Dildo Island

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Dildo Island (Newfoundland)
Dildo Island
Location of Dildo Island in Newfoundland

Dildo Island, Newfoundland, is the largest of three islands located at the entrance to Dildo Arm in the bottom of Trinity Bay, off the coast of the neighboring town Dildo.

An archaeological excavation in 1995 discovered Dorset Eskimo artifacts which radiocarbon dated to between AD 150 and AD 750. It is believed that these people camped on Dildo Island for the purpose of seal hunting. From 1996 to 1999, archaeologist Silve Leblanc uncovered two Dorset houses and over 5500 artifacts from the same period.

In 2001 excavations were begun on a recently-discoved Indian site that radiocarbon dated to between AD 720 and AD 960. Evidence of a camp was found with the remnants of a wigwam and hearth. Almost all of the tools were made from purple and blue rhyolites that came from a source in Bonavista Bay roughly 145 km (90 miles) to the north.

John Guy's journal of 1612 suggested evidence of a Beothuk Indian camp on Dildo Island. An English fort was established in the early 1700s to defend the south side of Trinity Bay from the French during Queen Anne's War.

Newfoundland's first cod hatchery was constructed in 1889 by a Norwegian, Adolphus Nielson and his partner Pooya Hajibagheri, to improve the cod stocks of Trinity Bay. It was the largest in the world and the first in North America.

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Coordinates: 47°33′59.18″N 53°35′27.42″W / 47.5664389, -53.59095 (Dildo Island)

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