The village is adjacent to Quidi Vidi Lake (where the Royal St. John's Regatta is held the first Wednesday in August, weather permitting).

Around the middle of that century some began staying permanently and houses were built, and these fishermen married and had families.

However, "even as late as 1835, migratory men from southwest England and from southeast Ireland were still engaged in the cod fishery at Quidi Vidi".

However, since 2011 it has been closed to the public, because of "a lack of available parking and accessibility issues" and, according to a local radio station, is in a "state of disrepair, empty and overgrown".

With its low hipped-roof and two-room, central chimney plan, it is typical of houses built by the immigrants who came from southeast Ireland to Newfoundland in the first half of the 19th century".

[7] It was in 1834 that "Anglicans, Methodists, and Congregationalists combined to build a church," though services had been conducted in the village for some years.

For realistic footage, Frissell then took his crew to the Grand Banks and Labrador to collect exciting action sequences.

The film debuted at the Nickel Theatre at St. John's on March 5, 1931, where Frissell decided that his movie needed more real scenes from the Labrador ice floes.

[14] Some of the survivors made the over-ice trek to the Horse Islands, while some were rescued by other vessels dispatched to the area.