St. John's (city, Newfoundland and Labrador) - Geography. I INTRODUCTION St. John's (city, Newfoundland and Labrador), capital and largest city of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is one of the oldest communities in North America. St. John's is located on the Avalon Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland. An important seaport, the city is built around a deepwater harbor that is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by a long channel called the Narrows. St. John's has a damp climate, with relatively severe winters, cool summers, and no marked dry season. Temperatures in January range from an average daily high of 2° C (28° F) to an average low of -8° C (18° F). In July the temperatures range from a high of 20° C (68° F) to a low of 11° C (51° F). Spring is short and arrives late, and fog is common. The average annual precipitation totals 1,482 mm (58.4 in), the highest of any Canadian metropolitan area. II PEOPLE According to the 2001 census, the population of the city of St. John's was 99,182, and the population of its metropolitan area was 176,200. The ethnic homogeneity of the population distinguishes St. John's from other large Canadian cities. Because there has been little immigration into the city during the past century, its ethnic composition continues to reflect the English and Irish ancestry of the original settlers. In 1991, 96 percent of the population reported their ethnic origin as British. III CITY LANDSCAPE The city of St. John's covers a land area of 432 sq km (167 sq mi). The metropolitan area, which consists of the city of St. John's, the city of Mount Pearl, and 11 other municipalities, occupies 790 sq km (305 sq mi). St. John's developed on the northern and western sides of St. John's Harbour, which is 2 km (1.25 mi) long and 0.8 km (0.5 mi) wide and is entered through the Narrows. The Southside Hills, located south of the city, and Signal Hill, located to the east, have prevented the city from growing in those directions. As a result, the city has grown to the north, extending over a high ridge in the process. Many of the streets that lead down to the harbor's edge are thus extremely steep. The harbor is St. John's most prominent feature. Its facilities were improved in a massive rebuilding effort that took place between 1959 and 1964. The city's downtown area, located on the harbor's northwest side, features rows of brightly painted wooden houses built in various architectural styles. Many are incorporated within and protected by the Heritage Conservation Area, which was established by the city in 1977 to preserve architecturally and historically valuable sites while maintaining the area for normal urban life. The wooden houses have been subject to frequent fires. Relatively serious fires occurred in 1816, 1817, 1819, and 1846, and the Great Fire of 1892 destroyed three-quarters of the city. As a result, buildings which predate the 20th century are extremely rare in St. John's. Because of its role as provincial capital, St. John's contains a number of important civic buildings, including City Hall and the Confederation Building complex, which houses government offices and the House of Assembly (provincial legislative body). Government House, where the governor of Newfoundland lived from 1831 to 1949, is on the northern edge of the downtown; it is now home the lieutenant governor of the province, which was renamed Newfoundland and Labrador in 1965. Just west is the Colonial Building, former meeting place of the House of Assembly and current home of the Provincial Archives. A prominent landmark in the city is the Roman Catholic basilica of St. John the Baptist, located at the top of the ridge to the north of the city. When it was begun in 1841, it was the largest ecclesiastical building in North America. With its twin towers, the structure dominates the city's skyline. Just down the hill from the basilica is the Anglican cathedral, which is also named St. John the Baptist. The original building, completed in 1885, was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1892. The cathedral was rebuilt in the early 1900s. Standing above the Narrows, at the top of Signal Hill, is Cabot Tower, built in 1897 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of Newfoundland by John Cabot and the diamond jubilee marking the 60th anniversary of the accession of Queen Victoria to the British throne. The tower has been a national historic site since 1958. In 1901 Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi set up a listening post just below the tower and successfully received the first wireless transmission from Europe. St. John's is home to the Memorial University of Newfoundland and a number of colleges. The university was established as a college in 1925 in memory of the Newfoundlanders who died on active service during World War I (1914-1918). It became a degree-granting university in 1949. The university incorporated Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook, on the island's west coast, in 1975 and the previously independent Marine Institute in 1992. With a combined enrollment of approximately 16,000 graduate and undergraduate students, it is the largest Canadian university east of Québec. St. John's is also home to the Provincial Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador, with collections that include more than a million artifacts. Every August St. John's hosts the St. John's Regatta, which takes place on nearby Quidi Vidi Lake. The regatta features fixed-seat, wooden racing shells rowed by a crew of six and a coxswain. Run annually since 1828, it is the oldest continuously occurring sporting event in North America. IV ECONOMY The economy of St. John's is based largely on the administration of government services at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels (15 percent of the labor force); educational services (10 percent); and health and social services (12 percent). Other service jobs account for 14 percent, trade for 19 percent, and other industries for 16 percent. Manufacturing is relatively unimportant to the city's economy, involving only 6 percent of the labor force. An additional 6 percent are employed in construction, and less than 2 percent are engaged in fishing and other primary activities. These figures are for the experienced labor force; the unemployed include young people looking for work who have not found it yet and thus cannot be classified. Like the province of Newfoundland and Labrador as a whole, St. John's is economically depressed. In the late 1990s, the official unemployment rate in the city was about 15 percent, well above the Canadian average. St. John's has also suffered declines in inner-city population and retail trade. As people have left the city for newer suburban homes, merchants have followed them, setting up shop in suburban shopping malls. These migrations, combined with the arrival of large-scale retail chains providing lower-priced goods, have changed the face of the city's downtown area. One of the most serious problems facing the economy of St. John's is the decline of the local shipping industry. When Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, the introduction of cheaper Canadian manufactured goods caused local industries to decline and reduced the volume of commercial activity at the city's port. The decline worsened after 1965, when a paved highway across Newfoundland Island was completed. The highway allowed mainland producers to bypass St. John's and use cities such as Channel-Port aux Basques on the southeast coast to ship their goods to other island cities. While the St. John's port may be able to continue supplying the needs of the Avalon Peninsula for bulky items, many observers believe that the small size of the market that the port serves will limit the possibilities for future growth. St. John's has long been referred to as "the service station of the Atlantic"; however, the closing of the city's dry dock (dock in which ships are placed for repairs) in 1994 has threatened this function as well. Recent discoveries of large oil and natural gas reserves off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador have brought some hope of potential economic upturn for the port. St. John's has an international airport, which connects the city to mainland Canada and points outside the country. The city is also the eastern terminus of the TransCanada Highway. Although traffic through the city's harbor has diminished considerably, the port of St. John's continues to serve as an important Canadian Coast Guard depot and port of call for container ships. Passenger service on the Newfoundland Railway was terminated in the 1960s due to a long history of financial losses. The railway was completely closed and the tracks torn up in the late 1980s. V GOVERNMENT St. John's is governed by the St. John's Municipal Council, which consists of a mayor and ten councillors. The mayor and five of the councillors are elected at large, and the remaining five councillors are elected as representatives of electoral wards. By tradition, the at-large councillor who receives the largest number of votes is made the deputy mayor. All members of the council serve four-year terms. VI HISTORY It is likely that St. John's Harbour was familiar to English fishermen as early as the mid-1500s. When English navigator Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland in 1583 as England's first possession in the Americas, the ceremony took place in St. John's. In 1605 English colonists began to settle permanently in the area. Settlement was vigorously opposed by merchants and fishermen in England, however, who feared that the colonists' year-round fishing of local waters would pose a threat to English fishing interests. Permanent settlement in Newfoundland was tolerated by the British government after about 1780; however, it remained prohibited by British law until 1811. St. John's was incorporated as a city in 1888 and became the capital of the Canadian province of Newfoundland in 1949. An important event took place in St. John's in 1919, when a British aircraft departed from Lester's Field in what is now the west central part of the city. The flight landed in Clifden, Ireland, less than 17 hours later, marking the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Because St. John's is the North American port that is closest to Europe, it has served at various times as an important military center. The city was captured and burned by a Dutch fleet in 1665, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and was also the site of several battles between French and English forces in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is the only Canadian metropolitan area to have housed an American military base: In 1941 the United States government agreed to exchange 50 naval vessels for long-term leases on various British military bases and sites. In 1942 the U.S. Army constructed the Fort Pepperell military base in St. John's on the northern side of Quidi Vidi Lake. The base was closed in 1960, and its buildings were transferred to the Canadian government. Today, the city plays only an incidental role in the defense of Canada and contains no permanent military establishments of any kind. St. John's was rebuilt after several major fires in the 19th century, leaving the city with a legacy of different architectural styles. In 1979 vast oil and natural gas reserves were discovered in the Hibernia oil field, located offshore about 310 km (about 190 mi) southeast of St. John's. Due to the high cost of development, the reserves remained largely untapped. However, in the early 1990s, construction began on a gravity-based production platform at the Bull Arm site west of St. John's. The platform was completed in May 1997 and towed to its permanent location on the Grand Banks. Contributed By: Christopher A. Sharpe Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
