Wadham Islands

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The Wadham Islands are a group of islands at the eastern entrance to Hamilton Sound, off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The islands are: Offer Wadham Islands (the northernmost and easternmost), Copper Island, Duck Island, White Island, Peckford Island (the largest), Coleman Island, and Small Island.

These islands were popular fishing grounds from the early 1800s and were first used by crews from Bonavista. Mostly the Offer Wadham and Peckford islands were used because they had good drying grounds and some of the best salt cod. Many families who fished around the Wadham Islands later settled in nearby Doting Cove and fished there in summer. In the 1850s, families such as the Cuffs, Hickses, and Moulands were among those who fished on the islands. For more than 100 years, men from Doting Cove traveled to the Wadham Islands in the summer to fish.

In 1858, the Offer Wadham Lighthouse was built on the Offer Wadham Islands, the first lighthouse in the northern part of Bonavista Bay. After the lighthouse was built, a small year‑round community of lightkeepers and their families lived there. By 1899, post offices were established at Peckford Island and Offer Wadham, and the islands also had schools, a Methodist church, and mercantile premises. A Methodist church was built on the Wadham Islands in the late 19th century. The community even saved up to buy a Bible for the church; an inscription on the Bible reads: “Wadham Island Methodist Church July 1899. Bought by subscription collected by Mrs. Charles H. Prowse.”

Church services were held nearly every Sunday in the summer and were led by residents, with lay readers and appointed readers helping out.

In a notable cross‑Atlantic project, historian and explorer Tim Severin retraced the seven-year voyage described in the medieval text Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (The Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot). From May 1976 to June 1977, Severin and his crew completed a 4,500‑mile journey and first landed at Peckford Island. The Brendan Voyage is detailed in Severin’s 1978 book The Brendan Voyage.