Port au Choix or Port aux Choix (, ; from misanalyzed to mean 'choice port', from eu, Portutxoa , meaning 'little port') is a town in the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

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 ...

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 ...

, Port au Choix 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.

National Historic Site

Port au Choix is a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment An environment minister (sometimes minister of the environment or secretary of t ...

, and the community is regarded as one of the richest archeological finds in North America. Burial sites uncovered in the town in the 1960s & 70s provide evidence of its earliest settlers - from the Maritime Archaic Indians to the Groswater and Dorset Palaeoeskimos to the Recent Indians (ancestors of the Beothuks). While prehistoric coastlines elsewhere have long since slipped beneath the encroaching ocean, the raised shoreline and alkaline soil conditions at Port au Choix have combined to preserve a time capsule of great historical importance. Because of the cultural significance of this burial site, and a successful local lobby, the site was officially designated a National Historic Site in 1970. In 2001,

Parks Canada Parks Canada (PC; french: Parcs Canada),Parks Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Parks Canada Agency (). is the agency of the Government of Canada which manages the country's 48 National Parks, th ...

constructed a new Visitor Centre and Museum dedicated to the rich history of the native peoples - the first ever to inhabit Newfoundland, dating back over 5000 years.

Basque ''chaloupe''

In 2004, through the effort of the 2004 Society, an association of Basque Maritime Heritage, Itsas Begia (''The eye of the sea'') from

Ciboure Ciboure (; ,ZIBURU

Northern Basque Country The French Basque Country, or Northern Basque Country ( eu, Iparralde (), french: Pays basque, es, País Vasco francés) is a region lying on the west of the French department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Since 1 January 2017, it constitu ...

), came to Newfoundland and shared its ancestral knowledge with Newfoundlanders. Three ''chaloupes'' were built, here in Port au Choix, in

Conche upright=1.35, Conche (in the Imhoff-Schokoladenmuseum) Conching is a process used in the manufacture of chocolate whereby a surface scraping mixer and agitator, known as a conche, evenly distributes cocoa butter within chocolate and may act as ...

and in La Scie. The ''chaloupe'' is located on Forest Road, in the old Port au Choix

cove A cove is a small type of bay or coastal inlet. Coves usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creeks, or recesses in a coast are o ...

References

External links

Basque Maritime Heritage, Itsas BegiaPort au Choix - Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 4, pp. 382–384.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Port Au Choix Towns in Newfoundland and Labrador