Corner Brook ( 2021 population: 19,316 CA 29,762) is a city located on the west coast of the island of

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

in the province of

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the populatio ...

, Canada. Corner Brook is the fifth largest settlement in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the largest outside the

Avalon Peninsula The Avalon Peninsula () is a large peninsula that makes up the southeast portion of the island of Newfoundland in Canada. It is in size. The peninsula is home to 270,348 people, about 52% of the province's population, according to the 2016 Ca ...

. Located on the

Bay of Islands The Bay of Islands is an area on the east coast of the Far North District of the North Island of New Zealand. It is one of the most popular fishing, sailing and tourist destinations in the country, and has been renowned internationally for ...

at the mouth of the Humber River, the city is the second-largest population centre in the province behind St. John's, and smallest of three cities behind St. John's and

Mount Pearl Mount Pearl is the fourth-largest municipality and second-largest city in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The city is located southwest of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the isla ...

. As such, Corner Brook functions as a service centre for western and northern Newfoundland. It is located on the same latitude as

Gaspé, Quebec Gaspé () is a city at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula in the Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region of eastern Quebec in Canada. Gaspé is about northeast of Quebec City and east of Rimouski. Gaspé has a total population of 15,063, as of th ...

, a city of similar size and landscape on the other side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Corner Brook is the most northern city in

Atlantic Canada Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (), is the list of regions of Canada, region of Eastern Canada comprising four provinces: New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. As of 2021, the landma ...

. It is the administrative headquarters of the Qalipu Mi'kmaq

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

band government In Canada, an Indian band (), First Nation band () or simply band, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subject to the ''Indian Act'' (i.e. status Indians or First Nations). Bands are typically small groups of people: the largest in ...

. The Mi'kmaq name for the nearby Humber River is "Maqtukwek."

History

The area was surveyed by

Captain James Cook Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He complet ...

in 1767. The Captain James Cook Historic Site stands on Crow Hill overlooking the city. By the middle of the 19th century, the population of Corner Brook was less than 100, and the inhabitants were engaged in fishing and lumber work. The area was originally four distinct communities, each with unique commercial activities:

Curling Curling is a sport in which players slide #Curling stone, stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area that is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take t ...

, with its fishery; Corner Brook West (also known as Humber West or Westside) with its retail businesses; Corner Brook East (also known as Humbermouth and the Heights) with its

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

and industrial operations; and Townsite (known as Corner Brook) to house employees of the pulp and paper mill, laid out in 1923 by Thomas Adams using Garden City principles. In 1956, these four communities were amalgamated to form the present-day City of Corner Brook. Between 1948 and 1958, about 70 people from

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

settled in Corner Brook. They came as part of then Premier Joseph Smallwood's New Industries program. They built and worked at North Star Cement and the Atlantic Gypsum Plant. (For more history on the subject, see Latvians and Baltic Germans in Corner Brook.) Corner Brook is home to the Corner Brook Pulp & Paper Mill (owned by

Kruger Inc. Kruger Inc. is a Canadian private company which manufactures publication papers, lumber and other wood products, corrugated cartons from recycled fibres, green and renewable energy, and wines and spirits. Kruger Inc. operates facilities in Qué ...

), which is a major employer for the region. The city has the largest regional hospital in western Newfoundland. The Western Memorial Regional Hospital opened to patients and clients on June 2, 2024. It also has a wide array of shopping and retail businesses and federal and provincial government offices. It is home to Grenfell Campus, Memorial University, as well as campuses of Academy Canada and

College of the North Atlantic College of the North Atlantic (CNA, formerly CONA) is one of the largest post-secondary educational and skills training centres in Atlantic Canada, with a history dating back 50 years. The college has 17 campus locations throughout the province ...

. Corner Brook celebrated its

Come Home Year Come Home Year is a Canadian civic event for many towns that encourages a return to home town. Due to significant economic migration away from many of the small rural towns these events draw many generations to celebrate. In 2000, there was a pr ...

from July 19–28, 2019.

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 Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), 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 culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Corner Brook 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.

Ethnic origin

Sports

Near Corner Brook is

Marble Mountain Ski Resort Marble Mountain is a ski resort located in the town of Steady Brook, on the west coast of Newfoundland in the Long Range Mountains. The resort is located on a series of steep ridges forming part of the southern side of the Humber River valley o ...

, a downhill skiing resort, and Blow-Me-Down trails, a cross country ski area. The

Corner Brook Royals The Corner Brook Royals are a senior ice hockey team based in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador and a current member of the Central West Senior Hockey League (CWSHL). History The Corner Brook Royals have their roots in picked teams from th ...

currently play in the West Coast Senior Hockey League and were the winners of the 1986 National Title, the Allan Cup. The Royals play home games at the

Corner Brook Civic Centre The Corner Brook Civic Centre (previously named the Canada Games Centre and the Pepsi Centre) is a 3,100-seat multi-purpose arena in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It was home to the ice hockey, figure skating, judo, and Squash ...

, formerly called the Canada Games Centre and the Pepsi Center. The arena was built in 1997 and was one of the main venues used when the city of Corner Brook hosted the 1999

Canada Games The Canada Games () is a multi-sport event held every two years, alternating between the Canada Winter Games and the Canada Summer Games. They represent the highest level of national competition for Canadian athletes. Two separate programs are or ...

. The Corner Brook Civic Centre is currently owned by The City of Corner Brook. Corner Brook hosted the Special Olympics Provincial Winter Games in February 2011. The city also twice hosted Raid the North Extreme, a televised six-day multi-sport expedition race held in wilderness locations across Canada, and was a leg of the ITU World Cup Triathlon. In 2004, Corner Brook hosted the annual World Broomball Championship.

Arts and culture

Grenfell Campus Arts and Science Extension August 2013

Corner Brook is home to

Grenfell Campus Grenfell Campus, formerly Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, is a campus of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). It is located in the city of Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The campus has approximately 1,300 students enrol ...

Memorial University Memorial University of Newfoundland, or MUN (), is a Public university, public research university in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, with satellite campuses in Corner Brook ...

, where a strong arts community exists both within the school and well into the public. The campus houses the Grenfell Art Gallery. The Corner Brook Arts and Culture Centre among other institutions thrive in promoting the arts on all levels from visual arts to theatre. In 2015, the City's newest theatre and gallery, the Rotary Arts Centre, opened. Theatre Newfoundland Labrador is Corner Brook's professional theatre company. It was founded in 1979 by Maxim Mazumdar, and it operates a year-round professional theatre company from its home base, Corner Brook. From September to May, their Sarah McDonald Youth Theatre offers classes in acting, stagecraft and music to youth aged 6 to 8 and produces several youth and community-oriented productions in and around the city. From May to September, it puts together a professional repertory summer festival in Cow Head,

Gros Morne National Park Gros Morne National Park is a Canadian national park and World Heritage Site located on the west coast of Newfoundland. At , it is the second largest national park in Atlantic Canada after Torngat Mountains National Park, which has an area o ...

and regular national and international touring of plays like ''Tempting Providence'' by

Robert Chafe Robert Chafe (born 1971)
''Waterfront Views: Contemporary Writing of Atlantic Canada''. is a Canadia ...

, ''With Cruel Times in Between'' by

Sarah McDonald Sarah McDonald (born 2 August 1993) is an English middle-distance runner specialising in the 1500 metres. Sarah was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and attended the Royal Grammar School. She represented her country at the 2017 World Championships. ...

, based on the various works by

Al Pittman Al Pittman (April 11, 1940 – August 26, 2001) was a Canadian writer and teacher from Newfoundland. Life and work Born in St. Leonard's, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, Pittman grew up in Corner Brook. He moved to Montreal in 1964 where he beg ...

and ''Our Frances'' by Berni Stapleton. Corner Brook is home to Gros Morne Summer Music, a classical music festival that spans July and August. The Hangashore Folk Festival was a

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk horror ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Fo ...

festival based in Corner Brook from 1980–1994. For 32 years, the

March Hare The March Hare (called Haigha in '' Through the Looking-Glass'') is a character most famous for appearing in the tea party scene in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''. The main character, Alice, hypothesizes, : " ...

literary festival ran every March. It celebrated poetry and written works by poets and writers from around Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and the world. Atlantic Canada's largest poetry festival was founded in the late 1980s by poet and playwright

and Corner Brook author and historian

Rex Brown Rex Robert Brown (born July 27, 1964) is an American musician. He is the longtime bassist for heavy metal band Pantera, having joined the band in 1982. Following the band's reunion in 2022, Brown is the longest-serving member of the band. He i ...

. The last March Hare was held in 2018. Corner Brook is also home to the region's only community radio station, BayFM ( CKVB-FM 100.1, or BOIR). The station was previously only available online. However, the station received its broadcast licence from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on October 6, 2016, and commenced FM broadcasting on November 5, 2017. The radio station is located on Cobb Lane, in the city's downtown district.

Municipal government

The Corner Brook City Council has six

city councillor A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough counc ...

s and a mayor. The highest voting winning councillor becomes Deputy Mayor. The current mayor of the city is

Jim Parsons James Joseph Parsons (born March 24, 1973) is an American actor. From 2007 to 2019, Parsons played Sheldon Cooper in the CBS sitcom ''The Big Bang Theory''. He has received various awards, including four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstandin ...

. The deputy mayor is Linda Chaisson. Municipal elections in Corner Brook are held every four years on the last Tuesday in September. In the 2021 municipal elections held on September 28, 2021, Jim Parsons was re-elected mayor.

Transportation

Route 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbered S ...

, the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

, passes the south side of the city on a high ridge before descending to the east into the Humber Valley. The city is accessed by air services at Deer Lake Regional Airport, northeast. Corner Brook Transit is a privately operated local bus service. The city is also served by four taxi cab companies.

Climate

Corner Brook 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 cold ...

(

Dfb DFB may refer to: Music * Dem Franchize Boyz, an Atlanta hip hop group * Dysfunctional Family BBQ, a New York festival Sport * DFB-Pokal, a football cup competition in Germany Organisations * Furka Steam Railway (), Switzerland * German Footbal ...

) typical of most of Newfoundland. It is warmer in summer than St. John's due to less maritime exposure, whereas winters are colder than in the provincial capital. In terms of its overall climate, it is very maritime-like, especially considering how the climate is in mainland Canada on similar latitudes. Precipitation is heavy year-round but highest in December and January and lowest in April and May, with relatively dry, stable conditions extending into July many years. The Corner Brook area lies in an especially heavy snow belt because of cold Arctic air masses from mainland Canada, coming from the west or northwest, crossing the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and picking up moisture, resulting in "sea-effect" snow (similar to "lake effect" snow in US locations like Muskegon and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan). The "sea effect" snow comes in addition to the heavy snow that can accompany mid-latitude storms, called "nor'easters," that approach the area from the U.S. Northeastern and New England states. Such storms can bring high winds and heavy precipitation, with possibly changing precipitation types in a single storm. The combination of intense winter storms and "sea effect" snow make December and January the wettest months on average in Corner Brook. In December and January combined, average snowfall reaches nearly .

Notable people

* Ian Arthur, politician * Keith Brown,

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

player *

Brian Byrne Brian Byrne (born January 13, 1975) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. He was the second vocalist for the band I Mother Earth. Biography Brian joined his first band in Corner Brook in 1988, a Glam metal, hair-metal band called Pandemonium. ...

, former lead singer of rock band

I Mother Earth I Mother Earth, or IME, is a Canadian rock band. The band formed in 1990, reaching its peak popularity in the latter half of the 1990s. After an eight-year hiatus, it reunited in 2012. Between 1996 and 2016, it was among the top 150 best-selling ...

* Frank Coleman, businessman *

Allison Crowe Allison Louise Crowe (born November 16, 1981) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Nanaimo, British Columbia, whose home is Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, Corner Brook, Newfoundlan ...

, musician * Donald B. Dingwell, scientist *

Gary Graham Gary Rand Graham (June 6, 1950 – January 22, 2024) was an American actor. With a career spanning five decades beginning in the 1970s in television and movies, he is perhaps best known for his starring role as Detective Matthew Sikes in the tel ...

, music teacher, Order of NL recipient * Doug Grant, National Hockey League

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as goalie or netminder) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their own team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays ...

Bruce Grobbelaar Bruce David Grobbelaar (born 6 October 1957) is a Zimbabwean former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper, most prominently for English club Liverpool between 1981 and 1994, and for the Zimbabwean national team. Regarded as one of ...

, former professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

goalkeeper * Susan Kent, actress * Irma Gerd, Drag Queen who competed on

Canada's Drag Race ''Canada's Drag Race'' is a Canadian reality competition television series based on the American series ''RuPaul's Drag Race'' and is the Canadian edition of the ''Drag Race'' franchise, produced by Blue Ant Studios. In a similar format to t ...

Season 3 * Jason King, National Hockey League player * Joe Lundrigan, National Hockey League player *

Adriana Maggs Adriana Maggs is a Canadians, Canadian film and television actress, writer and director, best known for her debut feature film ''Grown Up Movie Star''.Trent McClellan, comedian * Dick Nolan, musician *

, poet and playwright * Percy Janes, author * Sean Durfy, businessman and former CEO of

WestJet WestJet Airlines, is a Canadian airline headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. Founded in 1994, it is the second-largest airline in Canada and the eighth-largest airline in North America by frequency. It began operations in 1996 with 220 employee ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Cities in Newfoundland and Labrador Populated coastal places in Canada Populated places established in 1956