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Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day Newfoundland and Labrador were inhabited for millennia by different groups of Indigenous peoples. The first brief European contact with Newfoundland and Labrador came around 1000 AD when the Vikings briefly settled in L'Anse aux Meadows. In 1497, European explorers and fishermen ...
Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland, the youngest of the Canadian provinces, joined Confederation in 1949. Some portion of its coast was undoubtedly one of the first parts of the continent seen by Europeans. Its total area is 405, 720 km2, of which Labrador makes up almost three-quarters (294,330 km2).
First, archaeological evidence and the Icelandic sagas have established that the Norse arrived in Newfoundland and Labrador around 1000 CE. Second, there is no dispute that Zuan Caboto (John Cabot) sailed from Bristol to North America in 1497. Whether other Europeans explored the region before the Norse, or between 1000 and 1497, is unclear.
Exploration and Settlement. The region of Newfoundland and Labrador was the first stretch of North America's Atlantic coastline to be explored by Europeans, but it was one of the last to be settled in force and formally colonized. The Norse arrived from Greenland about 1000 A.D. and established settlements here during the following century.
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Newfoundland and Labrador is divided by three of Canada’s seven physiographic regions. These three regions are the Canadian Shield in Labrador, and the Appalachian and Eastern St. Lawrence Lowlands on the island of Newfoundland. Labrador’s northern coastal region is mountainous, deeply fjorded, and grows only ground-level, subarctic vegetation. Its...
Urban Centres Settlement by Europeans was slow and reflected the dominance of the fisheries. Early settlers paid little attention to the soil or lack of amenities, settling on the shoreline in bays and coves close to the inshore and offshore fishing grounds, primarily on the east coast. Settlement gradually spread and became permanent. The first ce...
Indigenous Peoples During the prehistoric period, a group of people referred to by archaeologists as the Maritime Archaic lived in the area now known as Newfoundland and Labrador from about 8000 to 3200 BCE. They were followed by the Palaeo-eskimo, who lived in the region from about 2800 to 600 BCE, and then the Recent Indians, present from about 2...
The province is generously endowed with natural resources, and periodic development of each resource has proved beneficial to both primary and secondary producers. Originally this resource was the fishery, and the economy was wholly dependent on it. Today the resource-based economy has diversified to include mineral, oil and hydroelectric developme...
There are 40 seats in Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial government. Each seat is held by a Member of the House of Assembly (MHA). MHAs are elected by eligible voters in their electoral district. Provincial elections are usually held every four years on the second Tuesday of October. However, an election may be called before this date. This som...
The foundations of the health-care system lie in the cottage hospital system and the International Grenfell Association facilities. The cottage hospital system, initiated by the Commission government in 1936, was designed to bring a high standard of health care to outport residents. Small hospitals were constructed in central locations around the I...
The first Newfoundland schools were organized by the Church of England's missionary Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), which funded a school in Bonavista in the 1720s. Later in the 18th century the SPG operated schools in St John's and in several of the larger outports. They were apparently open to children of all den...
The ancestors of most Newfoundlanders came from southeastern Ireland or southwestern England and brought with them distinct and enduring cultures. This heritage, shaped by centuries of Newfoundland's isolated, maritime way of life, has produced a vibrant, distinctive culture, expressed in dialects, crafts, traditions, cooking, art, music and writin...
Last Edited March 21, 2023. In 1771, Moravian missionaries were the first Europeans to settle in Labrador. Over a 133-year period, they established a series of eight missions along the coast which became the focus of religious, social and economic activities for the Inuit who gradually came to settle near the communities.
For more than a century before the establishment of French or English colonies in North America the fishermen of Western Europe came year after year to Newfoundland to fill their boats with cod for the markets of the Old World . Of the earliest exploration and discovery of Newfoundland little is known. It is generally accepted that Norsemen ...
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