Conception Harbour | |
|---|---|
Town | |
 | |
  Conception Harbour Location of Conception Harbour inNewfoundland | |
| Coordinates:47°26′30″N53°13′00″W / 47.44167°N 53.21667°W /47.44167; -53.21667 | |
| Country |  Canada |
| Province |  Newfoundland and Labrador |
| Census division | 1 |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Judy Trump Rotchford |
| Area | |
| • Land | 21.61 km2 (8.34 sq mi) |
| Population (2021)[2] | |
• Total | 624 |
| • Density | 31.7/km2 (82/sq mi) |
| • Demonym | Conception Harbour |
| Time zone | UTC-3:30 (Newfoundland Time) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-2:30 (Newfoundland Daylight) |
| Area code | 709 |
| Highways |  Route 60 |
Conception Harbour is atown on theAvalon Peninsula inNewfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is inDivision 1 onConception Bay and can be accessed viaNewfoundland and Labrador Route 60.
Conception Harbour includes the former communities of Bacon Cove, Cat's Cove, Kitchuses, and Silver Spring.[3] The town has a history of fishing, whaling, ironworking, and tourism as its industries, with ties to the steelworking construction industry in mid-20th-century New York City. In 2022,cephalopod fossils were found in Bacon Cove that potentially moved their evolutionary date back by 30 million years.
Prior to 1870, the settlement in the area was known as Cat's Cove.[3][4] Conception Harbour was incorporated as a community in 1972.[3] Throughout its history, the village's economy primarily focused around fishing, with a protected harbour nearby, and a lobster factory existed there in the early 1900s. Due to the decline of cod in the area, fishermen traveled to the northeastern United States (primarilyBoston andNew York City) for work. In New York City, the immigrants (mostly from Kitchuses and Bacon Cove) became known as "fish" who worked asironworkers in groups of seven, and some of their families followed.[3] Strong ties back to Newfoundland led to the rise of ironworkers in the area, and the town's first ironworkersunion was chartered in 1955.[3]
Due to the decline of thewhaling industry, severalwhalers were brought to the town to bescuttled in 1959.[5] In 1968, the S.S. Charcot ran aground near the town, leading to the discovery of several wrecks of the scuttled ships, whose parts would continue to wash up onto the beach throughout the next several decades. In 2013, the Shipwreck Preservation Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, the town, and the region's Economic Development Board partnered to improve the shipwrecks' tourism facilities.[3] Oil from one wreck's fuel tank had been leaking (with oil sheen visible in the summers), and in 2020, theCanadian Coast Guard drained the tank, a difficult task due to the novelty of the operation, the thickness of the tank's steel, and the viscosity of the oil. Over 14,000 liters were removed.[5]
In 2022,cephalopod fossils were found in Bacon Cove in a 522 million year old layer of rock byHeidelberg University researchers Anne Hildenbrand and Gregor Austermann; the fossils potentially backdated the origin of cephalopods by 30 million years to the earlyCambrian period, when multicellular organisms first developed.[6]
Industry in the area includes ironworking, fishing, and tourism.[3]
The town's St. Anne's Roman Catholic Parish Church was built in 1904, replacing a church built between 1857 and 1861.[3]
In the2021 Census of Population conducted byStatistics Canada, Conception Harbour had a population of624 living in280 of its330 total private dwellings, a change of-8.9% from its 2016 population of685. With a land area of 21.47 km2 (8.29 sq mi), it had a population density of29.1/km2 (75.3/sq mi) in 2021.[2][1]
Bacon Cove, a fishing and farming settlement south east ofBay Roberts, had a population of 124 in 2012. Kitchuses had a population of 169 in 1940 and 131 in 1956.
Newfoundland and Labrador Route 60 runs nearby.[3]
Places adjacent to Conception Harbour | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||
47°26′30″N53°13′00″W / 47.44167°N 53.21667°W /47.44167; -53.21667
