Red Bay lies on the Strait of Belle Isle, where deep water, shelter, and proximity to whale migration routes drew Basque mariners in the sixteenth century. Sailors from ports in northern Spain and southwestern France crossed the Atlantic each summer to hunt right and bowhead whales. They called the harbor Butus or Gran Baya and created one of the world's earliest large-scale industrial whaling stations. Their activity took place within Indigenous homelands and a North Atlantic already shaped by fishing, travel, and exchange.

Ships arrived with crews that could number dozens of men, along with boats, roof tiles, cooperage supplies, weapons, food, and trade goods. Small chalupas pursued whales; crews killed them with harpoons and lances, then towed carcasses ashore. Workers stripped blubber and rendered it in copper cauldrons set over tryworks. Coopers packed oil into barrels for European markets, where it lit lamps and served industries. Shore stations included ovens, workshops, temporary dwellings, wharves, and cemeteries across the harbor's islands.

The industry peaked from the 1540s to the later sixteenth century. Whale oil was enormously valuable, but voyages were dangerous and investment intensive. Storms, ice, fire, disease, drowning, and competition could ruin a season. At least several vessels sank in Red Bay, including the large galleon believed to be San Juan, lost in 1565. Declining whale populations, changing markets, conflict, and movement to other grounds reduced Basque use around the start of the seventeenth century, though fishing and regional maritime activity continued.

Archives in Basque country preserved wills, insurance, contracts, and court cases that later helped identify the harbor. Archaeologist Selma Barkham's research in the 1970s connected those documents with Red Bay. Parks Canada conducted extensive terrestrial and underwater archaeology, excavating tryworks, cooperages, graves, and shipwrecks. The San Juan wreck was recorded and carefully reburied underwater to protect its timbers, while a remarkably complete chalupa was recovered and conserved. This combination of archives and archaeology transformed the study of early Atlantic industry.

Red Bay was designated a Canadian national historic site and became a center for underwater archaeological methods. Interpretation has expanded beyond European technology to consider Inuit, Innu, and other Indigenous histories, possible encounters, and the environmental effects of industrial hunting. The modern community, long sustained by fishing and coastal work, helped host research and preserve local knowledge. Museums display artifacts and a conserved boat, while trails and boat access connect visitors with shore sites and the harbor landscape.

UNESCO inscribed the Red Bay Basque Whaling Station in 2013 as the most complete known example of sixteenth-century Basque whaling tradition. Much of its evidence remains buried on land or submerged, so conservation depends on leaving fragile resources in stable contexts. Coastal erosion, storms, changing sea conditions, and tourism require monitoring. Red Bay reveals an early global commodity chain joining whales, skilled seasonal labor, European finance, Indigenous territory, and ocean risk. Its quiet harbor preserves the infrastructure and human traces behind Europe's growing demand for oil. The surviving evidence also demonstrates how careful research can restore names, routes, and working processes to an industry once known mainly through scattered artifacts and European records.