Cape Spear 5.4

Cape Spear, located on the Avalon Peninsula near St. John's, Newfoundland, is the easternmost point in Canada (52°37'W), and North America, excluding Danish-controlled Greenland.Cape Spear is within the municipal boundaries of the city of St. John's, located about 2mi from Blackhead, an amalgamated area of St. John's.The Portuguese named this location "Cabo da Esperança" which means "cape of hope", which became "Cap d'Espoir" in French and finally "Cape Spear".Cape Spear is the trailhead/trail end for two components of the East Coast Trail.Cape Spear Lighthouse National Historic SiteHistoryThe Cape Spear region was originally inhabited by Beothuk peoples. Additionally, Mi’kmaq communities practiced a non-sedentary presence in the area, harvesting subsistence resources on a temporary basis prior to permanent residency at settlements such as St. George’s Bay and Conne River from the nineteenth century onwards. In contrast to European settlers who viewed the cape as a place of significance as the easternmost point in Canada, there is no known archaeological evidence to indicate that Cape Spear was viewed by local Indigenous communities as a place of symbolic geographical importance. According to Fife and Roseman, historically there are “no indications that either the Beothuk or the Mi’kmaq equated Cape Spear with a ‘land’s end’ that was meaningful to them.”A lighthouse has operated at Cape Spear since September 1836. The original Cape Spear lighthouse was the second lighthouse built in Newfoundland; the first was built in 1810 at Fort Amherst, at the entrance to St. John's Harbour. In 1832, the first legislative assembly for the colony created a lighthouse board. Cape Spear was chosen as the site for a new lighthouse because it was on the rocky eastern coast near the entrance to St John's harbor.