📌 In This Deep Dive
Netflix’s Below is grounded in two distinct historical pillars: Newfoundland’s government-led resettlement programs and authentic North Atlantic giant squids. While the show’s corporate mining conspiracy dramatizes real mid-century centralization policies that forced families to float wooden houses across open water, its sea monster relies on genuine marine research from historic local strandings. This breakdown explores how both real outport history and deep-sea cephalopod science shape the series, separating historical fact from thriller fiction.
In a lot of ways, the most interesting thing about Netflix’s Below is how the story ties into the real history of remote northern Canada. The show is a horror story that mixes family dynamics, ancient legends, sea monsters, and the hard realities of surviving in tiny coastal towns, but it manages to weave all these narrative threads right into the actual history of Newfoundland and Labrador, the real settings where the series takes place.
So, really, the most compelling part of Below isn’t explaining the ending (no, the sudden appearance of new icebergs doesn’t justify long articles that don’t actually have anything new to say). Instead, it’s looking into how much truth lies behind the sea creature terrorizing the characters and the resettlement programs that genuinely took place there. Did the government actually push people out of these isolated communities, to the point where they dragged wooden houses across the ocean? Are there real giant cephalopods in those waters, and can they actually sink a boat? And what about the conspiracy in the show, where resettlement was pushed just to exploit the land without interference?
In this article, we’ll see that Below is a lot closer to the real history of these places than you might think.
The True Story Behind Below: The Resettlement Programs in Newfoundland & Labrador
Below opens with a text description of how the resettlement programs in Newfoundland and Labrador actually played out over the last few decades, and how they were presented to residents as a necessary step forward for the greater good. And that part is 100% real.
The series of government-backed resettlement programs across Canada’s far east is even laid out in this historical overview on Wikipedia. The process actually started back in the late 1800s on its own, mainly because surviving in tiny communities reliant entirely on fishing was getting harder and harder, leading families to move to larger towns with better opportunities. By the 1950s, resettlement officially became a government priority, driven by the exact reasoning offered by the officials pushing it: to ensure community growth, people needed to move to larger hubs so public services could be centralized.
The Newfoundland and Labrador region has always been defined by dozens of tiny, scattered communities, which made delivering public services incredibly inefficient. Transport, mail, electricity, supplies, all of it gets drastically more expensive when populations are spread thin across such a wide landscape. Because of this, starting in 1954, the government began regularly offering funding specifically allocated to help families relocate.
The reality of the resettlement programs was actually quite harsh and bitter. Communities were asked to vote, and funds would only reach residents if the votes in favor crossed a very high threshold (at first, they even required 100% approval). Regardless of the outcome, though, the government inevitably ended up stripping public services to the bone, making those places practically uninhabitable and forcing locals to leave anyway. That’s why those votes were such a delicate issue in those towns: even though many people preferred to stay, there was a general awareness that moving would happen sooner or later, so it made sense to do it with the help of government funding if the vote passed.
As Newfoundland’s premier J.R. Smallwood put it back in the 1940s, “we must develop or perish.” The resettlement programs were part of a broader series of economic changes aimed at growth. The size of government relocation incentives today is actually pretty similar to what’s mentioned in Below: nowadays, a family can receive over $200,000 to leave their original community. Back in the 1970s, though, the numbers were far more modest, sitting around $1,000 to $4,000 per family, which obviously wasn’t enough money to start over in a new town.
And that brings us to the striking visual opening of Below on Netflix: a family in the 70s moving by boat to a larger town, towing their wooden house behind them. As absurd as it might sound, these things actually happened. For relocating families, their house and furniture were their only possessions, and losing them wasn’t an option. So residents found clever ways to detach the wooden frame from its foundation, place it on floating structures, and tow the house across the water. It came with plenty of risks, too: any unexpected turn of weather could sink the house in an instant, wiping out everything a family owned in minutes.
The Mining Rights Conspiracy: Did Corporations Support Resettlement to Exploit Local Lands?
This part of the story is also based on how things actually played out, especially from the perspective of local residents.
The government’s overarching goal was to transform local economies to drive development. In this light, alongside resettlement programs aimed at streamlining public services, the government backed the growth of corporations focused on extracting and monetizing natural resources, which represented wealth waiting to be tapped. Between 1951 and 1953, Smallwood’s government founded the Newfoundland and Labrador Corporation (NALCO), which later merged into the British Newfoundland Corporation (BRINCO), a private consortium given broad operational freedom to develop the territory’s natural resources: forests, minerals, and hydroelectric power potential.
The depiction of the Crocker group in Below reflects how local businesses naturally viewed resettlement programs during that era. The chance to monetize local resources was a huge opportunity, but the presence of local communities made things complicated, and there were no simple ways to force families out. Because of this, resettlement programs aligned well with their goals, and businesses often supported them by pressuring the government while simultaneously working to secure resource rights.
Resettlement programs were not explicitly created with the goal of turning those lands into corporate sites, but in practice, that was the exact kind of economic transformation the government was aiming for. From the perspective of residents, the external pressure to move to distant towns was part of a general economic shift, moving away from fishing and family businesses toward corporations focused on resource exploitation.
The True Story of Giant Squids: Does the Sea Creature in Below Actually Exist?
Contrary to what many of us might instinctively think, giant squids are very real, and the waters around Newfoundland see some of the highest numbers of sightings of these species.
Here as well, Wikipedia helps us out: giant squids (Architeuthis dux) usually live in deep, cold waters, particularly around Newfoundland, Norway, the Atlantic Ocean, South Africa, and Japan. Normally, the body of a giant squid measures around 2 meters (6-7 ft), while its tentacles can reach up to 10 meters (33 ft). That puts them at a total length comparable to the boats we see in Below.
The largest specimen ever recorded was discovered right in Newfoundland, in the village of Thimble Tickle back in 1878. Local fishermen found it stranded on the beach, measuring nearly 17 meters (55 ft) in total length. Today, you can still visit a life-sized statue of that giant squid, built to match its original dimensions.
What isn’t real, however, is the idea that a giant squid could sink a wooden house or even a large modern boat. Cephalopods are invertebrates with no skeleton or bone structure, and when they reach the ocean surface, they are disoriented by the change in environmental conditions. As a result, they don’t have the strength to drag a vessel weighing several tons to the sea floor. An adult giant squid weighs around 250 kg (550 lbs), roughly the same as three adult men, which is very different from the weight of a ship or a wooden house.
The biological description of the giant squids in Below, though, is accurate: female squids use their final biological energy reserves to ensure the birth of their offspring, letting themselves die for the survival of their young. Because of this, their behavior is entirely focused on reproduction and protecting their offspring, with no interest in attacking humans for its own sake. Sightings in surface waters or near beaches are exceptional, since that environment doesn’t support their survival.
So this isn’t a sea monster out of local folklore, unlike the “Old Hag” legend Jay references when he finds Wade lying on the floor beside the bed, drenched in sweat. Giant squids are real-world examples of unusually large marine animals that normally live far from human habitats. But every now and then, they are spotted with the naked eye, feeding local fears and myths of all kinds, often becoming the focus of movies and shows that stretch their actual abilities into fiction.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, Below is an original work of fiction created by Jesse McKeown, and its characters and central plotlines are invented. However, the show’s backdrop is heavily inspired by two real-world subjects: the historical resettlement programs of Newfoundland and Labrador, and authentic North Atlantic giant squids.
Yes, this actually happened. During the mid-century resettlement campaigns, government relocation grants were too low to cover the cost of building new homes, and many isolated outports lacked road connections. To avoid losing their single most valuable asset, families jacked up their wooden houses, floated them on oil barrels or wooden barges, and towed them by fishing boat across open water to new communities.
While the provincial government officially launched resettlement to centralize public services like schools, healthcare, and electricity, private resource companies frequently benefited. Depopulating remote coastal areas eliminated local land disputes and environmental opposition, allowing major private consortiums like BRINCO to acquire mining, timber, and hydroelectric rights on cleared land.
No. While giant squids (Architeuthis dux) are real and frequently inhabit the cold waters around Newfoundland, they lack the physical capability to sink a ship or house. As soft-bodied invertebrates without a skeleton, they do not have the rigid leverage or mass required to pull heavy structures underwater. An adult giant squid weighs roughly 250 kg, and they become disoriented in surface waters due to changes in pressure and temperature.
The specific town of Snook’s Arm portrayed in Below is fictional, created specifically for the show’s storyline. However, its setting directly mirrors the hundreds of real, isolated fishing outports that once dotted the coastline of Newfoundland and Labrador before being depopulated during the government’s relocation initiatives.
