The community, originally known as South Side or Little Bay has its origins in the French fishery of the seventeenth century when the good natural harbour would attract fishermen to spend the summer in the area and return to France for the winter months. Permanently settled in the eighteenth century, the community remained a fishing village for nearly 200 years until the advent of the railroad.[2] As of 2024, a large salt deposit has been found in the region and development proposals are underway. [3]
Mi'kmaq
Mi'kmaq villages in St. Georges Bay and Placentia existed in 1594.[4]: 11 [5]: 220–21 [6]: 80 [7][8]: 138 Jeannot Pequidalouet - the eastern Mi'kmaq chief of Cape Breton, who had previously overwintered in Newfoundland - began to create permanent settlements in St. George's Bay and Miawpukek in the 1760s.[9][10] In May 1767 when James Cook was mapping Newfoundland coast, he met a tribe of Mi'kmaq in St. George's Bay.[11]: 12
Early fisheries
In the seventeenth century the French fishermen spent the summer months in St. Georges harbour and returned to France for the winter. They began to overwinter in the eighteenth century and St. Georges continued to be a fishing village "for nearly 200 years until the advent of the railroad."[2]
After the railroad
The railroad came to Western Newfoundland in 1898, and because of the work that the railway created, as well as access to many different types of goods, many people from outlying communities flocked to St. George's. The town quickly became a major centre in Western Newfoundland. The town became a distributor of goods to the surrounding area and the Port au Port Peninsula. Lumbering, fishing and farming were the primary occupations and lobster plants also opened there. A brewery/distillery also operated there for a short time at the turn of the century. The community also became the seat of the magistrate in the area and a courthouse was constructed.
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, St. George's had a population of 1,139 living in 543 of its 611 total private dwellings, a change of -5.3% from its 2016 population of 1,203. With a land area of 25.71 km2 (9.93 sq mi), it had a population density of 44.3/km2 (114.7/sq mi) in 2021.[12]
Attractions
St. Georges once hosted an Annual Blueberry Festival every August at Blueberry Hill which ran for 25 consecutive years .[13]
Sandy Point, located 3.5 kilometres south of Stephenville, is an uninhabited 2,471-acre (1,000-hectare) island of natural wealth in St. Georges Bay.[14]
Black Bank is a black sand beach and former provincial park with tree lined embankments.
^Stone, Helen. 1993. Living in time immemorial: Concepts of "time" and "time immemorial": Why Aboriginal rights theory is problematic in the courts and around the negotiating table. Master's thesis, Carleton University.
^Wetzel, Jerry (1999). "The hidden Term of Union: Executive summary, confederation and federal abandonment of the Newfoundland Mi'kmaq". Newfoundland Quarterly. 92 (4): 23–28.
^Wetzel, Jerry (1995), Decolonizing Ktagmkuk Mi'kmaw history, LL.M Theses, Dalhousie University
^Jeddore, Phil (2001), "Lnu'k Saqmawaq of Taqm Mi'kmaq chiefs of Newfoundland", Miawipukek Aknutmaqn: News and Information from Aosamiaji'jij Miawpukek Reserve, Conne River, Taqm (Newfoundland), retrieved August 5, 2016 March 10, 1996, to April 2001
