Identifying a fly-in/fly-out source-hub community: The case of Deer Lake, Newfoundland and Labrador

• Published in: The Extractive Industries and Society
• Main Author: Butters, Leanna
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Science Direct 2020
• Subjects: Newfoundland; Canada; Deer Lake
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/14510/; https://research.library.mun.ca/14510/1/ExtractiveResources.FIFOSource-Hub_DeerLakeNL_Preprint.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2020.09.011

Fly-in/Fly-out (FIFO) is a commuting arrangement involving the movement of employees to and from their place of work by airplane, often on a rotational basis. Extensive research on FIFO has been conducted in Australia where three community types have been identified: source (or home) communities, host (or work) communities, and hub communities (stop-over communities). An additional community type, the source-hub community, was identified in 2013. Though FIFO arrangements are important in facilitating intra- and inter-provincial ERGM, limited research on hub or source-hub communities has been conducted in Canada. Through a door-to-door census and key informant interviews, this study identified Deer Lake in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) as a FIFO source-hub community. While airport access was an important factor influencing Deer Lake’s source-hub development, as was the case in Australia, other significant factors included proximity to friend and family connections and employment. Overall, it is suggested that factors influencing the development of FIFO source-hub communities may be context-specific. While more research is needed to understand the emergence of source-hub communities, these findings contribute to dialogues around the nature of resource-dependent communities, including the study of compound community types and the relationship between FIFO workers and the communities through which they travel.