Corner Brook is a city located on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Located on the Bay of Islands at the mouth of the Humber River, the city is the largest population centre in the province outside the Avalon Peninsula. As such, Corner Brook functions as a service centre for western and northern Newfoundland.
James Cook, the famous British cartographer was the first European explorer to survey and record the geography of the Bay of Islands, including the area that is now Corner Brook. Throughout the summer of 1767, he surveyed most of the area, and copies of the maps he created are displayed at the Captain James Cook Monument in Corner Brook.
The area was originally four distinct communities with unique commercial activities. Curling, with its fishery; Corner Brook West (also known as Humber West or Westside) with its retail businesses; Corner Brook East (also known as Humbermouth and the Heights) with its railway and industrial operations; and Townsite (known as Corner Brook), home to the employees of the pulp and paper mill. In 1956, these four communities were amalgamated to form the present-day City of Corner Brook.
Corner Brook is home to the Corner Brook Pulp & Paper Mill (owned by Kruger Inc.), which is a major employer for the region. The city has the largest regional hospital in western Newfoundland, as well as shopping and retail, federal and provincial government offices, and Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, a division of the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Corner Brook is also home to the province's newest high school, Corner Brook Regional High.
In recent years Corner Brook has become a small, but growing centre for film and television production in Eastern Canada. The Atlantic Studios Cooperative in Corner Brook is the largest sound stage in Atlantic Canada and is located in the Pepsi Centre, the city's multi-purpose arena facility.
Corner Brook holds a unique Canadian record. Corner Brook is the oldest community of its size (over 25,000) in Canada. Other communities of this size have either grown into larger ones (+75,000), were amalgamated with other communities or collapsed.
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