Labrador
Labrador is a geographic and cultural region within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the primarily continental portion of the province and constitutes 71% of the province's area but is home to only 6% of its population. It is separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle. It is the largest and northernmost geographical region in the four Atlantic provinces.
Labrador occupies most of the eastern part of the Labrador Peninsula. It is bordered to the west and south by the province of Quebec. Labrador also shares a small land border with the territory of Nunavut on Killiniq Island.
The indigenous peoples of Labrador include the Northern Inuit of Nunatsiavut, the Southern-Inuit of NunatuKavut, and the Innu of Nitassinan.
Etymology
Labrador is named after João Fernandes Lavrador, a Portuguese explorer who sailed along the coasts of the Labrador Peninsula in 1498–99.Labrador's name in the Inuttitut/Inuktitut language is Nunatsuak, meaning "the big land".
History
Early history
Early settlement in Labrador was tied to the sea as demonstrated by the Innu and Inuit, although these peoples also made significant forays throughout the interior.It is believed that the Norsemen were the first Europeans to sight Labrador around 1000 AD. The area was known as Markland in Greenlandic Norse and its inhabitants were known as the Skrælings.File:Fours de fonte d'huile de baleine.jpg|thumb|right|Model of Basque whale oil melting factory at Red BayIn 1499 and 1500, the Portuguese explorers João Fernandes Lavrador and Pero de Barcelos reached what was probably now Labrador, which is believed to be the origin of its name. Maggiolo's World Map, 1511, shows a solid Eurasian continent running from Scandinavia around the North Pole, including Asia's arctic coast, to Newfoundland-Labrador and Greenland. On the extreme northeast promontory of North America, Maggiolo place names include Terra de los Ingres, and Terra de Lavorador de rey de portugall. Farther south are the phrases Terra de corte real e de rey de portugall and Terra de pescaria. In the 1532 Wolfenbüttel map, believed to be the work of Diogo Ribeiro, along the coast of Greenland, the following legend was added: As he who first sighted it was a farmer from the Azores Islands, this name remains attached to that country. This is believed to be João Fernandes. For the first seven decades or so of the sixteenth century, the name Labrador was sometimes also applied to what is now known as Greenland. Labrador means husbandman or farmer of a tract of land – the land of the labourer. European settlement was largely concentrated in coastal communities, particularly those south of St. Lewis and Cape Charles, and are among Canada's oldest European settlements.
In 1542, Basque mariners came ashore at a natural harbour on the northeast coast of the Strait of Belle Isle. They gave this "new land" its Latin name Terranova. A whaling station was set up around the bay, which they called Butus and is now named Red Bay after the red terracotta roof tiles they brought with them. A whaling ship, the San Juan, sank there in 1565 and was raised in 1978.
File:Moravian Church, Nain, NL, exterior.JPG|thumb|Nain was established in 1771 by Moravian missionariesThe Moravian Brethren of Herrnhut, Saxony, first came to the Labrador Coast in 1760 to minister to the migratory Inuit tribes there. They founded Nain, Okak, Hebron, Hopedale and Makkovik. Quite poor, both European and First Nations settlements along coastal Labrador came to benefit from cargo and relief vessels that were operated as part of the Grenfell Mission. Throughout the 20th century, coastal freighters and ferries operated initially by the Newfoundland Railway and later Canadian National Railway/CN Marine/Marine Atlantic became a critical lifeline for communities on the coast, which for the majority of that century did not have any road connection with the rest of North America.
Labrador was part of New France until the Seven Years' War. By the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, New France was transferred to the British, who administered the northern portion of it as the Province of Quebec until splitting it in two in 1791, with Labrador located in Lower Canada. However, in 1809, the British Imperial government detached Labrador from Lower Canada for transfer to the separate, self-governing Newfoundland Colony.
20th century
As part of Newfoundland since 1809, Labrador was still being disputed by Quebec until the British Privy Council resolved their border in 1927. In 1949, Newfoundland entered into confederation, becoming part of Canada.Labrador played strategic roles during both World War II and the Cold War. In October 1943, a German U-boat crew installed an automated weather station on the northern tip of Labrador near Cape Chidley, code-named Weather Station Kurt; the installation of the equipment was the only-known armed German military operation on the North American mainland during the war. The station broadcast weather observations to the German navy for only a few days, but was not discovered until 1977 when a historian, working with the Canadian Coast Guard, identified its location and mounted an expedition to recover it. The station is now exhibited in the Canadian War Museum.
The Canadian government built a major air force base at Goose Bay, at the head of Lake Melville during the Second World War, a site selected because of its topography, access to the sea, defensible location, and minimal fog. During the Second World War and the Cold War, the base was also home to American, British, and later German, Dutch, and Italian detachments. Today, Serco, the company contracted to operate CFB Goose Bay is one of the largest employers for the community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
Additionally, both the Royal Canadian Air Force and United States Air Force built and operated a number of radar stations along coastal Labrador as part of the Pinetree Line, Mid-Canada Line and DEW Line systems. Today, the remaining stations are automated as part of the North Warning System; however, the military settlements during the early part of the Cold War surrounding these stations have largely continued as local Innu and Inuit populations have clustered near their port and airfield facilities.
During the first half of the 20th century, some of the largest iron ore deposits in the world were discovered in the western part of Labrador and adjacent areas of Quebec. Deposits at Mont Wright, Schefferville, Labrador City, and Wabush drove industrial development and human settlement in the area during the second half of the 20th century.
The present community of Labrador West is entirely a result of the iron ore mining activities in the region. The Iron Ore Company of Canada operates the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway to transport ore concentrate south to the port of Sept-Îles, Quebec, for shipment to steel mills in North America and elsewhere.
During the 1960s, the Churchill River was diverted at Churchill Falls, resulting in the flooding of an enormous area – today named the Smallwood Reservoir after Joey Smallwood, the first premier of Newfoundland. The flooding of the reservoir destroyed large areas of habitat for the threatened Woodland Caribou. A hydroelectric generating station was built in Labrador as well as a transmission line to the neighbouring province of Quebec.
Construction of a large hydroelectric dam project at Muskrat Falls began in 2012 by Nalcor Energy and the Province of Newfoundland. Muskrat Falls is 45 km west of Happy Valley-Goose Bay on the Grand River. A transmission line began construction in October 2014 and was completed in 2016 that delivers power down to the southern tip of Labrador and underwater across the Strait of Belle Isle to the Province of Newfoundland in 2018.
From the 1970s to early 2000s, the Trans-Labrador Highway was built in stages to connect various inland communities with the North American highway network at Mont Wright, Quebec. A southern extension of this highway has opened in stages during the early 2000s and is resulting in significant changes to the coastal ferry system in the Strait of Belle Isle and southeastern Labrador. These "highways" are so called only because of their importance to the region; they would be better described as roads, and were not completely paved until July 2022.
A study on a fixed link to Newfoundland, in 2004, recommended that a tunnel under the Strait of Belle Isle, being a single railway that would carry cars, buses and trucks, was technologically the best option for such a link. However, the study also concluded that a fixed link was not economically viable. Conceivably, if built with federal aid, the 1949 terms of union would be amended to remove ferry service from Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques across the Cabot Strait.
Although a highway link has, as of December 2009, been completed across Labrador, this route is somewhat longer than a proposed Quebec North Shore highway that presently does not exist. Part of the "highway", Route 389, starting approximately from Baie-Comeau to, is of an inferior alignment, and from there to, the provincial border, is an accident-prone section notorious for its poor surface and sharp curves. Quebec in April 2009 announced major upgrades to Route 389 to be carried out.
Route 389 and the Trans-Labrador Highway were added to Canada's National Highway System in September 2005.
Labrador constitutes a federal electoral district electing one member to the House of Commons of Canada. Due to its size, distinct nature, and large Aboriginal population, Labrador has one seat despite having the smallest population of any electoral district in Canada. Formerly, Labrador was part of a riding that included part of the Island of Newfoundland. Labrador is divided into four provincial electoral districts in the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly.