Bellevue and Bellevue Beach: From Wikipedia comes the following information regarding Bellevue, and how its name originated:

[Bellevue] was founded in 1864 as Tickle Harbour, but the name was changed to Bellevue on December 11, 1896.... The wharf once hosted many fishing boats but the local fishermen, for the most part, now dock at the larger wharf in nearby Long Cove.

This is convenient because there is a fish plant there.

Bellevue is about 110 kilometres (sixty-eight miles) away from St. John's. Bellevue is approximately a ten-minute drive from the neighbouring community of Bellevue Beach... which was founded by Augustus Whitten in the years following World War Two.

Originally intended as quiet land for a cottage, Mr Whitten saw potential in his land as the former highway was paved, passing directly through the area. He sold his store on the South side of St. John's and moved to 'Bellevue Beach,' where he started a local restaurant.

As other families moved to the area and time passed, the community gained and lost two stores, a hairdressing shop, built a business of cabins- Fiddler's Green- which is still standing today, and is home to a previously provincial campground....

Bellevue got its name from a local priest by the name of Father Browne.

He travelled to Tickle Harbour on foot from the railway station at Tickle Harbour crossing. When viewing the community on his way down the hill from what is now the TransCanada, he renamed the community Bellevue, meaning; beautiful sight or view.

The path down the hill to broad lake was always called Father Browne's road by the older people. Folklore says that at the same time that he renamed the community, he blessed a small brook that he drank from, which was also referred to by the older folk as the blessed brook.

In 2016 the population of Bellevue was 165, a 10% increase from the 150 recorded in 2011. Bellevue is larger than Bellevue Beach which in 2016 had 69 residents, a 4.2% decrease from 2011 when there were 72 residents.

For further information on the Bellevue Beach Provincial Park Reserve see the section on Provincial Parks.

Tickle Bay: Located on the south coast of Newfoundland, at the head of Placentia Bay, the town of Tickle Harbour is on Tickle Bay From the 1884 US Government Publication (Gillpatrick & Gibson), Tickle Bay is described as follows:

On the west side of Tickle harbor point, is an excellent place for fish; but thought the water is comparatively shallow, and the bottom good near the head of the bay, it is not a safe anchorage, as a swell nearly always sets in, and with east or northeast gales it is very dangerous.

A tickle, as you will read in an upcoming chapter on water features has a unique meaning that is not commonly known outside of Newfoundland (and perhaps England).

Its definition, according to the DNLE is as follows: A narrow salt-water strait, as in an entrance to a harbour or between islands or other land masses, often difficult or treacherous to navigate because of narrowness, tides, etc.; a 'settlement' adjoining such a passage.".

Given that a "Tickle" is a well-known water feature (and is part of 250 or so toponyms found in Newfoundland,) one really has to wonder if Cook actually named it to be funny, as many have suggested.

One final note regarding Michael Lane regarding his time in Newfoundland. After he replaced Cook, Lane continued as chief surveyor until 1776, during which time he charted the coast of southem Labrador, Placentia Bay and much of the northeast coast of the island.

After a short stint in the Arctic, from 1784 to 1785, Lane returned to Newfoundland, again in charge of the Newfoundland Survey and charted the Virgin Rocks, a series of rocky ridges in the Grand Backs of Newfoundland that are a hazard to oceangoing vessels in the North Atlantic, as well as the coastline of Fogo Island.

EXPLORATION POST-COOK AND POST-LANE Because of the importance of having excellent nautical charts, once the basic work by Cook and Lane was completed, that was not the end of maritime surveying.

Between the 1860s and the 1870, the British Admiralty continued to employ surveyors to continue the work of these two, and in fact, in 1867 it established a new department which was called the "Newfoundland Survey Office" in Charlottetown, PEI.

Many years later, in 1908 the office was moved, this time to Halifax, but its existence there was short lived, as four years later the Admiralty decided to close it down completely.

During the period of time when active surveying was occurring, many excellent charts were produced all of which have been vital for anyone travelling around the waters in any type of boat.

For a thorough history of surveying in Newfoundland the reader is referred to the following publication, The_Newfoundland Surveyor written by members of the Association of Newfoundland Surveyors, Archives Committee in 2003.

INLAND SECTION OF THE ISLAND OF NEWFOUNDLAND: While the coastline of the Island of Newfoundland was well researched, the interior of the province basically remained an enigma for many, many years.

Cook, as mentioned above, had gone inland travelling up the Humber Valley as far as Deer Lake, in 1767, however on his 1770 General Chart of the Island of Newfoundland it is believed that the information that pertained to the river system between St. George's Bay, inland to Grand Lake came, not from actual experience but from the Mi'kmaq who lived in the area (Hiller, 1998c).

In 1768, Lieutenant John Cartwright (with his brother George) mapped the Exploits River as far as Red Indian Lake which he named after himself as "Lieutenants' Lake". His charts of that side of the island were the first to show the Exploits water system.

Aside from these few inland "excursions", in reality there was really no reason and/or motivation for explorers to go inland for the fishermen who lived and worked on the coast, everything they needed was there and why would they go inland when a boat was easier to get from Point A to Point B.

It was not until there was interest in such things as the telegraph and the railway, in the next century, that the interior became of greater significance.

At that point the work of W.E. Cormack, J.B. Jukes, Alexander Murray and J.P. Howley became important in terms of understanding the interior of the province.

One name stood out from all the rest - that of William Epps Cormack, who was (and still is) considered to be one of the "greatest" explorers in Newfoundland.

Jukes, Murray and Howley were foremost geologists and their contribution to the growing knowledge of the interior of the province, was more in terms of natural resources, such as the presence of coal and precious minerals.

However, they should not be dismissed as collectively their logs, notebooks, reports, etc. complemented the work done by Cook and Lane on the Coast.

William Epps Cormack (1796-1868), whose parents were of Scottish dissent, was born in Newfoundland and later educated at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland.

He decided he wanted to explore the interior of the island with the hope that he would be able to make contact with some of the remaining Beothuks. At that time, no Europeans had any "idea of what lay hidden among the vast forests and bogs in the interior of the island" (Young, 2018).

With a Mi'kmaq guide, Joseph Sylvester, he left Trinity Bay (eastern side of NL) on September 5th, 1822 and two months later, shy of one day, they reached St. George's Bay (western side of NL), on November 4th, 1822.

Totally exhausted, and terribly disappointed that he had failed in his intent to meet any Beothuks, "his expedition is now seen as one of the most important in the exploration history of Newfoundland" (Hiller, 1998c).

While he had in fact crossed the interior of Newfoundland, Cormack had to decide what to do next.

Eventually he made it south, by foot to the southwestern point of the island, and eventually made it by boat to Baie D'Espoir on December 6th, 1822, and as one can see by the sketch below, the "adventure" came to its final end.

On the December 28th, 1822 Cormack embarked on a ship, by the name of "Duc" and sailed to England, arriving in Dartmouth on the 10th of February, 1823 (from Young, 2018).

Cormack's Narrative of a Journey across the Island of Newfoundland in 1822 was first published in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal (1823-24) and later expanded into a book.

This work contained the first geological map of any part of Newfoundland, and the details of all he had seen and experienced. It has been called "the undisputed classic of Newfoundland travel." (Story 1976 cited in Hiller, 1998c).

According to Hiller (1998c) "For many years, the Narrative was one of very few sources of information about the interior, and therefore had considerable influence. Some of his place names survive - Mount Sylvester, Serpentine Lake, King George IV Lake and Jameson's Hills.

BELLEVUE BEACH PROVINCIAL PARK RESERVE:

Located 10 km from Bellevue, on the small peninsula that juts out into Trinity Bay, Bellevue Beach Provincial Park Reserve offers a long sand and beach rock bar that separates the sea from a placid barachois, the park was set up to protect a beach complex, saltmarsh and habitat for migrating shorebirds.

As mentioned earlier, the French word Bellevue in English means "beautiful sight or beautiful view" and is a very apt description of the area.

Used with permission from "Uncovering the Origin of 1001 Unique Place Names in Newfoundland and Labrador" 2021 Jennifer Leigh Hill

Address of this page: http://nl.ruralroutes.com/Bellevue