Edge of the Earth – Fogo Island

In Joe Batt’s Arm, on an island off the Newfoundland coast, you’ll encounter luxury with purpose

Fogo Island is found at the end of the world, a place where icebergs are drawn to the rocky shore and weather patterns follow no laws. Seemingly forgotten by time, here history lives. Not only because it brings the island’s residents together, united by pride and a common heritage, but because it has given rise to something spectacular. Fogo Island Inn is a hideaway with heart, the artful creation catalysed by Zita Cobb and her mighty Shorefast Foundation.

To understand Fogo Island Inn you must first understand the island. “[Our place] in the Labrador Current made us cod fishing people, and our centuries-old history as cod fishing people has created a completely singular culture. You can still detect the influences of our Irish and English roots, but Fogo Islanders are quite specifically Fogo Islanders. We have managed in the present to maintain a beautiful relationship with the past that informs how we see our future.”

Fogo Island was built on fishing and for generations the region’s Atlantic cod proved bountiful. But then came the factory freezers and commercial trawlers of the 1960s, which had a devastating effect. Those who had known fishing all their lives could no longer support themselves. They were inshore fishermen, only capable of travelling short distances, and for them the cod simply weren’t there. In response to the inevitable drop in population, the National Film Board of Canada visited Fogo Island as part of their ‘Challenge for Change’ project. They were there to document the island way of life, showcasing what would be lost should it disappear. The 27 resulting films, known as The Fogo Process, encouraged dialogue between the island’s communities, who did not have a history of collaboration In turn, solutions were found, such as the building of larger boats that saw fishermen travel further out to sea in search of new species. However, by 1992 cod fishing, even in deeper waters, was no longer a viable industry and the island once again found itself in decline.

Cobb left Fogo Island after finishing high school and went on to forge a career in the high technology sector, yet every time she returned to the island it felt less and less like home. “So many people had moved away after the collapse of the cod fishery and the moratorium in 1992. The population of my youth was around 6,000 but by the time I retired it had fallen to just over 2,000. When I retired in 2001 I wanted to do something for [my] home and I was fortunate to find myself in a position to do so. With the help of two of my brothers, Tony and Alan, we started Shorefast Foundation to help find a way for Fogo Islanders to hold on to home. And if you could choose anywhere in the world to live, who wouldn’t choose Fogo Island?”

Shorefast Foundation is a charity designed to encourage local enterprise, secure an economic and cultural future for Fogo Island and find meaningful ways to carry the past into the future. And for Cobb its creation was vital. “(Myself; Tony and Alan] are all eighth generation Fogo Islanders and we all have a sense of duty to do our share, in our lives, to make sure that home stays home . There is an inherent and irreplaceable value in small places that we can’t afford to lose” It is Shorefast Foundation that operates Fogo Island Inn, yet no-one could question Cobb’s title as innkeeper. This is her project, and the love she has poured into it, and the island, is astounding.

Everything about the 29 room Fogo Island Inn, a contemporary celebration of light and the sea, pays homage to the island. Built almost entirely from wood and standing upon stilts, which protect the rocky ecosystem below, it conjures images of the island’s ubiquitous fishing stages. Internally, while white may be the shade du jour; vibrant flourishes abound, whether they be the wallpaper, armchairs or quilts you long to spirit away. The neighbouring Winds and Waves Artisans’ Guild is responsible for most of the Inn’s soft furnishings, while nearly all the furniture, save for a few’ antique treasures, is made on the island. The custom-designed wallpaper, which is different in every room, is a detail borrowed from Fogo Island’s original saltbox houses where wallpaper was pasted upon wallpaper for added insulation. And then there are the dining room’s rope chandeliers, created by Dutch designer Frank Tjepkema. Reminding you of Newfoundland’s wildflowers and fishing nets, they ensure your attention remains on the room itself, with its floor to ceiling windows and nature-inspired crockery, upon which appear the culinary wonders of chef Murray McDonald.

Food here is art in its own right, with creative combinations of fresh and foraged ingredients accompanied by live music, be it a guitar or the iconic Fogo Island accordion. There is a nuanced complexity to dishes, a subtle wildness. Fragrant goat is matched with crisp vegetables, plump scallops melt like butter and ‘the bounty of the sea’ – a plate of rich seafood – is garnished to look like the setting sun. My meal began with a visit from Make and Break, the Inn’s two Newfoundland dogs (bred in days gone by to pull children and supplies through the snow’), and concluded with coffee as I watched the surrounding fog begin to lift, headland after headland becoming clearer as the water glowed blue. A similar view can be savoured from the rooms over a morning breakfast basket. Watching rolling waves from beneath a Fogo Island quilt while devouring freshly-baked bread is a luxury easy to embrace.

But this is far from the Inn’s only delight. You’ll find a rooftop sauna and hot tub, which are best enjoyed as the last rays break through the evening mist and a golden light washes over Joe Batt’s Arm, as well as a cinema and sitting nooks. There’s also a roaring fire where you can enjoy a cocktail (like the deliciously potent Fisherman’s Friend) garnished with a 10,000-year-old slice of iceberg I’d arrived in June, the very end of iceberg season, when these massive formations, that had broken away from the glaciers of Greenland, reached the shores of Newfoundland to meet their poetic demise

The Fogo Island Inn design is the work of architect Todd Saunders. “When we hired [Todd] he was coming off the success of the Aurland Lookout in Norway and other European projects,” explains Cobb. “I knew that, as a Newfoundlander, Todd would feel the same sense of responsibility that we felt to get this project right. Todd himself has said that he knew his ancestors were watching him.” Saunders also created the four artist studios dotted around the island. Built for Fogo Island Arts, a Shorefast Foundation project established in 2008, these self-sustaining studios are used as artists’ workspaces during residencies that last for periods of three weeks to six months. The Tower Studio, a geometric black and white structure that seems to rise from the earth, glows against the lichen-covered rocks, while the Squish Studio, which translates to ‘out of shape’, overlooks the sea, a mass of blue icebergs and swirling grey water the afternoon I visited. You could be creative here, surrounded by a landscape that appears weathered but not rough, as if it has been caressed by the elements and softened around the edges. This feeling is amplified when the clouds descend and the line between sea and sky begins to disappear.

In this place of artists, retreats and beauty, everything links back to community. Art here is seen as a way of questioning our place in the rapidly changing world, while the Inn remains a community-owned asset, a means of bolstering the Fogo Island economy. “Of course community involvement is axiomatic,” says Cobb. “We approached the design of the Inn as an opportunity to put our ways of knowing into it, and we brought the community together to do this.” From the moment you arrive you’re encouraged to immerse yourself in the island, thanks largely to an island orientation programme where a local host shares their story as you travel through the 11 surrounding townships.

And after an island orientation you do feel connected. You understand that Foley’s Shed in Tilting is where you’’’ always find someone playing a guitar, realise that distance is given in terms of ‘time spoilt’ and learn that Brimstone Head is considered to be one of the four corners of the earth – or so the Flat Earth Society would have you believe. You discover that, come winter, the pack ice freezes kilometres out and on dear nights you can pluck stars from the sky. This is where history has been unforgiving, the natural world is ever-present and the desire to survive in the most respectful, creative way possible has produced magic. Fogo Island Inn is a rare treasure, a place you’re honoured to experience and sure to remember.