| Official Name: | Postville |
| Nickname: | The Post |
| Settlement Type: | Town |
| Pushpin Map: | Canada Newfoundland and Labrador |
| Pushpin Label Position: | right |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of Postville |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | Canada |
| Subdivision Type1: | Province |
| Subdivision Name1: | Newfoundland and Labrador |
| Subdivision Type3: | Region |
| Subdivision Name3: | Nunatsiavut |
| Leader Title: | Mayor (AngajukKâk) |
| Leader Name: | Glen Sheppard |
| Leader Title1: | Federal MP |
| Leader Name1: | Yvonne Jones (L) |
| Leader Title2: | Provincial MHA |
| Leader Name2: | Lela Evans (PC)[1] |
| Leader Title3: | Nunatsiavut Assembly member |
| Leader Name3: | George Gear[2] |
| Area Total Km2: | 2.39 |
| Population As Of: | 2021 |
| Population Total: | 188 |
| Population Density Km2: | 78.7 |
| Timezone: | AST |
| Utc Offset: | −04:00 |
| Timezone Dst: | ADT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | −03:00 |
| Coordinates: | 54.9083°N -59.7725°W |
| Elevation M: | 68 |
| Postal Code: | A0P 1N0 |
| Area Code: | 709 |
Postville is an Inuit town in the north of Labrador, Canada.[3] [4] It had a population of 188 as of 2021. It is located about inside Kaipokok Bay, NNE of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Postville Airport is nearby.
Postville is inaccessible by road and may be reached only by air (via Postville Airport)[5] or via ferry service that operates between Nain and Happy Valley-Goose Bay during the ice-free period from June to November.[6]
Uranium deposits are located near Postville.[7] [8]
In the 18th century, the Franco-Canadian merchant Louis Fornel landed near the present site of Rigolet and claimed the land for France in 1743. The Franco-Canadians established trading posts in Kaipokok Bay at that time.
The British took control of New France in 1763 after the Seven Years' War, bringing a flood of European fishermen and whalers to settle on the Labrador coast.[9]
Around 1784, Pierre Marcoux and Louis Marchand reopened the old Kaipokok trading post. In 1795, the Moravian Brothers of Hopedale observed that Pierre Marcoux and the former partner of George Cartwright Collingham were the first Europeans to settle in Kaipokok Bay.
In order to compete with the Moravians, the Hudson's Bay Company established a coastal trading post on Kaipokok Bay in 1837 shortly after Rigolet. It operated until 1880.[10]
The village was first known as The Post because of the Hudson's Bay Company trading post located in the area. Inuit families traded in the fall, winter and spring before returning to the coastal camps in the summer. The village was renamed Postville in the 1940s by Pentecostal pastor William Gillet who helped establish the community by building a school and a church.[11] Through the 1940s it was mostly a winter residence for settlers who were scattered around the bay and coast in the summer. In 1949, Gillet opened a store in Postville and built a sawmill in Shanty Brook across the bay (which burnt down in 1957). From then, the population gradually began to concentrate in Postville. In 1961, its population was 84. Permanent settlement was further boosted by the opening of a shipyard in 1974. Although the shipyard closed a few years later, a new sawmill opened in 1990.[12]
An uncommon magnitude 4.3 earthquake was measured in Labrador on February 5, 2020, with its epicentre about east of Postville. It was the strongest quake on the Labrador coast in 40 years.[13]
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Postville had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of, it had a population density of in 2021.