Fishermen from Portugal, the Basque provinces of France and Spain, Northern France (perhaps Normandy) and West Country England are known to have frequented eastern Newfoundland during the first half of the 1600s, some as early as the first decade of the 16th century.
The principal residence of Avalon, where Calvert and his family lived during the winter of 1628-29 and in which the Kirkes established their residence in 1638, has long been the object of archaeologists working at Ferryland.