Deer Lake, Nfld, Town, pop 4769 (2001c), 5222 (1996c), 5161 (1991cA), area 73.23 km2, inc 1950, is located at the north end of Deer Lake in western Newfoundland. The east shore of the lake was settled 1867 by a Cape Breton Island family who began an operation to cut pine trees. The site was named Nicholsville and expanded with the building of the railway in the 1880s and 1890s.
In 1923 Deer Lake was selected as the site of a power plant to support a pulp and paper mill at nearby CORNER BROOK. In 1957 the federal government built a large airstrip here. This, with the railway and highway connections to Bay of Islands, Humber Valley, Great Northern Peninsula and Baie Verte Peninsula, has made Deer Lake one of the main pulpwood, service and transportation centres of Newfoundland.