Canada's first recorded avalanche struck near Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador.

A 1781–82 avalanche near Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador buried an Inuit winter house and left nine survivors out of 31, and Avalanche Canada's new online database now lists 1,064 known avalanche incidents in Canada.

The earliest recorded avalanche in what is now Canada was identified in a postscript to an 1782 letter linked to Moravian missionaries near Nain on the Labrador coast. A historian found an account describing a large mass of snow that descended a hill and pressed a winter house flat, where 31 people were sheltering and only nine escaped alive. That account is now cited as the earliest documented avalanche in Canada and is noted as the worst residential avalanche disaster in Eastern Canada. What is known: - The event is dated to the winter of 1781–82 and occurred about 12 miles from Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador. - A winter dwelling occupied by 31 people was overwhelmed; nine people survived and the remainder were buried. - The description was discovered by historian Wallace J. McLean while researching Moravian church papers. - Avalanche Canada has compiled a national incidents database that currently lists 1,064 recorded avalanche incidents in Canada. - The compiled data show most avalanche fatalities have occurred in British Columbia, a recent shift toward recreational fatalities, and that March is the month with the most recorded fatalities. Summary: The 1781–82 Nain event stands as a historically significant and tragic early record of avalanche loss in Canada and Eastern Canada specifically. Avalanche Canada's consolidated online database brings more than a century of records together for researchers and instructors, and the organization is exploring higher-resolution snowpack modelling and computer-assisted forecasting, including early uses of artificial intelligence, as a next horizon in forecasting and analysis.