Channel-Port aux Basques, the Gateway to Newfoundland, has been welcoming visitors for 500 years, from Basque Fisherman in the 1500's who found the ice free harbour a safe haven, to ferry passengers who commenced arriving on the "Bruce" steamship in 1898 to take the railway across the island.

The area was actually settled on a year-round basis until fisher-folk from the Channel Islands established Channel in the early 1700's, although people had been working the south coast fishery year-round for a century before this. The name Port aux Basques came into common usage from 1764 onwards following surveys of Newfoundland and undertaken by Captain James Cook on behalf of the British Admiralty. Captain Cook went on to fame, if not fortune, as a result of his surveys in the Pacific Ocean, but it was he who surveyed the St. Lawrence prior to Wolfe's Assault of Quebec and was awarded 50 pounds gratuity for his "selfless service".

The region gained a strong French influence following the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and the legacy remains in many of the place names on the coast. Fox Roost used to be Fosse Rouge, while Rose Blanche was Roche Blanche, or white rock, which is very obvious when you walk to the lighthouse. Isle aux Morts, or Isle of the Dead (named for the number of shipwrecks there) has retained its identity unscathed.

A major change occurred in southwest Newfoundland in 1818 when England ceded fishing rights on the coast to the American's who had been fishing the coast anyway for two decades. This treaty continued into the 20th century and, as a result, the area is often referred to as the American Coast. The American connection gave the local occupants a back door through which they could trade and avoid the control of the fishery exercised by the English and Jersey merchant companies. As a result, the coast also has strong family connections with New England States.

What created Port aux Basques was the coming of the railway in 1898. The location was chosen by the Reid Company, who had been contracted by the Newfoundland government to build a railway across the province, partly because of its proximity to Cape Breton, but also because the area was usually ice-free through the winter. Channel and Port aux Basques merged into a single community in November 1945.

Newfoundland saw much activity during the Second World War with one of the Loran C master stations on Mouse Island operating from 1942-45. Also in 1942, the US military erected radio and telephone repeater stations on Table Mountain, one of seven installations across the province.

Channel - Port aux Basques has two museums celebrating different aspects of its history; The Railway Heritage Centre at the entrance to the Town gives an appreciation of the railway and Newfoundland, while housing two astrolabes, early navigational devices dating back to the 1600's. They were recovered from vessels that had been wrecked off the coast of Isle aux Morts.

Pride of place for entertainment is Scott's Cove Park via a boardwalk from the Marine Atlantic terminal. The "village" has an amphitheater with lively music and is surrounded by brightly painted craft and snack kiosks modeled to look like outport fishing stages. Here you can enjoy the music, munch on a snack, and watch the superferries manoeuver in and out of the harbour, so close you can almost touch them.

Channel - Port aux Basques is now the centre for touring on the southwest coast with a trip down the rugged south coast to Rose Blanche, and calls possible in fishing village little changed from the days when the only way to visit was by boat.
The Harvey Trail at Isle aux Morts celebrates a famous family from the early 1800's who rescued many people from wrecked ships.

At Cape Ray visit the museum that interprets the remains of a Dorset Paleo Eskimo settlement from some 1,800 years ago. This was a seasonal settlement used for seal hunting and was inhabited for an estimated 800 years. The Cape Ray Lighthouse was built in 1871 (the same year the Rose Blanche Lighthouse was started) and marked the southern tip of the French Shore, where the French enjoyed treaty right from 1783 until 1904.

Between the two lighthouses, at Cape Ray & Cape Anguille, lies the Cape Ray fault, which is home to the J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park and the Codroy Valley, a unique pastoral wetlands area of international significance, and a marked contrast to the rugged mountains elsewhere.