Welcome to Newfoundland!

Throughout this blog, I'll be posting twice a week on things unique to Newfoundland, it's culture and the people who live there. Things from the Newfoundland pony to jigs dinner and everything in between! I'll also be clearing up any misconceptions related to Newfoundland so feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or any ideas you'd like me to cover. All I ask is that your polite about it.

To start us off, just a little bit of history. Then we'll get into the good stuff!

On March 1st, 1949, the island of Newfoundland joined Canada. Newfoundland is part of the province Newfoundland and Labrador and is also the furthest eastern province in Canada. It was first just a summer fishing port and was illegal for people to live there all year around until 1610. Its founders were mostly Irish who came over because of the potato famine. But there were also a lot of English, French, Portuguese, Scottish, and Native people who lived there prior to the Irish arriving. Of course, now all Newfoundlanders have a bit of each somewhere in their family history.

Newfoundland was settled on the industry of fishing. Being an island in the ocean, fish were abundant. However, years of over fishing has caused the main work force to suffer dramatically, and therefore, alot of people have moved away to the main land to find work.

Signal Hill overlooking St John's. Photo from: www.legendtours.ca

The capitol of Newfoundland is St. John's. Not to be confused with St Johns, New Brunswick. Mind the apostrophe at the end. Another famous place would be Signal Hill, located in St John's where the first transatlantic wireless transmission was received from Cornwall, UK on December 12th, 1901.

Hopefully you've learned a little bit about the history of Newfoundland and are looking forward to some other newfie tid bits! Until the next time me duckies!