The beautiful, and likely soon to be lost, Roman Catholic church of Harbour Grace.
picture29 by
allan.pelley, on Flickr
The town was permanently settled in 1583, its first year-round resident recorded as Robert Tossey of Dartmouth, England. It was sacked by the French in 1611, 1697, 1700, and 1762. Its population dwindled to as low as a few dozen as a result of some of these attacks.
Its population peak was 11,458 in 1921.
Two cute facts:
The town was unconstitutionally forbidden to a vote in a national election in Newfoundland in the 1800s because its population had become too Catholic (though that percentage never exceeded 40%).
It was very nearly our capital, having been the dominant community on the island for most of its history.
And one other... the House of Assembly in the Confederation Building.
Learned something new the other day: virtually everything in it was a gift from one of the 9 other provinces to welcome us into Canada.
Quebec, for example, gave us the Speaker's Chair. Manitoba gave us a dinky little clock.
013 by
djfancey, on Flickr
As I believe is also the practice in other provinces, we do not differentiate between our time as a Colony, Dominion, or Province in naming each session. The 1st General Assembly was in 1833. We're currently in the 47th General Assembly. The portraits hanging around the room include every single Prime Minister, Premier, and whatever other titles they held in different eras.
We're also the only province in the country where the Government side sits to the speaker's left. That's because the left was the side with heating in the old Parliament and the practice continued even in a modern building.
The provincial motto, above the speaker's chair, is "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God". It was granted, along with the coat of arms pictured, to us by King Charles in 1638.
The coat of arms combines English and Scottish symbols in equal measure. It is also heavily influenced by Beothuk (our now-extinct indigenous people) motifs, which I think is kind of unusual for that era? There are no Irish symbols.
Threaded Mode