The cliffs at Fleur-de-Lys provided an inexhaustible source of stone for lamps and bowls which were traded widely throughout Newfoundland between 1,800 and 1,500 years ago. Bowls were used for cooking, either over wood fires or over small lamps fueled with seal blubber.
In the foreground of this illustration, bowls and lamps are being hollowed out by people dressed in the Dorset high collar coat depicted on carvings from elsewhere in the Canadian Arctic. In the background, they are shaping and removing large rectangular blocks of soft soapstone from the cliffs.
Courtesy: National Film Board of Canada and National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada
