Gros Morne National Park
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How it came to be
Gros Morne National Park lies on the west coast of Newfoundland and takes its name from the island's second-highest peak, 806 metres, within the park. The French name is taken to mean a large mountain standing alone. Maritime Archaic peoples lived here from 2500 BC, followed by Dorset and Beothuk cultures. European settlement did not come until the late 1800s.
The park's rocks include oceanic crust and mantle rock forced up to the surface as tectonic plates collided. In the Tablelands in the south-west, peridotite from the Earth's mantle lies exposed, so poor in nutrients that few plants grow on it. The work of the geologists Robert Stevens and Harold Williams made these formations widely known.
An agreement to create the park was signed in 1970, a national park reserve was set up in 1973, and it became a full national park on 1 October 2005. It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1987 for geology that shows continental drift at work and for its glacier-cut fjords and waterfalls. Moose introduced more than a century ago have damaged the native forest, and work to limit the harm is under way.
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