Conception Harbour is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

on the

Avalon Peninsula The Avalon Peninsula (french: Péninsule d'Avalon) is a large peninsula that makes up the southeast portion of the island of Newfoundland. It is in size. The peninsula is home to 270,348 people, about 52% of Newfoundland's population, according ...

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

, Canada. It is in Division 1 on

Conception Bay Conception Bay (CB) is a bay on the southeast coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The population (in 2011) of people living in municipalities (or unincorporated census subdivisions) located along the coast of Conception Bay was 90,490 making it on ...

and can be accessed via

Newfoundland and Labrador Route 60 Route 60, also known as Topsail Road in Mount Pearl and St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. Johns, and as Conception Bay Highway for the rest of its length, is a east-west highway on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. It runs between th ...

. Conception Harbour includes the former communities of Bacon Cove, Cat's Cove, Kitchuses, and Silver Spring. The town has a history of fishing, whaling, ironworking, and tourism as its industries, with ties to the steelworking construction industry in mid-20th-century New York City. In 2022,

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...

fossils were found in Bacon Cove that potentially moved their evolutionary date back by 30 million years.

History

Prior to 1870, the settlement in the area was known as Cat's Cove. Conception Harbour was incorporated as a community in 1972. Throughout its history, the village's economy primarily focused around fishing, with a protected harbour nearby, and a lobster factory existed there in the early 1900s. Due to the decline of cod in the area, fishermen traveled to the northeastern United States (primarily

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) for work. In New York City, the immigrants (mostly from Kitchuses and Bacon Cove) became known as "fish" who worked as

ironworkers An ironworker is a tradesman who works in the iron-working industry. Ironworkers assemble the structural framework in accordance with engineered drawings and install the metal support pieces for new buildings. They also repair and renovate o ...

in groups of seven, and some of their families followed. Strong ties back to Newfoundland led to the rise of ironworkers in the area, and the town's first ironworkers

union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

was chartered in 1955. Due to the decline of the whaling industry, several whalers were brought to the town to be

scuttled Scuttling is the deliberate sinking of a ship. Scuttling may be performed to dispose of an abandoned, old, or captured vessel; to prevent the vessel from becoming a navigation hazard; as an act of self-destruction to prevent the ship from being ...

in 1959. In 1968, the S.S. Charcot ran aground near the town, leading to the discovery of several wrecks of the scuttled ships, whose parts would continue to wash up onto the beach throughout the next several decades. In 2013, the Shipwreck Preservation Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, the town, and the region's Economic Development Board partnered to improve the shipwrecks' tourism facilities. Oil from one wreck's fuel tank had been leaking (with oil sheen visible in the summers), and in 2020, the

Canadian Coast Guard The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG; french: links=no, Garde côtière canadienne, GCC) is the coast guard of Canada. Formed in 1962, the coast guard is tasked with marine search and rescue (SAR), communication, navigation, and transportation issues in ...

drained the tank, a difficult task due to the novelty of the operation, the thickness of the tank's steel, and the viscosity of the oil. Over 14,000 liters were removed. In 2022,

fossils were found in Bacon Cove in a 522 million year old layer of rock by

Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

researchers Anne Hildenbrand and Gregor Austermann; the fossils potentially backdated the origin of cephalopods by 30 million years to the early

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...

period, when multicellular organisms first developed.

Economy, culture, and landmarks

Industry in the area includes ironworking, fishing, and tourism. The town's St. Anne’s Roman Catholic Parish Church was built in 1904, replacing a church built between 1857 and 1861.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Conception Harbour had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Absorbed communities

Bacon Cove, a fishing and farming settlement south east of

Bay Roberts Bay Roberts ( 2016 Population 6,012; Census Agglomeration 11,083) is located on the north shore of Conception Bay on the northeastern Avalon Peninsula in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The growth of the local economy can ...

, had a population of 124 in 2012. Kitchuses had a population of 169 in 1940 and 131 in 1956.

Transportation

runs nearby.

References