Island of Newfoundland

Island of Newfoundland, making up part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, eastern Canada, lying in the Gulf of St Lawrence in the Atlantic Ocean, and covering an area of 93,830 sq km (36,900 sq mi). Physically the island is a continuation of the Appalachian range; the Lewis Hills in the west reach a height of 814 m (2,672 ft), joining the Long Range Mountains which extend up the west coast, and the whole island slopes downwards to the north and north-west where it is drained by the Rivers Exploits—at 240 km (150 mi) Newfoundland's longest—and Gander. Glacial action has left many lakes and streams in the island's interior, and its coasts receive the cold winds of the Labrador Current flowing south. This climate accommodates game such as caribou and moose, and seabirds like gulls, murres, puffins, and kittiwakes. On the west coast of the island is the Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. Viking settlements, such as the 11th-century L’Anse aux Meadows at the north end of the island (today a World Heritage Site, established in 1978) testify to its early history. The island's main industries are small-scale fish processing and—since the 1920s—pulp and paper manufacture, along with some mining of copper, iron, zinc, and flurospar. Declining fish stocks have recently led to increasing speculation in offshore oil and gas. The province's capital, St John's, is the main settlement on the island, and the island's population (1991) is 538,099.

Inhabited by various indigenous groups since about 7000 bc, Newfoundland Island was briefly settled by Norse Greenlanders led by Leif Ericson in about ad 1000 and claimed by England—with some fishing rights reluctantly ceded to France—after the 1497 expedition of John Cabot. England prohibited settling until the 17th century, but immigration took off properly only in the 19th. In 1934, economic depression forced Great Britain to establish a commission government; in 1949, after a referendum and a plebiscite, Newfoundland Island became, with Labrador on the mainland coast, a province of Canada.