Labrador

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Labrador
Flag of Labrador
(de facto)		 Coat of Arms (unofficial)
Motto
Latin: Munus splendidum mox explebitur
The splendid task will soon be fulfilled
Geography
Area: 269,073.3 km²
Water area: 31,340 km² (4%)
Coastline: 7,886 km
Highest Point: Mount Caubvik
(1652 m)
Longest River: Churchill River
(856 km)
Admin HQ: Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Demographics
Population(2001): 27,864
Largest City: Happy Valley-Goose Bay
7,969 (2001)
Politics
Government of Newfoundland & Labrador
http://www.gov.nl.ca
Members of the Parliament of Canada: 1
Members of the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly: 4


This article is about the region in Canada. For other uses, see Labrador (disambiguation).
For the dog breed, see Labrador Retriever.

Labrador (also Coast of Labrador) is a region of Atlantic Canada. Together with the island of Newfoundland from which it is separated by the Strait of Belle Isle, it constitutes the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The region is part of the much larger Labrador Peninsula. The area was known by the Norse as Markland.

The population of Labrador is 27,864 (2001 census), including some 30 percent Aboriginal peoples, including Inuit, Innu, and Métis. With an area of 269,073.3 km², it is the size of New Zealand. Its former capital was Battle Harbour.

The name "Labrador" is one of the oldest names of European origin in Canada, almost as old as the name "Newfoundland". It is named after Portuguese explorer João Fernandes Lavrador who, together with Pêro de Barcelos, first sighted it in 1498.

Most non-Aboriginal settlement of Labrador occurred due to fishing villages, missions, and fur trading outposts; modern settlements have been created as a result of iron ore mining, hydroelectric developments, and military installations. Until modern times, difficult sea travel and lack of general transportation facilities discouraged settlement. In the 1760s, Moravian missionaries began settling, building missions and often sharing in the fur trade with the Hudson's Bay Company, which was the dominant force on the peninsula until 1870. Claims have persisted concerning the Labrador Peninsula with Quebec, although they were settled by judicial decision in 1927 by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

John James Audubon called Labrador "the most extensive and dreariest wilderness I have ever beheld"[1] (See Also: Creation, ISBN 1-58567-410-9.)

Contents

[edit] Modern Labrador

Just like its island neighbour Newfoundland, human settlement in Labrador was historically tied to the sea as witnessed by the Montagnais, Innu and Inuit, although it has also been demonstrated that both the former also made significant forays throughout vast areas of the interior as well. European settlement was largely concentrated in coastal communities, particularly those south of Hamilton Inlet, and are among Canada's oldest European settlements. Extremely 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 (see Sir Wilfred Grenfell). Throughout the 20th century, coastal freighters and ferries operated initially by the Newfoundland Railway and later Canadian National Railways/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 has played strategic roles in both the Second World War and the Cold War. In the early 1940s a German U-boat crew installed an automated weather station on the northern tip of Labrador near Cape Chidley, nicknamed Weather Station Kurt. The station only broadcast weather observations to the German navy for a few days but was not discovered until the 1980s when a historian, working with the Canadian Coast Guard, identified its location.

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, Netherlands, and Italian detachments. Today, CFB Goose Bay is the largest employer for the community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Additionally, both the United States Air Force and Royal Canadian 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 post-war years.

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 500 miles south to the port of Sept Iles, Quebec for shipment to steel mills in North America and elsewhere.

During the 1960s, the Churchill River was diverted at Churchill Falls which resulted in the flooding of an enormous area - today named the Smallwood Reservoir. Both a hydroelectric generating station and a transmission line was built in the neighbouring province of Quebec.

In the 1970s-2000s the Trans-Labrador Highway was built in stages to connect various inland communities with the North American highway network at Mont Wright, Quebec (which in turn is connected by a Quebec highway running north from Baie-Comeau, 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. It is worth noting that these "highways" are called so only because of their importance to the region; they would be better described as roads, and are not completely paved.

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 will soon (2006 or 2007) be complete across Labrador, this route is somewhat longer than a proposed Quebec North Shore highway that presently does not exist. Part of the "highway", Quebec provincial highway 389, starting approximately 212 km (132 miles) from Baie Comeau to 482 km (299 miles) is of an inferior alignment, and from there to 570 km (354 miles), the provincial border, is an accident-prone section notorious for its poor surface and sharp curves. Local citizens are urging realignment of this road, a vital work if it were to be the routing to the fixed link to Newfoundland.

Quebec Route 389 and the Trans-Labrador Highway were added to Canada's National Highway System in September 2005.

[edit] The Labrador boundary dispute

Line A: the boundary decided by the Privy Council; the current legal boundary. Line B: the boundary as it is sometimes portrayed by Quebec today.
Enlarge
Line A: the boundary decided by the Privy Council; the current legal boundary. Line B: the boundary as it is sometimes portrayed by Quebec today.

The tortuous border between Labrador and Canada was set March 2, 1927, after a five-year trial. In 1809 Labrador had been transferred from Lower Canada to Newfoundland, but the landward boundary of Labrador had never been precisely stated. Newfoundland argued it extended to the height of land, but Canada, stressing the historical use of the term "Coasts of Labrador", argued the boundary was one statute mile (1.6 km) inland from the high-tide mark. As Canada and Newfoundland were separate countries, but both members of the British Empire, the matter was referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (in London), which set the Labrador boundary mostly along the coastal watershed. One of Newfoundland's conditions for joining Confederation in 1949 was that this boundary be entrenched in the Canadian constitution. While this border has not been formally accepted by the Quebec government, the Henri Dorion[2] Commission (Commission d'étude sur l'intégrité du territoire du Québec) concluded in the early 1970s that Quebec no longer has a legal claim to Labrador. Still, Quebec government publications sometimes ignore or modify the Labrador boundary, especially the southern segment. [3]

The province's name change to Newfoundland and Labrador was meant to emphasize its claim to Labrador, as well as Labrador's unique culture and contributions to the province. (See Newfoundland and Labrador for more details.)

A Royal Commission in 2002 determined that there is a certain amount of public pressure from Labradorians to break off from Newfoundland and become a separate province or territory. Some of the Innu nation would have the area become a homeland for them, much as Nunavut is for the Inuit; a 1999 resolution of the Assembly of First Nations claimed Labrador as a homeland for the Innu and demanded recognition in any further constitutional negotiations regarding the region. [4] The Inuit self-government region of Nunatsiavut was recently created through agreements with the provincial and federal governments.

[edit] Timeline

[edit] Demographics

The 10 largest Towns in Labrador by population (Incorporated Towns only)
Town 2001 1996
Happy Valley-Goose Bay 7,969 8,655
Labrador City 7,744 8,455
Wabush 1,894 2,018
Nain 1,159 996
L'Anse-au-Loup 635 621
Cartwright 629 628
Hopedale 559 591
North West River 551 567
Port Hope Simpson 509 577
Forteau 477 505
Demographic Factors (2001 Census)
Factor Labrador Canada
Male/Female Split 50.6/49.4 49.0/51.0
Median Age 32.6 37.6
Immigrant (born outside Canada) Pop. 1.5% 18.4%
Aboriginal Pop. 34.9% 3.3%
Religion - Catholic 28.4%% 43.6%
Religion - Protestant 67.4%% 29.2%
Religion - Other 0.8% 10.6%
No Religion 3.4%% 16.5%
Median Income (age 15+) $19,229 $22,120
Unemployment Rate 19.1% 7.4%

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Flag of Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland - Labrador - Nunatsiavut
Census divisions 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
Cities Corner Brook - Mount Pearl - St. John's
Other communities Bishop's Falls - Bonavista - Botwood - Carbonear - Channel-Port aux Basques - Clarenville - Deer Lake - Ferryland - Fogo - Gander - Grand Falls-Windsor - Happy Valley-Goose Bay - Harbour Grace - Labrador City - Marystown - Nain - Pasadena - Peterview - Placentia - Red Bay - St. Anthony - Stephenville
Portuguese Empire — Former colonies & present overseas territories


Tony F. Powell-New Book on Labrador http://www.labradorsalmon.com/book

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