Is Snooks Arm in Netflix’s BELOW real? What happened to Newfoundland’s Snook’s Arm
A harbour scene from Netflix’s Newfoundland-set series BELOW.
Photo credit: Jan Thijs/Netflix
Snooks Arm in Netflix’s BELOW is fictional. There is, however, a real Newfoundland community usually written Snook’s Arm in Statistics Canada and provincial records, and its relocation history overlaps with the broader resettlement history creator Jesse McKeown has drawn on for the series. Netflix and McKeown have not said the fictional town is a literal recreation of that community, and BELOW is not presented as a true story.
The fictional Snooks Arm in BELOW
Netflix sets BELOW in the fictional community of Snooks Arm, Newfoundland, where fisherman Calvin Penney and his family are part of a town still confronting whether people can continue to live there. The series then adds its creature-thriller story. That continuing, inhabited community is already a major difference from the government relocation history of the real place.
The real Snook’s Arm
The real community is in Newfoundland’s Baie Verte–White Bay region. Statistics Canada recorded 10 residents in the 2016 Census, down from 18 in 2011. Government spelling is inconsistent: Statistics Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador’s local-service-district regulations use Snook’s Arm, with an apostrophe, while the federal Canadian Geographical Names Database lists Snooks Arm without one. SCENE 49 is using Snook’s Arm here when referring to the real community, while preserving that discrepancy.
What happened to Snook’s Arm?
Snook’s Arm went through Newfoundland and Labrador’s modern Community Relocation process. Provincial records describe that process as community-initiated, and they show residents had voted by May 2017 under the earlier relocation policy. That policy required support from at least 90 per cent before government would proceed. A cost-benefit review was also part of the provincial process, and qualifying residents could receive financial assistance to relocate.
The exact Snook’s Arm vote tally does not appear in the authoritative records reviewed by SCENE 49, so SCENE 49 could not verify whether the vote was unanimous. The Canadian Press reported that the community was approved for relocation in November 2017, and Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly testimony in April 2018 recorded the relocation as completed and confirmed that payments had been made.
Completed relocation does not necessarily mean nobody remained in the geographic community. Newfoundland and Labrador’s census tables recorded five people in Snook’s Arm in 2021. For that reason, descriptions such as “abandoned” or claims that its population immediately fell to zero go beyond what the census record supports.
How Newfoundland resettlement history feeds into BELOW
McKeown has directly connected BELOW to Newfoundland’s wider history of resettlement. In an interview with The Canadian Press, he discussed the familiar Newfoundland image of a house being moved across the water and said that history informed the series’ opening, in which a family tows its house. The interview also places the real Snook’s Arm alongside the fictional setting while discussing the province’s older resettlement era and its more recent community-relocation system.
The documented connection stops short of a one-for-one adaptation. No Netflix material or McKeown interview reviewed by SCENE 49 says the fictional Snooks Arm is directly based on the real Snook’s Arm. The series uses Newfoundland resettlement history as part of its setting and family story, while its Penney family, still-inhabited town and sea-creature plot are fictional.
