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The Basques: History's First Industrial Fishery Mega-Corp (Pre-History)
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Ishmael


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I am here collecting together a number of posts made elsewhere that I plan to assemble into a grand unified theory.
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Ishmael


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Chad writes in Going Walk-About
Miquelon-Langlade - - North Atlantic (South of Newfoundland)



[Ed. image updated]


...and that looks pretty artificial to me.

It was apparently colonised by Basques... who, if you ask me, were responsible for far more than they are letting on (or indeed even realise.)
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Ishmael


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Chad adds:
That north-east coast does look uncannily familiar.

north-east coast
I highly recommend you all have a look at this map.
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Ishmael


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In the same thread, I reply:
SO I figured, if someone was in St. Pierre and building earthworks, they also would have been over on Newfoundland doing the same. It's not going to be isolated to those two small islands.

So have a look at these two harbor mouths. Maybe this is modern work but it don't look natural. These harbors look like someone has closed them off to seal them in from the North Atlantic yet allow boat traffic.

It is suspicious also that one is open from the south and the other from the north -- as though perhaps each was designed to be accessible when dangerous waves or ill winds might have closed off the other. But I'm not a sailor.
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Ishmael


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I follow up this post with these observations:
Look at the entire southwest coast.

Note that the entire network of apparent causeways terminates at Port-a-Basque!

I've driven through this area countless times.


I then go off for some time obsessing over what I am seeing and return to share my research:
What follows is a complete Stream of Consciousness investigation. I've gone round most of the island looking for weird formations. I come up with some thoughts along the way. Feel free to follow along with me but do not expect a coherent argument. Post your thoughts if you wish. I will shortly follow up with some notions I have.

============================

This is in the middle of nowhere!

(There's a lot of "nowhere" in Newfoundland)

A strange structure and two small closed harbors (also nowhere):

Has someone attempted to seal in this river mouth?

Now this massive network of formations is near Burgeo, a place with a long history in Newfoundland.

These are either all natural or all ancient -- because no one has been building roads in Burgeo. The place was inaccessible except by boat until the 1980s!

Perhaps these are all just inundated beaches. Probably. But something does seem a bit odd. They come in patches and do not cover the whole of the coast line.

Need to check out the rest of the world!

Four apparent breakwaters in a place called (Mick will like this) "Hermitage Bay":

Another causeway:

Now there's a whole network of them from Seal Cove all the way up to another place called "Hermitage"!

Extreme Closeup of the causeway south of Hermitage.

That is NOT natural. I don't think so. And I don't think it's modern. There's no fishing village inside the "harbor". Who would have motive to build a breakwater? There are some cabins there now and a couple of little light beacons on the spit but I don't think that's a modern structure. Jeeze I want to go investigate this stuff!

This is a modern causeway, of which there are MANY in Newfoundland.

Of course it is possible that the modern causeway is built over an older one....

Especially possible when we see something like this just to the southeast.

Zoom in and you will see there is no road. No houses. Nothing. This is middle of nowhere Newfoundland.

And both these causeways are found within the larger "Hermitage Bay", which is a triangle of water between Seal Cove, the Burin Peninsula and Saint Pierre (St. Paris?) and Miquelon.

All this Hermitage talk and I never knew Newfoundland to be a place of religious pilgrimage!

Another facinating breakwater of a variant design, just south of the last.

Now this is a thoroughly modern causeway, near the above breakwater. Note how very different it appears from the others we have seen:

But just to the south, the shore is lined with more of these breakwaters.

Also with more causeway features.

There are so many of these within the Hermitage Bay area I could not possibly link to them all! The entire coast is lined with them!

Look at these examples. There's simply nothing here. No roads. No houses. This is the deep wilderness.

Another fine example.

If these places are natural or unnatural, this formation might help explain them.

Another awesome example.

Also seen in Hermitage Bay is a lot of straight beach. Like this.

Modified landscape?

(I think maybe and I think I may know why)

Nice.

A place called Grande le Pierre.

Does Grande le Pierre mean perhaps "Big Pier"? A "Pier" being a long thin thing that juts out into the water?

And of course, Pier = Peter = Penis! (and Pharos, Phalus, Paris etc.)

Now right next door to "The Big Penis" is a place called Terrenceville, which I assume is pronounced "Terrence Ville".

But might this be a corruption of Terra Seville?

Are all of the formations, openings and causeways between Little Bat East and Jaques Fontaine modern or natural?

Is there a fountain or spring at Jaques Fontaine or does the name instead mean "Jack's Fissure" or "Jack's Fijord"?

Or Jack's Fortune?

Two more breakwaters near Jaques Fontaine:

Some cabins out on this one.

Another sealed harbor:

The modern village of Garnish (Garnet? or... forgive me... Gannesh?) appears to built on top of one of these things.

And just to the southwest is Frenchman's Cove.

Then it's Grande Beach, or "Big Beach", which is right next to one.

Followed by Grande Bank and the town of Fortune.

Fortune and Jaque's Fontaine? Related?

Grand Beach and Grand Bank? Related? Same place maybe with English and French/Spanish names?

Beach = Bank.

Remember that.

Who built the causeway to Allan's Island, next to Port a Gaul?

Mooring Cove and Spanish Room, next to a piece of land that looks pretty "fake" to me.

Something interesting in Placentia (placid?) Bay near Jude (Juda?) Island:

Great Bona.

More island causeways in Placentia Bay

Lots of examples from all over the island but it isn't everywhere on the Island. High concentration in Hermitage Bay, so it seems to me. I found just one or two examples in the whole of the north coast (I had to give up my systematic search as I was getting exhausted).

Fact is, the phenomenon is practically unknown to the North (which is what I was hoping to find).

If it's natural, it is selective.

We do start to see it again on the west coast.

This place, Point au Mal (which looks more like a "port" than a "point") is the best of the northwestern examples.

Then check out the old French village of Port a Port. Who built the causeway here, and when?

And what the hell is this?

A giant unfinished causeway??? That's what it looks like to me.

And look what's in the south-west: Lourdes. Who knew? (Lourdes is not far from Seville eh?).

Then the phenomenon disappears again until we round the point to the Port a Basque region.
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Ishmael


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Chad finds one then in Nova Scotia but the image link is now broken. I then return with this:
But do you think they are man made or natural?

If they are man made, I think I know what they are.

Here is a modern example, also found inside Hermitage Bay:
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Ishmael


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Chad now takes the words right out of my mouth:
You know... exactly the same thing crossed my mind!

If they are man made, fish farms would seem the most obvious use.
He immediately qualifies his assertion:
As you pointed out, most of these would only be accessible by boat. So unless we can figure out how they could be manufactured by relatively small groups of people, I think we have to come down on the side of Mother Nature.
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Mick Harper
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We found a lot of this sort of thing along the western European seaboard, including the Basque coast line. It is all itemised over on the Megalithic Empire forum. There is though an AE problem here: the more of them we find, the likelier they are to be natural. Because of official careful ignoral we just don't have objective benchmarks for natural vs artificial when it comes to the geomorphological scale.

The Basques are subject to another AE problem: nobody can study the Basques except the Basques because there isn't a specialist in the world who is going to learn Basque just to study the Basques. And, as you say, the Basques seem to apply careful ignoral to their own origin and history.

I am sure it is not relevant but St Pierre and Miquelon have twice figured significantly as world records:
1. The only bit of Canada that the Brits allowed the French to keep at the end of the Seven Years War
2. The only bits of Vichy territory that the Gaullists conquered on their own and which caused a near-irreparable breach between the Gaullists and the Americans with near-dire consequences later on.

These two islands sure as hell punch above their size.
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Ishmael


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I propose a theory and qualify the "fish farm" suggestion:
These causeways are not that hard to build. You just start at one side of the shore and start dumping rocks in the water. When the rocks are high enough, you walk out on top of them and dump more rocks. Repeat until to cross the harbour.

Seems simple enough.

And it's not fish *farms* I see (I thought the picture showed something else). I see traps. And probably traps for a specific kind of fish.


Quickly following this up with a link to an article and another interesting observation:
BBC Article: Ancient fish trap:

Looks very different from our proposed sites but if you watch the video you will hear this line....

"Back then, fish traps were usually owned by monasteries and abbeys".

HERMITAGE BAY has the highest concentration of these features!!!!
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
There is though an AE problem here: the more of them we find, the more likely they are to be natural.


I'm 100% convinced they are not natural. I'm trying to develop an argument for it.
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Ishmael


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Chad now returns with some information and an explanation of how the system worked---one that echoed my own vision.

Those modern structures are pens for raising young cod. (I've seen similar ones at Scottish salmon farms.)

NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA - Cooke Aquaculture has taken the first cod from its nursery to grow-out sites in Hermitage Bay.
For hundreds of years fish harvesters caught cod in Hermitage Bay. Many of them would be surprised to see cod being raised in the same bay they fished in all those years ago, reports The Coaster
.


But I think you're right about the ancient ones being traps rather than farms... leave a gap for migratory fish to enter the river, then close the door behind them.

I'm just a bit concerned about the amount of manpower needed to build the structures in the first place.

Chad then proposes that the traps were built to catch eels. A proposal to which I will make immediate objection.
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Mick Harper
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These causeways are not that hard to build. You just start at one side of the shore and start dumping rocks in the water. When the rocks are high enough, you walk out on top of them and dump more rocks. Repeat until to cross the harbour.

If you watch my Glastonbury lecture, a good example of this is La Motte (or Green Island) in Jersey though in that case it is a causeway to a (presumed) artificial island. Look for granite deposits!

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Ishmael


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I reply:
I am skeptical. Eel fishing has no traditional relationship to Newfoundland culture.

But there is a fish in Newfoundland more celebrated in cultural life and legend than any other. Moreover, "Big Beaches" (Grande Banks) are fundamental to the catching of this fish.

I follow this up with an anecdote:
The comedian Dennis Miller hosts a daily radio program.

He often tells the story of a fellow comedian's performance in a community "In Eastern Canada". Apparently, his friend was performing at a comedy club on the Canadian east coast. According to the story, in the middle of his act, someone ran into the club and shouted, "The cod fish are running!" and everyone in the club immediately jumped to their feet and ran for the doors leaving the comedian alone on stage.

Now as soon as I heard this story I knew the setting was Newfoundland. I also knew that the fish in question was not Cod.
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
a good example of this is La Motte (or Green Island) in Jersey though in that case it is a causeway to a (presumed) artificial island. Look for granite deposits!


Those beaches definitely look man-scaped.
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Duncan71


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I've never seen much of the east coast myself, being a prairie boy, but it would seems to me that many of these causeway-like structures can be found in other parts of the maritime provinces. A cursory glance at the Acadian coast of New Brunswick, north coast of P.E.I. and much of east and south coasts of Cape Breton shows many similar forms. Les Iles-De-La-Madelaine (Quebec's "Magdalen Islands") look especially suspect ... basically a series of small islands connected by spits of land surrounding a watery interior. The Basques are said to have long history there.
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