Life on the Rock, as Newfoundland is fondly known, has never been easy.  In the early days of the colony, many settlements were burned to the ground by greedy fishing merchants.  People today face different problems--unemployment due to the cod moratorium  and a very high cost of living.  Despite these hardships, Newfoundlanders have maintained a hardy and independent spirit. More than 60 percent of all Newfoundlanders live in towns, mostly in St. John's or other communities on the Avalon Peninsula.  A few towns have sprung up in the interiors of both the island and the mainland.  Many Newfoundlanders, however, still live in the small communities called outports that were founded as the region was originally explored and settled.  Many of these outports can be reached by road and are accessible only by boat or ship.  Set in sheltered inlets to protect them from the harsh Atlantic climate, most Newfoundland outports have at least one church, a school, a store, and a post office. After Newfoundland became part of Canada in 1949, government agencies succeeded in closing some of the outports and moving families into newer towns, where social services and jobs were more readily available.  Nevertheless, more than 1,000 outports have survived.

Annie Proulx's novel The Shipping News presents a wonderful portrayal of an outport called Quoyle's Point in Newfoundland. The central character, Quoyle, returns to Quoyle's point in Newfoundland to start a new life with his two daughters and his aunt.  Quoyle hopes he will find a good live at Quoyle's point where many generations of his family had settled years ago.  Like many Newfoundland outports, Quoyle's Point is an extremely remote area with only a  narrow,  washed out road located off the main highway, as a means of travel to and from the settlement.
 
The population in many Newfoundland outports are small in size consisting of families with the same surname.  It is not an unusual situation to see that most of the people living in these small outports are related to one another.  In fact, many of the names of the outports are derived from the surname of the dominating family who occupies the particular outport.  For example, "Quoyle's Point" is named after the Quoyle family name because there were so many generations of Quoyles  living in one small area.

In a small outport like Quoyle's Point, it is nearly impossible to keep a secret.  Everybody knows your family history and your present situation.  There are no such things as privacy in an outport because gossiping seems to be a major hobby or pastime for the inhabitants.  The Shipping News explores the distinct lifestyle  that can be experienced in an outport in Newfoundland.