Herring Neck is a local service district and

designated place A designated place (DPL) is a type of community or settlement identified by Statistics Canada that does not meet the criteria used to define municipalities or population centres. DPLs are delineated every 5 years for the Canadian census as the ...

in the Canadian 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 ...

. It is on the northeastern extremity of

New World Island New World Island is an island in Notre Dame Bay, just off the coast of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The island is connected to Newfoundland by a causeway. The prominent communities on the island are Summer ...

Notre Dame Bay Notre Dame Bay is a large bay in Newfoundland, Canada. To the south it adjoins the Bay of Exploits. The name, French for '' Our Lady Bay'', dates to at least 1550, and is possibly a French translation of an earlier Portuguese name. Trump Islan ...

. The community encompasses several small contiguous communities such as Merritt's Harbour, Hatchet Harbour, Salt Harbour, and Sunnyside. The name has changed many times in its history; at one time the area now called Herring Neck was called Goshen's Arm and the areas now called Pike's Arm and Green Cove was called Herring Neck.

Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador ''Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador'' is an Encyclopedia commissioned by Joey Smallwood to capture the people, places, events and history of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Smallwood's view on the purpose of the encyclopedia wa ...

, Volume two, page 925 The origin of the name comes from the early fishermen's practice of

portaging Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...

loads of herring across the narrow neck of Pike's Arm. This was necessary to avoid the journey around the

arm In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...

and the treacherous headwaters. It is believed the first European settler of the area was Jimmy Chant in the 1760s. It first appeared in the Census of 1845 with a population of 546, which included the surrounding settlements as noted above. By 1857 the population had reached 610 and peaked out near 1000 in the 1880s. It remained around that figure until the 1930s, from where it has steadily declined to 607 in the 1981 census and to 20 in the 2016. The population has continued to decline due to the cod moratorium and the downsizing of the fish processing plant in the community. Many have left the community to seek employment in larger communities. In November 1908 at the Orange Hall,

William Coaker Sir William Ford Coaker (October 19, 1871 – October 26, 1938) was a Newfoundland union leader and politician and founder of the Fisherman's Protective Union, the Fishermen's Union Trading Co., and the town of Port Union. A polarizing figure ...

gathered together a group of fisherman to form what became later the

Fishermen's Protective Union The Fishermen's Protective Union (sometimes called the Fisherman's Protective Union, the FPU, The Union or the Union Party) was a workers' organisation and political party in the Dominion of Newfoundland. The development of the FPU mirrored that ...

, which became a powerful, though short-lived political entity within the

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible gove ...

of the Dominion of Newfoundland. Herring Neck held a Come Home Year in the summer of 2014 and continues to hold an annual festival by the name of the "Herring Neck Dory Festival" on the second last weekend of July.

Geography

Herring Neck is in Newfoundland within Subdivision H of Division No. 8.

Demographics

As a designated place in the 2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Herring Neck recorded a population of 20 living in 9 of its 13 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2011 population of 22. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2016.

Government

Herring Neck is a local service district (LSD) that is governed by a committee responsible for the provision of certain services to the community. The chair of the LSD committee is James King.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herring Neck, Newfoundland And Labrador Populated coastal places in Canada Designated places in Newfoundland and Labrador Local service districts in Newfoundland and Labrador

Geography

Demographics

Government

See also

References