Deer Lake

Deer Lake, NL, incorporated as a town in 1950, population 4995 (2011c), 4827 (2006c). The Town of Deer Lake is located at the north end of Deer Lake in western Newfoundland. The east shore of the lake was settled in 1867 by a Cape Breton Island family who began an operation to cut pine trees. The site was named Nicholsville and expanded with the building of the railway in the 1880s and 1890s.

In 1923 Deer Lake was selected as the site of a power plant to support a pulp and paper mill at nearby Corner Brook. In 1955 an airstrip was built here and it has been developed into a regional airport. The airport is a significant employer in the town and it, with highway connections to Bay of Islands, Humber Valley, Great Northern Peninsula and Baie Verte Peninsula, has made Deer Lake one of the main pulpwood, service and transportation centres of Newfoundland. In 1994, Deer Lakes boundaries were extended when it amalgamated with 2 smaller communities, Nicholsville and Spillway.