Jul 22, 2025 – Fogo Island on the Edge of the Earth

Sixty years ago on an offshore island of Newfoundland, a 10-yr old girl watched her father burn his boat, the only thing he owned that provided for his family. The day before, he came into the family’s house and slapped a fish down on the kitchen floor and said, “Well, it’s done”. He had caught his last cod. What the daughter of a Newfoundland fisherman witnessed 60 yrs ago was the end of the only way of life for her family and most Newfoundlanders.

Not long after that, the girl begrudgingly left home after her father advised her “You’re going to have to go away and figure out how this money thing works. Cause if you don’t, its gonna eat everything we love”. Zita Cobb left the only place she knew, Fogo Island, and went to the mainland where she earned a business degree, worked in Silicon Valley and became the third-highest paid female executive in America.

In her early 40s, she cashed out tens of millions of stock options, dropped out of the winner takes all economy and went back to the island with a desire to revitalize it.

Fogo Island, the largest along Newfoundland and Labrador’s shoreline was primarily inhabited by descendants of English and Irish immigrants. Cod fishing sustained the island but even by the 1950s, that alone could not provide electricity and water to all the homes. Still, the people of Fogo Island resisted the Canadian government’s resettlement of fishing villages that had been forced to turn to welfare support. When cod fishing was shut down in 1992, Fogo Island was in a deep state of depression as its population declined.

Zita Cobb knew one thing about Fogo Islanders that might save them and that is their hospitality. That seems to be the case for all of Newfoundland and Labrador, but Cobb honed in on her small island and brought back her business savvy, generosity, and money. In 2004, she and her two siblings established a Canadian charity called ‘Shorefast’’, with the goal to build economic and cultural resiliency on Fogo Island.

What stands out most both economically and visually is the Fogo Island  Inn. Cobb built the Inn as an initiative of Shorefast – a way for patrons to contribute to Fogo’s economic development. A room includes all meals, many other amenities, and meals from any restaurant on the island. All that for about $3500 a night.

Has Cobb accomplished her goal? Having spent only a couple days on the island, I might think she has. The population of Fogo stopped dwindling and has at least plateaued. Jobs have been created and new businesses have opened. The Inn is a get-away destination for some famous celebrities, and the minimalistic island has become a showcase for architecture and art, including four art studios designed by a Norwegian architect. Each of them off-the-grid (solar, composting toilets, wood burning stove) and made from local materials brought to the site by hand. We saw two of them.

Fogo is included on the list of Newfoundland’s “must see” tourist attractions and the only RV park on the island is booked weeks in advance. We also know catching the ferry to the island can require waiting in line for hours to get aboard as no reservations are taken.

But as you explore the island that is low on forest vegetation and people, you wonder how this place survives. It is truly an outpost and if you go along with the Canadian Flat Earth Society, it is one of the four corners of the earth! 

You can’t get any further than that. But really, that is what makes Fogo Island so special and became one of the highlights of our Newfoundland and Labrador tour.

Fogo Island really is out there – but offers a generous supply of hospitality and art. And a history that has not been lost, but instead has a new chapter added to it.

You can learn more about the architecture and artists through these links.

The Art Studios

Fogo Island Inn

Fogo Island Arts

Brimstone Head RV Park