When U.S. airspace closed following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the small Newfoundland town of Gander welcomed 7,000 stranded airline passengers. This emergency shelter effort, along with centuries of similar hospitality across Newfoundland and Labrador, inspired books, movies, and the hit Broadway musical Come From Away.
The remote Canadian town of Gander on the island of Newfoundland is home to around 12,000 residents according to reporting from CBS News. On the morning of September 11, 2001, thirty-eight international flights were grounded at Gander International Airport after the United States shut down its airspace.
Claude Elliott, who was mayor of Gander during the attacks, noted the town’s geographic reality. As Elliott explained, Once you leave Europe in the morning, once you get halfways across, the nearest airport is Gander.
Emergency Logistics and the Birth of the ‘Plane People’
With no municipal contingency plan for managing 7,000 sudden visitors, local officials declared a state of emergency. Churches, schools, and private homes were quickly converted into temporary shelters while the local hockey rink served as a giant cold-storage facility for donated food as reported by CBS News.
Locals affectionately referred to the stranded passengers and crew members as the plane people.
Residents volunteered to shuttle visitors to pay phones, distribute food, and open their homes for showers and sleep according to CBS News. Beulah Cooper, a Gander resident and volunteer at the Royal Canadian Legion which housed 67 passengers from an Aer Lingus flight, described the emotional impact of the community effort in an interview with CBS News.
“Oh, my gosh, it does so good in here to know that you’re doing something to help somebody. And that’s what I’m all about anyway.”
Beulah Cooper, Gander resident and volunteer, via CBS News
From Crisis Shelters to Global Stage
The kindness shown by Gander residents became the inspiration for the hit musical Come From Away, which premiered on Broadway in 2017 according to CBS News. Former Mayor Elliott initially struggled to picture how the crisis response could be adapted into entertainment noted CBS News.
“But in my mind I’m trying to visualize, how are you gonna make a musical out of sandwiches, soup, blankets, boxes, pillows?”
Claude Elliott, former Mayor of Gander, via CBS News
The production won a Tony Award, toured internationally, and eventually returned to Gander for a professional summer staging at the Joseph R. Smallwood Arts and Culture Centre reported CBS News. The title reflects the regional term CFA,
shorthand for people who come from away
to visit Newfoundland according to actor Peter Halley via CBS News.
A Long Tradition of Island Hospitality
While the events of September 11 brought international fame to Gander, reporting from CBC News points out that opening homes to strangers has deep roots in Newfoundland and Labrador history. In July 1828, fisherman George Harvey and his children rescued passengers from the shipwrecked vessel Despatch, subsequently housing 163 survivors for weeks while food stores dwindled to salt fish according to CBC News.
Decades later in February 1942, the American destroyer USS Truxtun ran aground on the Burin Peninsula noted CBC News. Eighteen-year-old Black seaman Lanier Phillips survived the freezing, oil-slicked waters and received care in St. Lawrence, where local resident Violet Pike fed him soup and put him to bed reported CBC News. Phillips later credited the community’s compassion with reshaping his worldview and launching his lifelong civil rights activism, which included marching with Martin Luther King Jr. according to CBC News.
Similarly, when fearsome wildfires forced 450 women and children to evacuate Terrenceville in September 1961, neighboring Marystown residents mobilized dozens of cars within an hour to shelter and feed them according to CBC News archives. Whether these historical acts signal a uniquely deep-seated regional culture of hospitality or simply reflect humanity’s fundamental resilience remains an open question as communities continue to welcome strangers in times of disaster.
