In the summer of 1941, Eric Fry, an employee of the Canadian Department of Mines and Resources on loan to the Royal Canadian Air Force, selected a large sandy plateau near the mouth of the Goose River to build the Goose Bay Air Force Base. Docking facilities for transportation of goods and personnel were built at Terrington Basin.
Goose Air Base became a landing and refuelling stop for the Atlantic Ferry route. Soon after the site was selected, men from the coast of Labrador began working on the base. With World War II in bloom, it took only five months to build an operational military airport on the leased territory.
The first settlers to the area came from coastal Labrador to work with McNamara Construction Company, which was contracted to build the Goose Bay Air Force Base. Their first choice was Otter Creek, where they were told that it would have been too close to the base. A new location was chosen based upon the requirement to be at least eight kilometres from the base. In 1942, a new site was chosen that was first called Refugee Cove; it was not until 1955 that it eventually was renamed Happy Valley.
Though the area was not an officially registered municipality, the Rev. Lindsay G. King—the first resident United Church of Canada, minister (1953–1954)—remembers that the name commonly used was Happy Valley. Interestingly, the name over the Grenfell Mission Nursing station, at the time, was Hamilton River Settlement. Interesting also, the Rev. King's wife, Jean Turner, of Hartland, N.B., taught grades 1,2,3. at the first Anglican school in the community--opened in 1953. She had 53 students, some of whom would be in their mid-sixties today (2011).
The first three families to arrive to work at the construction of the base were the Saunders from Davis Inlet, the Broomfields from Big Bay, and the Perraults from Makkovik.
Happy Valley's first school was operated by a Mrs. Perrault from her home until 1946, when the Royal
