Red Bay
National Historic Site
Once alive with industrial activity, Red Bay is now a quiet, charming
community. An island in the middle of the bay, named Saddle Island for its
distinctive shape, was the centre of a Basque whaling operation that is
believed to have been one of the most important of its kind in the world
during the last half of the 16th century. It was on this island that
archaeologists discovered the outlines of buildings and a cemetery where 140
Basques whalers were laid to rest, far from home. A Spanish galleon,
believed to be the San Juan, was found lying in deep silt at the bottom of
Red Bay in 1978. The ship is one of only two in the world that provide
examples of the naval architecture that allowed Europeans to colonize the
New World in the sixteenth century.