Coachman's Cove 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 ...

in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

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 ...

. The town had a population of 111 in the

Canada 2021 Census 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 ...

History

Coachman's Cove was originally named ''Pot d'Etain'', which means Tin Pot Islands. It was incorporated in 1970 and is located north of Baie Verte on the east side of a promontory near a tip of the

Baie Verte Peninsula The Baie Verte Peninsula is a large peninsula on the north central coast of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Baie Verte Peninsula is a geologically complex area on the northwest coast of Newfo ...

. Its name was derived from

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

settlers who were living there year-round in the 1860s. The first permanent settlers to arrive in Coachman's Cove possibly came at the invitation of the French in the early 19th century to act as guardians of French stages and fishing equipment during the winter months. These settlers decided to stay and establish a permanent fishing settlement. Like other communities on the Baie Verte Peninsula, Coachman's Cove had a double identity and double population. During the summer the community had mostly French, Roman Catholic residents, who came from France to fish for

cod Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...

from June to September. During the winter months the population of Coachman's Cove was made up of

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

Newfoundlanders. The first names associated with the settlement were

Downey Downey may refer to: People *Downey (surname) *Robert Downey Jr. Places *Downey, California, US *Downey, Idaho, US *Downey, Iowa, US Businesses *W. & D. Downey, photographic studio *Downey Studios, created out of a former Boeing plant Schools * ...

, Bailey,

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

, Dobbin,

Dow Dow or DOW may refer to: Business * Dow Jones Industrial Average, or simply the Dow, a stock market index * Dow Inc., an American commodity chemical company ** Dow Chemical Company, a subsidiary, an American multinational chemical corporation ...

, Demfy, and Drover. It is likely that the large number of inhabitants recorded in the 1869 census included the French summer fishermen because the population of Coachman's Cove did not go above 200 again until 1921. Coachman's Cove was first recorded in the census of 1869, with 237 inhabitants. In 1872 there were fifty-one people living in the community. The building of the church there in 1872 showed the importance of the community to the French as a fishing station. By 1935, the population of Coachman's Cove was 294. The early settlers of Coachman's Cove depended mainly on the cod and

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...

fisheries for their livelihood, but by 1935 the

lumbering Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

and

sawmilling A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

industries became increasingly the main source of employment for the community. Five years later, in 1940, there were three sawmills and by 1950 lumbering had become the main employer in Coachman's Cove. In the winter months, the fishermen worked in the woods and in the local sawmills. It was reported that the sawmills in the area supplied the timber for all the piers on the northeast coast. By 1952, Coachman's Cove had a public wharf, a Credit Union and a two-room Roman Catholic school. During the 1960s Coachman's Cove was linked by road to other settlements on the Baie Verte Peninsula. The high rate of unemployment and the community's isolation made livelihood difficult in the 1960s and 1970s. Approximately 35 men went to work at the Asbestos mines in Baie Verte when it opened in 1963-64. The remainder of the people were employed as fishermen and seasonal labourers. Coachman's Cove today is a quaint quiet community and still shows signs of its French history. The uncovering of a new

Paleo-Eskimo The Paleo-Eskimo (also pre-Thule or pre-Inuit) were the peoples who inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Chukotka (e.g., Chertov Ovrag) in present-day Russia across North America to Greenland prior to the arrival of the mode ...

site in 1999-2000 shows that the area surrounding Coachman's Cove was inhabited approximately 3,000 years ago.

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 ...

, Coachman's Cove 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 Towns in Newfoundland and Labrador