The First Illustration of Bonne Bay?

One calm July day in 1866, a three-masted vessel sailed into Bonne Bay. It was carrying the Governor of Newfoundland, Sir Anthony Musgrave, who was inspecting the south and west coasts of the island. Also on board was Frances Musgrave, his sister and a keen artist. She painted a series of watercolours of coastal landscapes and communities along the way from Hermitage to St. John Island, off Eddies Cove West. The originals of these images are preserved in the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in Ottawa.

One of Frances’ paintings, reproduced here, is labelled “Entrance to Bonne Bay, Woody Pt”, described by the LAC as a “watercolour over pencil on wove paper”.  This suggests that Musgrave first sketched in pencil, perhaps later adding colour and the sailing vessel in the centre of the image. She may have been a skilled artist, but accuracy does not seem to have been her main intent. You can pick out the Tablelands, but the only indication of the presence of settlers is a building or two to the right of what is now the lighthouse point.

This is odd, because the 1857 census showed seventy-seven people living in the Bay. Moreover, it was then more than half a century since the Birds first set up their business in Woody Point, and some fifteen years since they had left. Perhaps most buildings were then hidden from her field of view behind the point, or maybe she had no time to finish her sketch and had to rely on later memory. Nevertheless, this seems to be the first painting of Bonne Bay.

However, in the LAC collection of Musgrave’s paintings there is another watercolour also labelled “Bonne Bay”. There is little to identify its location, but given her rather carefree drawings, could it be from some other part of our Bonne Bay? Or perhaps it was from the Bonne Bay near McCallum on the mountainous south coast of Newfoundland, which Musgrave’s vessel might have passed by enroute westward?  Any other suggestions for this second painting? 

Sourced in part from No Place for a Woman: The Life and Newfoundland Stories of Ella Manuel by Antony Berger, published by Breakwater Books 2020.