Churchill River (near Happy Valley-Goose Bay)

The Churchill River, formerly known by other names, is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic Canada, Atlantic region. The province comprises t ...

, Canada. It flows east from the Smallwood Reservoir into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

via

Lake Melville Lake Melville is an estuary of Hamilton Inlet (itself an extension of Groswater Bay) on the Labrador coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Comprising and stretching inland to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, it forms part of th ...

. The river is long and drains an area of , making it the longest river in Atlantic Canada.

Names

The Innu name of the river is ' or ' ("Grand River") among the Labrador Innu and ' ("

Churchill Falls Churchill Falls is a high waterfall on the Churchill River in Labrador, Canada. Formerly counted among the most impressive natural features of Canada, the diversion of the river for the Churchill Falls Generating Station has cut off almo ...

River") among the Central Innu, the Labrador Métis ( NunatuKavut), and Nunatsiavut. The latter name was formerly

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...

d into English as the , the name commonly used by locals. In 1821, Captain William Martin of HM brig ''Clinker'' renamed the river the after the then-current commodore-governor of Newfoundland Charles Hamilton. The name gradually supplanted use of the Grand River before being replaced on 1 February 1965 by provincial premier Joey Smallwood. Smallwood renamed it the "Churchill River" after the former

British prime minister The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As moder ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

ahead of the beginning of construction on the river's major hydroelectric project. In 2022, MHA Perry Trimper called for Churchill's name to be removed from the river in favour of either "Grand River" or its Innu name.

Geography

The Canon a Quarter of a Mile below the Grand Falls

The river flows in an arc, first north from

Ashuanipi Lake Ashuanipi Lake () is an irregularly shaped lake in southern Labrador, in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It lies at an elevation of and covers an area of , not including occupied by islands within the lake such as Grande Île ...

though the saucer-shaped Labrador Plateau, and then mainly east through a series of lakes. Several of these lakes have been flooded to create the Smallwood Reservoir. The river then flows through a rocky canyon which is hundreds of feet deep, over Churchill Falls, and through a series of rapids below the falls. The water flow in the canyon has been mainly diverted underground through a giant hydroelectric power generating plant. The river continues eastward until it flows into Lake Melville.

Hydroelectric projects

is the site of a major hydroelectric project, which diverted almost all of the stream that once fell over

. It presently has a capacity of 5,428 MW and other slated hydroelectric plants on the river will bring the total to over 9,200 MW. The Churchill Falls development has become a source of friction between two Canadian provinces, as

asserts that Quebec's Hydro-Québec (despite having provided a major part of the financing and access to the North American power grid) has taken a disproportionate share of the development's profits. Hydro-Québec still buys power from the dam at rates established in the 1969 power purchase agreement.

U-boat

In 2012 divers using side scan sonar found what they believe is the wreck of a

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare ro ...

just downstream of Muskrat Falls, validating a local legend. However, examination of historical records shows this to be unlikely, and the sonar images were quite grainy."Group on mission to prove there is truth in legends that Nazi submarines went far inland from Canadian coast"
''National Post'', Tristin Hopper, April 19, 2013

References

External links

Canadian Council for Geographic Education page with a series of articles on the history of the Churchill River

"Churchill River (Labrador)"
''The Canadian Encyclopedia''. {{authority control Rivers of Newfoundland and Labrador Churchill Falls