Cantwells' Way

Cantwells' Way examines the relationship between people, place and technology at the Cape Spear Lightstation in Newfoundland and Labrador. Lightkeepers and their families were often the vanguards of technological change in their communities. Modern lighthouses and fog alarms, for example, were products of the new understandings of light and sound that emerged from the Scientific Revolution. But lightkeepers and their families still engaged in, and relied on, traditional practices, such as gardening and berry picking, that were part of the informal economy of rural Newfoundland. Life at the Cape Spear Lightstation therefore reflected the underlying duality of Newfoundland society in the period.