Mistaken Point Canada a UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Mistaken Point is a small Canadian headland on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The site was first discovered in 1967 by S.B. Misra, a graduate student of Memorial University as a part of his thesis work.

Mistaken Point known as Cape Race, the area's typically foggy weather. Many Sailor make mistake and turn north, thinking they had reached Cape Race Harbour, and immediately run into treacherous rocks.

The planes of Mistaken Point's tilted and cleaved mudstone and sandstone, exposed by the pounding of the Atlantic waves, are fossils of the oldest creatures. Known to scientists as the Ediacara biota, they are creatures that lived 575 to 542 million years ago, when all life was in the sea.

Mistaken Point, a 17-kilometre stretch of Newfoundland coastline that bears some of the oldest recognizable traces of life on Earth, has been chosen as Canada’s World Heritage Site. The decision was announced in Istanbul, where the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) committee that oversees World Heritage designations was holding its annual meeting.

For more information about guided tours (late May - early October) within Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve, call the Edge of Avalon Interpretive Centre in Portugal Cove South and ask to speak to one of the Reserve's Interpreters.