Port au Port Peninsula

The Port au Port Peninsula (French: péninsule de Port-au-Port; Mi'kmaq: Kitpu) is a peninsula in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Roughly triangular in shape, it is located on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland.

The peninsula extends into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and is joined to Newfoundland by a narrow isthmus connecting at the town of Port au Port. It is bounded on the south by Bay St. George, on the western side by the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on the northwestern side by Port au Port Bay.

With a rocky shoreline measuring approximately 130 km in length, the peninsula extends approximately 40 km west from its isthmus to Cape St. George and northwest 50 km to the fingerlike Long Point which by itself is approximately 25 km in length. The eastern shore of the peninsula is irregular, jutting into Port au Port Bay.

The Port au Port Peninsula is located on the western edge of the heavily eroded Appalachian Mountain chain which runs along Newfoundland's west coast. There are no natural harbours along the peninsula's rocky coastline. The peninsula was once heavily forested, but many areas along its shores have been cleared for subsistence farming.

The southern shore is hilly, with the northern shore having a sloping lowland extending to a low rise along the centre of the eastern part of the peninsula. The geological structure is complex, with the peninsula's sedimentary strata dating to the middle Cambrian to early Ordovician continental margin, creating a carbonate platform of limestone, shale, and sandstone. The heavily folded geological structure in the area has been identified as having an unknown amount of petroleum reserves.

The area was named "Ophor portu" (port of rest) by Basque fishermen during the 16th-17th centuries. French and Basque fishermen used the west coast of Newfoundland, including the Port au Port Peninsula, for seasonal fishing settlements; however, some began permanently inhabiting the area. Mi'kmaq families, who came from Nova Scotia with the French to fight the British in the Thirty Years' War, were also present in the area.

During and after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and Treaty of Paris in 1763, France retained the right to use the west coast of the island. This area came to be known as the "French Shore," and the Port au Port Peninsula was at its centre.

Scattered settlement continued in the area until 1904, when France relinquished its right of use to the "French Shore". The Port au Port Peninsula represents the most varied ethnic and linguistic mix in the entire island of Newfoundland, including Mi'kmaq families with the highest proportion of French-speaking settlement on the island (15%).