Brunette Island

Brunette Island, 20 km², is situated at the mouth of Fortune B on Newfoundland's S coast, 18 km S of Connaigre Head. The island, roughly triangular, measures 11 km E-W and 6 km N-S. A steep ridge backs the NW shore, at one point rising to 160 m. From the early 1800s the island supported a fishing community at Mercer's Cove in the SE until the islanders were resettled, with government assistance, in the late 1950s. Brunette I then became a provincial wildlife reserve and the site of experimental colonies of caribou, moose, arctic hare and bison, the latter brought from Alberta in 1964 in a unique but unsuccessful attempt to introduce the animal to Newfoundland.