The province of Newfoundland and Labrador covers the period from habitation by Archaic peoples thousands of years ago to the present day. Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day Newfoundland and Labrador were inhabited for millennia by different groups of Indigenous peoples. The first brief European contact with Newfoundland and Labrador came around 1000 AD when the Vikings briefly settled in L'Anse aux Meadows. In 1497, European explorers and fishermen from England, Portugal, Spain (mainly Basques), France and Holland began exploration. Fishing expeditions came seasonally; the first small permanent settlements appeared around 1630. Catholic-Protestant religious tensions were high but mellowed after 1860. The British colony voted against joining Canada in 1869 an