Great Harbour Deep was an incorporated town in the province of

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic Canada, Atlantic region. The province comprises t ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, situated on the east coast of the

Great Northern Peninsula The Great Northern Peninsula ( Inuttitut: ''Ikkarumiklua'') is the largest and longest peninsula of Newfoundland, Canada, approximately 270 km long and 90 km wide at its widest point and encompassing an area of 17,483 km2. It is def ...

. Harbour Deep, as it is customarily called, is a logging and fishing community that lies in a sheltered harbour on the south shore of Pigeonnière Arm. It was once known as Orange Bay or Baie L'Orange. Orange Bay or Great Harbour Deep was a French fishing station and it had appeared on Samuel de Champlain's map of 1612 as ''Baye dorge''. It has gone through many name changes as noted on mapping at various years as noted; * 1613 b doringe * 1621 Havor Dorin * 1653 B d'orge * c.1680 B Dorange * 1689 Harbor Dorin * 1699 Baie d'Orge * 1715 Harbour Deep and Bay de Orge Residents voted to resettle in 2002. It cost the province $3.8 million to relocate the residents, according to government documents. That $3.8 million was recovered in four years, through savings in services which were no longer necessary once the town was shuttered. Those services included the local school and ferry that linked the town to Jackson's Arm. However, the $3.8 million total does not include any pending or future settlement amounts. Although the $3.8 million was no longer spent on/in Great Harbour Deep, the province still incurred education and medical expenses related to those residents now settled in other towns. In 2018, Baccalieu Media Inc produced a one-hour documentary about the resettlement of this town for CBC'
Absolutely Canadian
documentary series called
Great Harbour Deep
, profiling town residents before the move, and revisiting the ghost town and the residents 15 years later. The documentary features the last "Running of the Goat" in Great Harbour Deep, a traditional dance that was born in the town.

References

Former towns in Newfoundland and Labrador Populated coastal places in Canada Ghost towns in Newfoundland and Labrador {{Newfoundland-geo-stub

See also

References