Little Bay, located at the bottom of Little Bay in Notre Dame Bay, is approximately 19 km (11.8 mi) north of Springdale. This community should not be confused with the "other" Little Bay which is on the South Coast (i.e., the Burin Peninsula), and is part of the town of Marystown.

According to the ENL sources, "this" Little Bay was the most important mining communities in the area as far back as the late 1870s. A local fisherman discovered a copper deposit and sold the pertinent information to three people who held the mining licence for the area. The mine site, in turn, was leased to the Betts Cove Mining Company in 1878 and "the government, recognizing the potential of the area, extended telegraph lines to the site that same year and a town quickly sprang up". Because of the amount of ore shipped to Swansea, Wales, in its first year of operation (10,000 tons), the mine was given the nickname the "El Dorado of Newfoundland". James P. Howley, the noted geologist and surveyor, wrote the following in 1918 just before his death, in a manuscript he entitled "Reminiscences of Forty-Two Years of Exploration in and about Newfoundland" referring specifically to his time in Notre Dame Bay and Little Bay (then known as "Indian Bight'') in 1880:

It was wonderful what a transformation had taken place here in the short space of two months. Where we had camped on the beach in the then unoccupied Cove of Indian Bight, which had previously known no other inhabitants but the Aboriginal Beothucks as indicated by the still discernible hollows of their Mammateeks, we now found rows of substantial houses and streets laid out in regular systematic order. A fine substantial wharf was built at the head of the harbour, which gave every evidence of a busy thriving town. At the mine itself all was bustle. A tramway had been constructed across the neck to the shore inside Otter Island where a substantial pier had been erected and already vessels were arriving to take away cargoes of ore. A large force of miners was engaged attacking the mine Bluff which they had completely honeycombed.

Blasts were going off day and night resembling a park of artillery in action, and indeed it was dangerous to approach too near. Rocks from the blasts were flying in all directions. The swamp which had existed close in front of the Bluff had been drained and filled up with debris from the mine, and now a large extent of dry level land appeared. Many hundreds of tons of fine ore were piled up upon this level, being dressed and cleaned for transportation to the pier. The whole presented a scene of utmost activity. This then was the commencement of the celebrated Little Bay Mine which subsequently developed into one of the greatest mines in the island.

In the Census of 2016, there were 105 residents, a slight 2.8% decrease from the 108 enumerated in 2011.

Used with permission from "Uncovering the Origin 0f 1001 Unique Place Names in Newfoundland and Labrador" 2021 Jennifer Leigh Hill

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