Programs

ATLANTIC REGION

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Northern Gulf Culture and Heritage

QLF Atlantic Region heritage programs are committed to promoting, through community empowerment, the safeguarding of culture and heritage and the use of it to foster the economic and social vitality of rural places. QLF has been involved with supporting local culture since the organization’s inception in the early 1960s. As the economic and social bedrock of rural communities has faced substantial challenges in the last 20 years, cultural traditions are at great risk of dying out as young people are leaving for urban areas. This trend of out-migration threatens the existence of the region’s fishing communities and their special cultural heritage.

QLF works with local groups in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence region, which generally includes the Quebec Lower North Shore, Labrador Straits, and the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. Our projects highlight the continuing value of cultural traditions within the process of change. The Northern Gulf Culture & Heritage Program facilitates opportunities for rural communities to safeguard their cultural heritage and use it as an asset for community revitalization and economic diversification.

White Bay, Conche, Newfoundland
Conche, on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, part of the French Shore, the hub for QLF's Northern Gulf Culture and Heritage Program. Photograph © Candace Cochrane

 

Recent Projects
Most QLF heritage projects are multi-year collaborations with local groups in the project area. Heritage projects are developed and implemented by a collaboration of QLF permanent staff, QLF interns and volunteers, local organizations and community members in the project area. Openings for employment in heritage projects are listed yearly under Interns & Volunteers. Recent major projects include: