Newfoundland and St. John’s: Names and Dates

Is St. John’s the oldest city in North America? ▬ 

Sources ▬ 

○ Joan Rusted. St. John’s: A Brief History. Breakwater Books, 2011 

○ Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada, https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/ 

○ “List of Oldest Continuously Inhabited Cities,” Wikipedia, May 15, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_continuously_inhabited_cities 

Transcript

Hi, I’m Wayne Jones. Welcome to Newfoundland Boy, part memoir, part anecdotes, and all about the Canadian province of Newfoundland. This is episode 6: “Newfoundland and St. John’s: Names and Dates.”

If you live in Newfoundland, you likely don’t have to be reminded that the capital city is St. John’s. That’s where I’ve been living since I moved here from Ottawa (the capital of Canada) about six and a half months ago. If you live in some other province of Canada, you may understandably get the name of Newfoundland’s capital mixed up with another city in another province: Saint John in the province of New Brunswick. The nomenclature is actually a bit of a mess really, not just because both cities feature Saint and John, but also because the one in New Brunswick spells out the word Saint and in Newfoundland it’s abbreviated to St.

But wait, there’s more. The New Brunswick one is also in the simple singular (John not John’s): Saint John, S-A-I-N-T-space-J-O-H-N. The Newfoundland city is in the possessive, and the word Saint is abbreviated: S-T-period-space-J-O-H-N-apostrophe-S.

And the final bit of trivia is that in French (and Canada is an officially bilingual country) the two cities are spelled the same: Saint-Jean, S-A-I-N-T-hyphen-J-E-A-N. I’m not sure whether the cities having exactly the same name is better or worse. My assumption is that because in French the possessive is not formed by adding an apostrophe-s, there was no easy solution to differentiate them. 

Phew. Okay.

So let’s drive on back to Newfoundland and to my city, St. John’s. It’s not only the most easterly city in North America but many claim that it is also the oldest city in North America. I say many, because that fact is disputed. Or qualified in some way. But, frankly, it does seem to be that the fact is not absolutely true: that is, St. John’s is not categorically the oldest city in North America.

A recent history of the city, for example, calls it only “the oldest port city in North America.” Keyword: port. That may well be true. Wikipedia has a list of what it calls “the oldest continuously inhabited cities,” and admits that not only is the order of the cities on that list in dispute, but so are the definitions of city and continuously inhabited. Oh, my. So, keeping those caveats in mind, according to Wikipedia, drum roll, please, the oldest city in North America is in fact Cholula, Mexico, which dates back to as early as 500 BC. Once we get out of Mexico and into the AD years, the oldest city is apparently St. Augustine, now located in the American state of Florida. Or, as the Wikipedia wording has it, the “oldest continuously inhabited European-founded city of the current 50 U.S. states.” The year was 1565. As for St. John’s, it’s number 8 on the list, at circa 1630. And it wasn’t actually incorporated as a city until 1888.

So, in the end and in summary, it’s the most easterly city in North America, but “only” one of the oldest cities on the continent. Top ten, that’s not too bad.

I want to talk a little about the province now. Newfoundland. I always call it that but the official name is actually Newfoundland and Labrador. This province of Canada consists of two parts: an island off the eastern Canadian mainland which has most of the population, and a piece of land called Labrador, actually on the mainland of Canada, and bordering the province of Quebec. Labrador is north and west of the island. When I was growing up, and for many years before that, the name Newfoundland actually stood for both parts. The province is the latest one to join Canada (that was in 1949), and under the name Newfoundland, but in 2001 it was officially changed to Newfoundland and Labrador.

For me it was a bad idea to rename it. The least of it is that the name is long now, and even longer when politicians are trying to be inclusive and when they are talking about the citizens they represent. Now they have to garble out the mouthful which is Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans. “Oh, me nerves,” as some Newfies say. Continuing to call both parts the one name Newfoundland would have preserved a great historical tradition, in my opinion, and given us the opportunity to provide a name for the island. In fact, that would be a good name for it, The Island, so that the politicians could then say that Newfoundland consists of the Island and Labrador. Another contender could have been Cabot Island, with a nod to John Cabot, who was the first non-aboriginal person to land here from England in 1497. And another great contender for the name of the island portion would be what many Newfoundlanders already affectionately call it: the Rock.

“Where’s ya from, buddy?”

“Newfoundland, b’y.”

“Oh my Jesus, so am I. Is ya from Labrador or da Rock?”

That would be a great conversation to hear. And of course the fact that both these guys would be from Newfoundland, and Newfoundland only, would confer a sense of unity. At least in theory: I would bet that there are people from Labrador who are proud of that fact and quick to point it out when people just assume that they are from the island. That would also be a great conversation, but it might end differently.

“Listen, my son. Is not juss the goddamn island dass Newfoundland, ya know.”

Okay, guys, let’s settle down. I’m sorry I brought it up. Maybe this is a good time to end the podcast before things get out of hand.

And that’s all for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And please join me again on Tuesday.