Woody Point is a town located in the heart of Gros Morne National Park, on the western coast of Newfoundland. Situated on

Bonne Bay Bonne Bay is a bay in Newfoundland, Canada. It is located on the western coast of Newfoundland and separates the Great Northern Peninsula from the rest of the island. It is a part of Gros Morne National Park. It is separated into two sections: ...

, the Town of Woody Point encompasses three areas: Curzon Village, Woody Point and Winterhouse Brook. It has a total population of 244 residents. Woody Point is a Registered Heritage District and has a waterfront with many heritage buildings and four Registered Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Structures. The community is served by Route 431.

History

French Shore

Europeans were slow to settle the west coast of Newfoundland. The British were concentrated on the east coast, and the French were on the Grand Banks. The 1713

Treaty of Utrecht The Peace of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht between April 1713 and February 1715. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne ...

gave the French some area on the west coast which was extended in 1783 to the entire coast. British settlement was spreading, as well. In 1800 the first British settlement in the Bonne Bay area occurred in Woody Point with the establishment of the firm of Joseph Bird from Sturminster Newton. He had an agent and premises to serve the British fishing interests which were principally migratory at this point. When fishermen began to stay during the winter rather than return to England, the pattern for permanent settlement was laid. By 1904, the French had left the area to pursue fisheries farther up the coast. By this time, Woody Point was bustling. It was considered the capital of the area with banking and customs offices, merchants, and a harbour full of domestic and foreign vessels.

First settlers

John Roberts and his wife, Emma, together with their four children are considered to be the first settlers of Woody Point. They came in 1849. By 1872, there were 129 families residing in the Bonne Bay area. In 1873, the Bonne Bay Post Office was established in the home of J.R. Roberts, John Roberts' nephew. This house was one of the first built in the area and is still standing today. It is a blue clapboarded structure on the Shore Road left of the downtown. Plans are being made to restore this house. Solomon Wilton was the second settler to Woody Point. It was Wilton who donated the land on which the present day Church of the Epiphany was built. A school and parsonage once stood on this spot. These early founding families are laid to rest in the Anglican cemetery on Shore Road.

Major events

In 1922, when Woody Point was experiencing the height of its population and commercial success, a devastating fire ripped through the downtown. The wind quickly carried the flames which shot all the way across the Bay to

Norris Point Norris Point is a community in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Located on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland and 10 minutes south of Rocky Harbour, the community hosts a marine biology centre, a pharmacy, a modern heal ...

. In all, 58 buildings were destroyed. The degree of commerce in the town never returned to the pre-fire level. Most of the buildings currently on the waterfront date from after 1922, but there are some exceptions. The lighthouse was built in 1919. Also, the large grey and green house to the right of the Seaside Deli was built in the 1890s. This house was the scene of a riot in 1938.

Gallery

File:Woody Point, Newfoundland and Labrador.jpg , View from Norris Point Image:August sky over the table lands.jpg , August sky over the table lands Image:Winter in Woody Point (Newfoundland and Labrador).jpg , Winter in Woody Point File:Bonne Bay, 2006 (Woody Point).jpg , Bonne Bay Image:WP Huskies.jpg , WP huskies Image:purple orchid.jpg , Spring Orchids Image:bonnebaysunset.jpg , Sunset on Bonne Bay Image:atticusonlookout.jpg , Westie on the Lookout Image:lighthouseinfog.jpg , Lighthouse in fog Image:Green point rocks.jpg, Rocks at Green Point Image:ronandsandy.jpg, Ron & Sandy NLW BonneBay1 tango7174

Geography and Climate

Woody Point is underlain by a bedrock of

mélange In geology, a mélange is a large-scale breccia, a mappable body of rock characterized by a lack of continuous bedding and the inclusion of fragments of rock of all sizes, contained in a fine-grained deformed matrix. The mélange typically cons ...

, with metagabbro and related rock on higher areas. Soils of the community and its surrounding region have been placed in the Serpentine Cove association. Woody Point has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''Dfb'') with extremely high winter snowfall and a strong winter

seasonal lag Seasonal lag is the phenomenon whereby the date of maximum average air temperature at a geographical location on a planet is delayed until some time after the date of maximum insolation (i.e. the summer solstice). This also applies to the minim ...

, causing February to be the clearly coldest month. Summers are moderated by its seaside position, whereas precipitation remains high year round and rainfall is occurring during milder spells during winters. Woody Point is the snowiest year round inhabited place in Canada.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population 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 ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, Woody Point, Bonne Bay 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.

Arts and culture

Woody Point is home to the

Writers at Woody Point A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, play ...

festival and

Gros Morne Summer Music Gros may refer to: People *Gros (surname) * Gross (surname), the German variant of Gros * Le Gros, the Norman variant of Gros Other uses * Gros (coinage), a type of 13th-century silver coinage of France * Gros (grape), another name for Elbling, ...

References

External links

Woody Point Web PageWriters at Woody PointWoody Point – Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol.5, p. 622-623.

Aids to Navigation
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