Bell Island is an island that is part of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada's easternmost province. With an area of , it is by far the largest island in Conception Bay, a large bay in the southeast of the island of Newfoundland. The provincial capital of St. John's is less than to the east.
The coastline of Bell Island consists almost entirely of cliffs that tower up to above the surf and also has several special rock formations. The island is home to four settlements with a total of over 2,000 inhabitants. The vast majority of them live in the main settlement of Wabana, which can be reached from Newfoundland via a ferry connection to Portugal Cove. To the south are the hamlets of Lance Cove, Bickfordville and Freshwater.
From 1895 to 1966, large-scale iron ore mining took place on Bell Island. As a result, the relatively small island acquired great international economic importance as it quickly grew into one of the most important iron ore producers in the world. In addition, the ore mined in the mines of Bell Island was very important to the Allied war industry during World War II, which led to Nazi Germany attacking twice. At its peak, more than 12,000 people lived there.
Since the end of mining, the population has fallen dramatically and there has been a severe economic downturn. Due to the few remaining jobs, the majority of residents now commute daily via ferry to the St. John's Metropolitan Area. In recent years, the local economy has turned to tourism to a significant extent, with the natural beauty, mining history and shipwrecks being the main draws.
Since 1988, Bell Island mining has been recognized by the federal government as a "national historic event".Parks Canada, "Wabana Iron Ore Mines National Historic Event", 2022. Accessed September 23, 2022.
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, there are concerns that some of the underground mines could collapse, causing both an earthquake and tidal wave.CBC, "Bell Island collapse not an if, but a when, engineer says", September 27, 2015. Accessed September 24, 2022.
Toponymy Originally the island was known as Great Bell Isle, although this evolved into the shortened form Bell Isle as early as the late 18th century. Bell Island has been in use as the official name since 1896, although the old name Bell Isle also continued to live on in popular speech for a hundred years.
The island takes its name from a distinctive cone-shaped sea stack near the western cape known as The Bell (sometimes called Bell Rock)., The Canadian Encyclopedia, 'Bell Island', 2006 (laatste wijziging 2014). Accessed on 1 augustus 2022.Prostar Sailing Directions 2005. Newfoundland, Labrador, and Hudson Bay (Enroute), Annapolis, 2005, p. 108-109. The name of this rock comes from the fact that it is similar in shape to a traditional bell protruding upside down from the water.
History Early history Before the arrival of the Europeans, Newfoundland was the territory of the now extinct Beothuk people. European fishermen and pirates already frequented the island early in the 16th century, mainly for the purpose of stocking up on potable water. The hamlet of Freshwater to the south and Freshwater Cove to the north are reminiscent of this.Ernst, p. 199.In both the north and south of Bell Island there is a cove called "Freshwater Cove". The southern cove of that name is near the hamlet of Freshwater.
As early as 1578, the English merchant Anthony Parkhurst discovered that the island contained iron ore. and red., Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador (vol. 5), 'Wabana', St. John's, 1994, p. 493-494. Sources from 1610 and 1612 also indicate that Bell Island was known to have iron ore containing rock.Neary, "Epic Tragedy", p. 202 Finally, in 1628, settler leader John Guy sent samples of Bell Island rocks to England for analysis. Some members of Guy's colony at Cuper's Cove attempted to claim the island thereon against the London and Bristol Company, but without success. Despite early knowledge that the island had at least some mining potential, the information was ultimately not used. The heavy rocks of Bell Island were historically mined on a limited scale, but only for use as ship ballast or for the manufacture of killicks, a Newfoundland-type anchor made of wood and stone.Pollock, p. 72. It was not until about the year 1819 that a small-scale iron ore mining operation was first reported (near Back Cove), albeit presumably briefly and without much success.
From the early 17th century, Bell Island, part of the so-called English coast of Newfoundland, was a seasonal base and thus non-permanent settlement for fishermen mainly from England, Ireland and the Channel Islands.Roseman and Royal, p. 57-59. In the 1670s and 1680s, it was a base for fishermen from Dartmouth, a harbour town in England's West Country.Hammond, p. 2. In the fishing season of 1681, for example, there were two ships and 26 boats that together accounted for a crew of 130 men.Rootsweb – Conception Bay South, 'Bell Island', 2008. Accessed on 13 September 2022.
Establishment of a permanent settlement In the early 18th century, the first people had settled permanently on the island. The oldest Great Belle Isle census is from 1706 and records 85 residents. It concerned eight heads of households – namely five families with children and three single men – who together owned eight large and five small boats. As many as 59 people who resided on the island were (resident) staff of these families active in the labour-intensive fishing industry. Gregory Normore, a fisherman and farmer from Jersey, is believed to have settled on the island around 1740 and was married to a Newfoundland woman named Catherine. They were not the first inhabitants, but are considered the first in traditional lore and local folklore. This is mainly the case because Normore has a gravestone left and because the couple still has numerous descendants on the island in the 21st century.
During the entire 18th century there was no demographic growth and in 1794 the population was still only 87.Historic Wabana, 'Settlement of Bell Island: Facts and Folklore', 2022. Geraadpleegd op 27 augustus 2022. In the 19th century, however, there was a clear growth with already 338 inhabitants in 1845. The island thus grew into one of the many typical Newfoundland fishing villages, the so-called outports. The inhabitants were mainly of English and Irish descent, so early on the community consisted of a mix of Catholics and Anglicans. In addition to fishing, they also lived from agriculture and livestock. These secondary activities were much more important there than elsewhere, as the island has very fertile soil by Newfoundland standards.Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, 'Iron Ore Mines of Bell Island', 1998 (last edit 2016). Accessed on August 8, 2022. Farmers there produced, both for their own consumption and for sale to the townspeople of St. John's, potatoes, strawberries, blackcurrants, turnips, and white cabbage.
Beginning in the 1830s, a real secondary sector also began to emerge on Bell Island. For example, from that period on a shipyard was active in Lance Cove and in 1848 a brick factory was opened there as well. There were also a number of people working in sectors such as woodworking and trade. Throughout the 19th century, a large proportion of men were also active in winter in seal hunting, then an important part of Newfoundland's economy.
In 1843, under the supervision of the Anglican Bishop of Newfoundland, the first church opened on the island, after a Protestant school had been opened two years earlier. The first Catholic church opened in 1884. In the following decades, they were followed by a house of worship of the methodists (1901) and of the Salvation Army (1910).
Beginning and flourishing of mining In 1892 Messrs. Butler and Miller of Topsail obtained a mining licence for the iron ore on the island, which at the time was first identified as hematite.Southey, p. 375. In 1894 they leased their rights to the New Glasgow Coal, Iron & Railroad Company (known as the "Scotia Company"Since 1898 this company was officially known as the "Nova Scotia Iron and Steel Company". In 1901, it changed its name to the "Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company".Historic Wabana, "Company Names Timeline 1893-1966", 2020. Accessed on September 29, 2022.) of neighbouring Canada, which began mining the hematite in 1895.Slumkoski, p. 27. The weak and poor government of the Colony of Newfoundland was eager to see such foreign investors come.White, p. 15-16.Newfoundland was originally a British colony and in 1907 became an independent country (or dominion) within the British Empire. It was not until April 1, 1949 that Newfoundland and thus Bell Island joined the Canadian Confederation. The mining site was the easternmost in North America and was therefore given the name "Wabana", a combination of two terms from the native Abenaki language which should mean "place of the first light".The native Abenaki people have absolutely no connection with Newfoundland. The name was given by Thomas Cantley, the secretary of the New Glasgow Coal and Steel Company. The location was ideal as the ore could be loaded onto ships immediately and, in addition, it was close to North American and European markets.Weir, p. 25-26. On December 24, 1895, the first fully loaded ship departed for the steel industry of Nova Scotia. On July 3, 1896, the first ship departed for the United States and the first transatlantic shipload departed for the port of Rotterdam on November 22, 1897.Pollock, p. 75. As early as 1899 the Scotia Company definitively purchased the mining rights and shortly afterwards they sold a part of them to the Dominion Iron and Steel Company (DISCO). In the following decades, therefore, there were two companies operating side by side. Originally the extraction at Wabana concerned open-cast mining, but from 1903 the above-ground hematite was exhausted and only underground work could be done in underground mines., Historic Wabana, 'Time-line of the History of the Wabana Mines', 2021. Accessed August 27, 2022.
With the start of mining, the economy of the island changed drastically and there was a very strong population growth. The Wabana mining site grew into a large and prosperous mining village. Gradually almost everyone on the island lived directly or indirectly from that industry. High production made Newfoundland a major iron ore exporter early in the 20th century.Canadian Ports and Seaway Directory (National Business Publications Limited), 1987, p. 63. A large part of the mined ore was exported to Sydney, an industrial town in the north of Nova Scotia, where processing and smelting took place. However, the at the time industrially emerging country Germany was also a very important market.Bassler, p. 75-76. An important reason for this was that the Krupp steel group was willing to pay a higher price than the Canadians and Americans.The Krupp steel group had developed an efficient process to strip the Bell Island ore of its phosphorus. They then converted the phosphorus extracted from the hematite into phosphate to make fertiliser. In this way they were able to realize additional turnover with the purchased hematite.