As the settlement of Nain celebrates its 250th anniversary, people in the community are looking back to how life has changed and how it will impact the future.
Nain was settled by the Moravians on Aug. 13, 1771. The community originally served as a trading base for trappers, hunters and fishermen on Labrador’s north coast.
The settlement is considered to be among the oldest permanent Inuit settlements in Canada and was officially incorporated as a town in 1970.
Sam Dicker, who has lived in Nain his entire life, says he’s seen many changes in the last 67 years.
He’s witnessed the introduction of television and a shift from primarily living off the land to buying food from grocery stores. One change, he said, particularly sticks out — the transition from dog teams to snowmobiles in the winter.
“You’d use dogs for everything, for hauling wood, to get your sealing and hunting,” Dicker said this week.
“You never broke down. The dogs would always take you home.”
He’s also seen relationships between young people and elders change — and not always for the better.
Dicker wishes more of the region’s young people would be willing to spend time with seniors, helping them through the days as they did in the past.
“I had to fetch water, chop wood…. We’d go help them out every day. You don’t see that nowadays,” he said.
