The town that labour built

A visit to Port Union

BY DARCY RHYNO

We’ll be brothers all and free men, and we’ll rightify each wrong; We are coming, Mr. Coaker, and we’re forty thousand strong.

A century ago, the defiant and united voices of the the Fishermen’s Protective Union (FPU) sang that song. The Newfoundland workers’ institution, which Sir William Coaker founded and led, wasn’t quite “forty thousand strong” but it was formidable. When Coaker called a meeting to found the FPU on November 2, 1908, just 19 men attended. A year later, the union had grown to 50 local councils in communities around Newfoundland. Within six years, Coaker signed up 21,060 members, over half the fishermen on the island.

The FPU represented fishermen but did far more. It created the Fishermen’s Union Trading Company to compete with merchants who controlled the industry. In 1910, it founded a newspaper, The Fishermen’s Advocate, which published for the next 70 years. Then it built a town.

Inspired by the spirit of its founder and energized by its thousands of members, the FPU built piers, a fish processing plant, a seal plant, construction shops, workers’ housing, a power generating station, a warehouse, a train station, a fleet, and an international trading company. It even founded a soft drink company.

The former FPU union building, where The Fisherman’s Advocate was also produced. Today it houses a museum and interpretive centre.

Photo: Jodi Delong

The union built what we’d call today a “vertically integrated corporation”, one owned and operated by workers. To improve the lives of workers and their families — about 600 in all — and to live as self-sufficiently as possible, the union added a school, movie theatre, church, and hotel. The workers built and ran a busy international port town.

It all started when, at the age of 13, a feisty William Coaker took a part-time job at a local company. He soon saw the workers’ pay was abusively low. Gathering his co-workers, he called for a strike. Two days after the teenager-led uprising began, he and his co-workers won a raise.

The following year, Coaker left school to work full-time, taking on a diversity of jobs including postmaster, telegraph operator, and farmer. Within two years of taking a job with another local company, he moved up to branch store manager, eventually buying the store outright.

Sir William Coaker, a driving force for the community’s beginnings.

Photo: Wikipedia/Who’s Who in and from Newfoundland 1930, 2nd ed. (St.John’s, Newfoundland: R. Hibbs, 1930) 65.

Perhaps this range of work experience gave Coaker the confidence to build an entire town. In 1896, he learned another lesson, this one on the pitfalls of capitalism, when the 1896 economic crash known as the Panic bankrupted him. By 1908, when he called that first union meeting, Coaker was creating a different kind of economy.

Construction began in earnest on the union-built town in 1916. Within 10 years, Port Union was a major economic force, manifesting Coaker’s vision.

Port Union sits on the eastern edge of the Bonavista Peninsula, 92 kilometres northeast of Clarenville. Today, walking around the town recalls a heady period when workers were in charge of their own fortunes and futures. The core of the town is now designated the Port Union Historic District National Historic Site of Canada.

The best way to absorb the story is to explore the streets and read the interpretive panels. Clusters of union-built, wood-frame homes known as the Coaker houses — mostly duplexes, each painted a signature red — line a street and dot the rocky hillside.

Photo: Jodi DeLong

On the waterfront stands the original imposing factory building, now part of a museum. All of these buildings are examples of vernacular architecture or folk architecture: buildings designed by people who were/are not formally trained architects. Nearby is a green space, the Shipbuilders’ Park, and just out of town, the Catalina River hydroelectric station. Drop into the Port Union Historical Museum. Take a tour of the restored factory with woodworking machinery, plus much of the newspaper printing equipment. Old Issues of The Fishermen’s Advocate are also available to poke through.

Everything Coaker put his hand to seems unique and unparalleled, including, against all expectations, Port Union’s Anglican Church of Holy Martyrs. The name doesn’t refer to religious figures. Rather, Coaker built the church as a monument to honour the men known as the Coaker Recruits. During the First World War, he put out a call for 50 men to fight in Europe. Of the 103 who signed up, 68 passed the medical and headed overseas. The 10 stained glass windows in the church memorialize soldiers killed in the war.

Sir William Coaker became a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1923. He died relatively young after a series of strokes in 1938 at the age of 67. As Canadian heroes go, Coaker gets nowhere near the credit he deserves. Beyond the union-built town, his FPU lasted until 1977 and The Fisherman’s Advocate newspaper until 1980.

His influence reaches much further when we consider his positive influence on workers’ rights and even in the shaping of Canada as we know it today. Coaker mentored Joey Smallwood, the politician best known for bringing Newfoundland and Labrador into Canadian Confedera- tion in 1949. A visit to Coaker’s personal Port Union home, The Bungalow, and to the hilltop cemetery where a fenced, marble monument is topped by a bronze bust help bring the visitor closer to this important figure.

Union House Arts community art space.

Photo: Submitted by Union House Arts

Where stay and eat

Captain Blackmore’s Heritage Manor, rooms with breakfast included. captainblackmores.com coastalretreatsnl.com

Lodge’s Landing for several local home rentals.

Seaport Inn, Hotel and Restaurant. seaportinn.net

The Harbourside Inn and Café. facebook com/theharboursideinn

Things to see and do

Union House Arts for contemporary art. unionhousearts.ca

Wild Cove Pottery for original ceramics by Michael Flaherty. wildcovepottery.ca

Lodge Adventure Tours for kayaking, paddleboards, and boat tours. lodgeadventuretours.com