Saint Pierre Bank

Saint Pierre Bank forms the western part of Newfoundland's Grand Banks, bordering the deep Laurentian Channel. Its sand, gravel and rocky seabed lies beneath waters long valued for cod. During the seventeenth century French fishing ships worked the banks and the shores of nearby Saint Pierre and Miquelon. After the islands were restored to France in 1763, Saint Pierre again became a base for the bank fishery, receiving catches brought in from the open Atlantic.