Chapel Arm is a settlement in Newfoundland, Canada, located at the southeast corner of Trinity Bay, approximately west of St. John's and two km (one and a half miles) from the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway ( French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean o ...

. With the exception of a few families, the religious denominations are

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and

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. It has two churches, two parish halls, an

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hall and a modern elementary school serving the communities of Chapel Arm, Normans cove, Bellevue and Long Harbour. It has a doctor's office, municipal building, post office, pharmacist, hardware store, and several auto garages. The majority of people in Chapel Arm own their own homes. There is a well constructed

breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island Breakwater Island () is a small island in the Palme ...

with landing and docking facilities and a community building used for storage. There are banking facilities and a clinic located at Whitbourne about 13 km (eight miles) away. With the ongoing construction of the Vale Canada hydro-metallurgical facility in Long Harbour, Chapel Arm has seen a sharp spike in employment and prosperity over the last several years.

Name origin

No one is sure how Chapel Arm got its name. According to M. F. Howley, it was named for Lieutenant Edward Chappell, who sailed up Trinity Bay in 1818 (Encyclopedia of J.R. Smallwood). Historical records would suggest this claim to be incorrect. Early records of Trinity and the records of Benjamin Lester, a Poole merchant working there, mentions: "on November 10, 1767 sent sloop to Chapple for a load of birch and ships timbers that was left there". The name of Chapel Arm goes back to 1765–1772, when

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

and Michael Lane surveyed the coastal waters of Trinity Bay. Chapel Arm was more likely named for the spire-shaped headlands which can be seen as you enter this beautiful arm, since these headlands resemble a church or chapel roof. The latter is the theory accepted by the majority of the population today.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population 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 ...

, Chapel Arm 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.

References

{{Subdivisions of Newfoundland and Labrador, towns=yes, ICG=yes Populated coastal places in Canada Towns in Newfoundland and Labrador

Name origin

Demographics

See also

References