NOTICE: Site under construction.

The Smithsonian Gateways Project: Basque and Inuit Archaeology on the Quebec Lower North Shore

The Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center began investigating the archaeology of the Quebec Lower North Shore (LNS) in 2001 after many years of research on Innu and Inuit cultures of Labrador.

Initially the goal was to determine the southern limit of Labrador cultures, but after the discovery of the Hare Harbor site, occupied by both Basque and Inuit between 1550-1730, the project increasingly focused on this unusual Basque/Inuit hunting and fishing station.

Here and at other sites along the LNS we have documented the southernmost Inuit settlements in the world and their interactions with the Basques, other Europeans, and Innu (Indian) peoples during the cold climatic period known as the Little Ice Age.