Labrador, one of Canada’s most remote but fascinating regions, lies on the east coast of Canada where it forms the mainland portion of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Separated by the Straits of Belle Isle from the island of Newfoundland, Labrador’s population in 2007 was 26,890. Scholars say there are 300,000 places and features of Canada already named, and two million still to be named, a daunting vista for the official government body that adjudicates our toponyms. Don’t let it’s fuddy-duddy name fool you. The Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names is a colloquium of questing spirits who also try to solve disputes that arise about place-names. Storms of opinion do arise too, even on the placid sea of place names. Once proud Canadian place names may sink into the muskeg of political uncorrectness. Mount Stalin in high British Columbia and Stalin Township near Sudbury seemed ugly remembrances of the Russian mass-murderer. In 1986 Stalin Township became Hansen Township , in honour of Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion wheelchair tour for worthy charities. Mount Stalin became Mt. Peck , after a local hero and popular British Columbian outdoorsman. Infrequently, names become an embarrassment. Paska Township near Thunder Bay was simply the Cree word for shallow taken from Paska Lake, which is shallow. But as some Finnish Canadians pointed out to government in 1959, paska is also the Finnish word for shit. Oops! The place is now named after the Finnish family who protested, Suni Township.
Labrador as Word & Name No one knows the precise origin of the name Labrador. After days of perusing ancient sources in five languages, I’m going to write a new Blues song, “Nobody knows the etymology I’ve seen.” The late, canny British etymologist Eric Partridge in his book Origins favours In 16th century Portuguese, the euphemism for “slaves” was spelled labradores, literally “workers,” wherea modern Portuguese has lavradores, but the word now means ‘farm-workers,’ not ‘slaves.’ Both stem from Late Latin laborator “worker,” a later derivative in medical Latin being the name of a place where scientific work was carried out, that is, laboratorium or laboratory, now often shortened to lab. The verb laborare in imperial Latin had a basic meaning ‘to perform physical work.’ But, far more often, it meant ‘to be distressed in performing something, to be ill, to suffer. These negative semantic strands go back to the very noun on which all those later elaborations are based, namely, labor ‘work.’ In Latin, labor meant ‘hard work,’ often ‘unpleasant work.’ That unfavorable hue colored the word even on its long trip into modern English. Think of the labor pains that precede human birth. Think of laboring under false hope. In modern Spanish, a labrador is a tenant-farmer. One of the names for Newfoundland on early Italian maps is Terra del Laboratore ‘land of the worker.’ Then into the lexical fray enter scholars who say another Portuguese sailor, one João Fernandes, a rich lavrador (but the 16 th Century spelling?) or landowner in the Azores came north through the Atlantic in his own ships looking for the fabled cod fishery. A cod-fearing man, he took his cod piece, and perhaps several whole fishes, and sailed off, leaving the name of his former trade as a toponym to bedevil future etymologists. Some historians give Fernandes credit for discovery of the coast of Greenland and some of the coast of North America.
Alternate Origin of the Placename Labrador (as presented in Wikipedia) "João Fernandes was a Portuguese explorer of the late 15th century. He was the first modern explorer in the coasts of the Northeast of Northern America, including the Labrador peninsula, which bears his name. Expeditions Fernandes was granted a patent by King Manuel I in 1498 giving him the right to explore a part of the Atlantic Ocean as set out in the Treaty of Tordesillas. Fernandes, together with Pêro de Barcelos, first sighted what is now known as Labrador in 1498 CE. Fernandes charted also the coasts of Southwestern Greenland and of adjacent Northeastern North America around 1498 and gave notice of them in Europe. The areas are believed to have been named island of the Labrador and land of the Labrador (modern-day Labrador) respectively, after him. His landowner status allowed him to use the title lavrador ‘landholder’ On early sixteenth maps, a landmass west of Greenland bears the title Terra Laurador, and Terra Laboratoris. Upon his return from Greenland he sailed to Bristol and received a patent from King Henry VII. Fernandes was granted title to much of the land he had discovered and is considered the first European landowner in Labrador. In 1501 Fernandes set sail again in discovery of lands in the name of England. He was never heard from again." The origin of Labrador proposed in the Wikipedia article is not supported 100% by known historical fact, but it is highly probable according to my brief researches. Folk Alteration of Labrador An interesting folk alteration of the very word Labrador occurs among early Acadians in Nova Scotia who heard Labrador as the Acadian French phrase la bras d’or, the arm of gold. And so they gave the name to Bras d’Or Lake and later to a beer. L-a-b-r-a-d-o-r. Quite a fuss spins around the spelling. Is Labrador sturdy Spanish orthography? Yes. Could it be Portuguese or Italian, mangled by an early monoglot cartographer? Yes. My picayune contribution shall consist in the observation that no affectionate adjective for the continental part of Newfoundland has yet appeared. I therefore suggest: labradorable.
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rewrite of Labrador May 12, 2011
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the tale of the explorer Gaspar Corte-Real who touched shore in 1500 CE on a voyage of piscatorial quest and sailed back to Portugal carrying a shipload of Inuit slaves! Historical proof of this particular atrocity is scant. 
