before that. These summer schools continued into the 1930s. Census figures from the 1930s and 1940s, show about a dozen children of school age at Indian Cove, but the regularity of school operations is unknown.
In the 1950s and 1960s, several students from Indian Cove were education bursary winners. These bursaries covered the cost of intermediate and secondary students attending school in larger communities. Some of the winners were attending schools in Cape St. Charles, Battle Harbour, and St. Anthony. At the same time, the Anglican school board was running advertisements in provincial papers looking for teachers along the southern Labrador coast, including Indian Harbour. In the podcast “Put the kettle on” from 2021, former Indian Cove resident Dave Bradley recounts his memory of schooling in the 1960s. While his family lived in Indian Cove year-round, he noted that many residents moved to Mary’s Harbour for the winter months. He couldn’t remember a full-time teacher being in Indian Cove when he was school aged. He recalled residents paying teachers to come to the community for a few months, school being held in his grandfather’s living room one year, completing grade 5 correspondence courses in a house in neighbouring White Point, and his family being the only year-round residents of Indian Cove the year he was in grade 6. He noted that students above grade 8 went to St. Anthony to attend school. They stayed in the orphanage all year, except for a visit home at Christmas.
A report from the late 1960s confirms that schooling was not available year-round in Indian Cove at this time. As recorded during the 1968-69 school year, “Indian Cove has an Anglican school with one room, one teacher, and 20 students. The school is in session from September 1st. to October 1st. and from May 15th. To the end of the school term in June. During the rest of the year the teacher and students are housed in the Mary’s Harbour school. Difficulties are being experienced in the recruitment of teachers. Highest grade being taught during 1968-69: VIII.”
By the 1970s, most year-round residents of Indian Cove had moved to Mary’s Harbour, with some still returning in the summer to fish commercially. Many former residents kept up their homes in Indian Cove, using them as seasonal residences. They also continued to maintain Indian Cove School, a building that had been used as a school, chapel, and community gathering place. The descendants of Indian Cove residents continue to take care of this little building, a testament to the value it holds for present and past generations.
Source: Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador property file “Indian Cove – Indian Cove School – FPT NL-5356”
Character Defining Elements
All those elements that encompass the age, style, and original construction of the building, including:
-number of storeys;
-size, style and placement of porch on right façade;
-low pitch roof;
-narrow wooden clapboard;
-wooden corner boards;
-size, style, trim and placement of wooden 6/6 windows;
-size, style, trim and placement of exterior doors;
-dimension, location and orientation of building.
Google map
