Cartwright, Newfoundland and Labrador


Cartwright is a community located on the eastern side of the entrance to Sandwich Bay, along the southern coast of Labrador in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It was incorporated in 1956.
Cartwright has been a settled community since 1775. In 1775, Captain George Cartwright, for whom the place is named, settled there, establishing a fish and fur trading business. He left Labrador in 1786, maintaining a business interest there until it was sold to Hunt and Henley in 1815. It was again sold in 1873 to the Hudson's Bay Company and has remained under company ownership ever since.
Since 2002, Cartwright has been connected by road with Blanc Sablon, Quebec, where there is a car ferry to Newfoundland. Since December 2009 the remaining link between Cartwright and Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador has been completed and open to the public.

Demographics

At the 2016 census the population was 427, down from 504 in the 2011 census.

Climate

Cartwright has a subarctic climate with very snowy winters and short, mild summers. Owing to its maritime location, the winters are however a little milder than on most of the Labrador Peninsula, but snow depth from the stormy Icelandic Low, which circulates cold and saturated air around the region, is extreme: it averages around at its peak early in March and has reached as high as on April 7, 2003. Snow is usually fully melted early in June and is established again in mid-October. Unlike most of Labrador, there is no permafrost because of the insulation from the deep snow cover, although the annual mean temperature is.