Glovers Harbour ( ), formerly known as Thimble Tickle(s), is an unincorporated community and harbour in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.Smallwood, J.R., R.D.W. Pitt, C. Horan & B.G. Riggs (eds.) (1984). Glovers Harbour. [pp. 539–540] In: Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador. Volume 2: Fac–Hoy. Newfoundland Book Publishers, St. John's. xiii + 1104 pp. .Glovers Harbour. Natural Resources Canada.Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (1968). Gazetteer of Canada: Newfoundland and Labrador. Energy, Mines and Resources Canada, Ottawa. xiii + 252 pp. It is located in Notre Dame Bay on the northern coast of the island of Newfoundland. As a local service district, it is led by an elected committee that is responsible for the delivery of certain essential services. It is delineated as a designated place for statistical purposes.
Settled sometime in the second half of the 19th century, Glovers Harbour has remained primarily a fishing village throughout its history. It is best known for the giant squid that was captured on its shores in 1878, which was subsequently recognised as a world record by Guinness. Glovers Harbour brands itself as the "home of the giant squid" and has a small heritage centre and "life-sized" sculpture dedicated to the animal, these being its main tourist attractions.Machado, K. (2021). Thimble Tickle: Home Of The Giant Squid (And A Quaint Fishing Village). TheTravel, 27 August 2021.
History The settlement was named after John Hawley Glover, who served as the Governor of Newfoundland in 1876–1881 and again in 1883–1885.
Early years According to local tradition, Glovers Harbour was founded by Joseph Martin, originally of Harbour Grace, who settled there sometime in the late 1800s. Martin's daughter married the son of George Marsh, the first permanent settler of nearby Winter House Cove, and the two families remained the main inhabitants of Glovers Harbour until the arrival of Alex Boone, previously of Cottrell's Cove.
Glovers Harbour first appeared in census records in the 1901 Newfoundland census under the name Glover Harbor. Its population was recorded as 67, though this included the inhabitants of Leading Tickles and Lock's Harbour (later Lockesport(e) or Lockport). In the 1911 Newfoundland census, it was listed as Glover's Harbor, with a population of 28 Newfoundland-born residents, predominantly followers of the Church of England, though one Methodist was also recorded. The population fell to a low of 11 at the time of the 1921 census but rebounded to 29 in 1935 and 38 in 1945.
Resettlement period From its founding, small-scale inshore cod fishing was the mainstay of the local economy, supplemented by seasonal work such as logging as well as livestock and vegetable farming. By the middle of the 20th century, however, a lack of transport infrastructure left the isolated residents of Glovers Harbour with few other job opportunities. The 1962 construction of a road connecting Glovers Harbour to Route 350 was transformative, as it opened access to the commercially important town of Botwood and to the nearby fish markets of Leading Tickles and Point Leamington. Movement of people from more isolated nearby communities to Glovers Harbour soon followed, largely motivated by a Newfoundland-wide government resettlement program, though some early moves occurred without government assistance.
Despite being larger at the time, the neighbouring communities of Lockesporte and Winter House Cove (both located in Seal Bay) were never connected to the road network owing to the difficulty of the surrounding terrain, and this contributed to their rapid decline and eventual abandonment by the close of the 1960s.Smallwood, J.R., C.F. Poole & R.H. Cuff (eds.) (1991). Lockesporte. [p. 355] In: Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador. Volume 3: Hub–M. Harry Cuff Publications, St. John's. xvii + 687 pp. .Poole, C.F. & R.H. Cuff (eds.) (1994). Winter House Cove, Seal Bay. [p. 590] In: Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador. Volume 5: S–Z. Harry Cuff Publications, St. John's. xv + 706 pp. . As recorded in the 1971 census, eight families totalling 39 people (predominantly with the surname Haggett) had moved to Glovers Harbour from Lockesporte alone. At least four families (Burton, followed by Goudie, Haggett, and Rowsell) had similarly resettled from Winter House Cove by this point. As a result, the population of Glovers Harbour swelled almost threefold between 1966 and 1971, from 52 to 145.
The concomitant demographic changes turned Glovers Harbour into "a predominantly Salvation Army community". The village's first Salvation Army citadel—which also served Lockesporte, Ward's Point, and Winter House Cove, and doubled up as a school—was erected on land belonging to Electra Martin. This was followed by a second citadel, originally constructed near Flag Pond around 1942, that was later moved close to Glovers Harbour Road.
During resettlement, Winter House Cove's Anglican church—a school chapel first recorded in the 1901 census—was floated (transported over water) to Glovers Harbour, where it found use as a school until the late 1960s. Both this school and another one that had been built in Glovers Harbour by the 1960s were later closed; thereafter, students attended elementary school in Leading Tickles and high school in Point Leamington, which were reached by school bus. The Anglican church was subsequently renovated and held fortnightly services presided over by a visiting minister from Botwood.
From its peak following resettlement, the population of Glovers Harbour dropped to 136 by 1981 and continued to gradually contract over the next three decades.
Contemporary history Over time, the fishery in Glovers Harbour has diversified to encompass lobster, capelin, squid, and queen crab (also known as snow crab).Socio-economic overview of Leading Tickles Area of Interest (AOI), Newfoundland: executive summary. Department of Fisheries and Oceans, May 2004. 16 pp. In 1997, a proposal was submitted to recognise the coastal area around Leading Tickles and Glovers Harbour as a Marine Protected Area (MPA).Power, A.S. & D. Mercer (2002). The role of fishers knowledge in implementing ocean act initiatives in Newfoundland and Labrador. [pp. 20–24] In: N. Haggan, C. Brignall & L. Wood (eds.) Putting fishers' knowledge to work: conference proceedings August 27–30, 2001. Fisheries Centre Research Reports 11(1): 1–504. On 8 June 2001, the area officially came under consideration to become an MPA when it was identified as an Area of Interest by the minister for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).
Geography Glovers Harbour is in Newfoundland within Subdivision E of Division No. 8.
A promontory on the southern shore of Glovers Harbour is known as Glovers Point.Glovers Point. Natural Resources Canada. Glovers Harbour also gives its name to the Glovers Harbour Formation, a sequence of volcanic rocks of the Wild Bight Group that lie to its west.MacLachlan, K., B.H. O'Brien & G.R Dunning (2001). Redefinition of the Wild Bight Group, Newfoundland: implications for models of island-arc evolution in the Exploits Subzone. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 38(6): 889–907. Lockport Mine – Copper–Zinc . The Matty Mitchell Prospectors Resource Room, October 2010. Other geographical points of interest include an unmarked trail called Rowsell's Trail.
Glovers Harbour is surrounded "by rolling green hillsides and glacial lakes, making it incredibly picturesque for those who have never visited Newfoundland before".
Thimble Tickle Glovers Harbour was formerly known as Thimble Tickle(s).Dave Marsh interview, March 29, 1988. [audio recording] Digital Archives Initiative, Memorial University of Newfoundland.Marsh, B. (2016). Resettlement in our backyard. Anglo Newfoundland Development Company, 25 July 2016. In Newfoundland English, a tickle is a narrow strait (see List of tickles). The name Thimble Tickle (and variants thereof) has been applied to a number of related geographical features. The Gazetteer of Canada of 1968 lists Thimble Tickles (a series of channels), Thimble Head, and Thimble Tickle Head (both headlands) as features in the same general area. Other associated geographical names include Cumlins Cove and Cumlins Head, both listed by the Gazetteer as features of Thimble Tickle(s). According to the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, Thimble Tickles is a "scattered group of islands" in the vicinity of Glovers Harbour. It has also been described as "a passage between several islands south of Leading Tickles and a few kilometres north of Glovers Harbour".
Thimble Tickle Prospect, also known as the Lockport Mine (after Lockport), was a copper and sulfur mine located "over the hill" and just west of Glovers Harbour. It operated intermittently in the 1880s and 1890s; the shafts were sealed around 1999.
Demographics
As a designated place in the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Glovers Harbour recorded a population of 55 living in 28 of its 39 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 92. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
The 2016 census recorded a median value of dwellings of CA$100,161 (equivalent to US$ in ). The median total household income was CA$61,824 (equivalent to US$ in ).
Governance Glovers Harbour is a local service district (LSD) that is governed by a committee responsible for the provision of certain services to the community. The chair of the LSD committee is Ida Haggett.
Giant squid
Thimble Tickle specimen
Glovers Harbour is best known for its association with the giant squid (Architeuthis dux). On 2 November 1878, a live animal reportedly long, which came to be known as the "Thimble Tickle specimen", was found aground offshore.Verrill, A.E. (1880). The cephalopods of the north-eastern coast of America. Part I.—The gigantic squids (Architeuthis) and their allies; with observations on similar large species from foreign localities. Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 5(1)[Dec. 1879 – Mar. 1880]: 177–257. Verrill, A.E. (1880). Synopsis of the Cephalopoda of the north-eastern coast of America. The American Journal of Science (ser. 3)19(112)[Apr.]: 284–295.Hatton, J. & M. Harvey (1883). Newfoundland: The Oldest British Colony. Its history, its present condition, and its prospects in the future. Chapman & Hall, London. xx + 489 pp.Ellis, R. (1998). The Search for the Giant Squid. Lyons Press, New York. ix + 322 pp. .Sweeney, M.J. & C.F.E. Roper (2001). Records of Architeuthis Specimens from Published Reports. [Last updated 4 May 2001.] National Museum of Natural History. 132 pp. [unpaginated] [Archived from the original on 2 October 2011.] It was secured to a tree with a grapnel and rope and died as the tide receded. No parts of the animal were saved and no photographs or exact measurements exist as the specimen was cut up for dog food soon after its discovery; practically all that is known of it comes from a second-hand account by Reverend Moses Harvey in a letter to the Boston Traveller dated 30 January 1879, which was reproduced in the works of Yale zoologist Addison Emery Verrill the following year: