Glovers Harbour brands itself as the "home of the giant squid" and has a small heritage centre and "life-sized" sculpture dedicated to the animal, these being its main tourist attractions.

[5][26] In the 1911 census, it was listed as Glover's Harbor, with a population of 28 Newfoundland-born residents, predominantly followers of the Church of England, though one Methodist was also recorded.

[13][29] From its founding, small-scale inshore cod fishing was the mainstay of the local economy, supplemented by seasonal work such as logging as well as livestock and vegetable farming.

[5][21] By the middle of the 20th century, however, a lack of transport infrastructure left the isolated residents of Glovers Harbour with few other job opportunities.

[5] The 1962 construction of a road connecting Glovers Harbour to Route 350 was transformative, as it opened access to the commercially important town of Botwood and to the nearby fish markets of Leading Tickles and Point Leamington.

[5][21] Despite being larger at the time, the neighbouring communities of Lockesporte and Winter House Cove (both located in Seal Bay) were never connected to the road network owing to the difficulty of the surrounding terrain, and this contributed to their rapid decline and eventual abandonment by the close of the 1960s.

[25][30][31] As recorded in the 1971 census, eight families totalling 39 people (predominantly with the surname Haggett) had moved to Glovers Harbour from Lockesporte alone.

[5][c] At least four families (Burton, followed by Goudie, Haggett, and Rowsell) had similarly resettled from Winter House Cove by this point.

[5][21] The village's first Salvation Army citadel—which also served Lockesporte, Ward's Point, and Winter House Cove, and doubled up as a school—was erected on land belonging to Electra Martin.

[21] Glovers Harbour is surrounded "by rolling green hillsides and glacial lakes, making it incredibly picturesque for those who have never visited Newfoundland before".

No parts of the animal were saved and no photographs or exact measurements exist as the specimen was cut up for dog food soon after its discovery; practically all that is known of it comes from a second-hand account by Reverend Moses Harvey in a letter to the Boston Traveller dated 30 January 1879, which was reproduced in the works of Yale zoologist Addison Emery Verrill the following year: On the 2d day of November last, Stephen Sherring, a fisherman residing in Thimble Tickle, not far from the locality where the other devil-fish [the "Three Arms specimen"], was cast ashore, was out in a boat with two other men; not far from the shore they observed some bulky object, and, supposing it might be part of a wreck, they rowed toward it, and, to their horror, found themselves close to a huge fish, having large glassy eyes, which was making desperate efforts to escape, and churning the water into foam by the motion of its immense arms and tail.

From the funnel at the back of its head it was ejecting large volumes of water, this being its method of moving backward, the force of the stream, by the reaction of the surrounding medium, driving it in the required direction.

Finding the monster partially disabled, the fishermen plucked up courage and ventured near enough to throw the grapnel of their boat, the sharp flukes of which, having barbed points, sunk into the soft body.

[25][22][23][56] George Marsh and Henry Rowsell—the founders of Winter House Cove and Lock's Harbour (Lockesporte), respectively—have also been suggested as participants.

[25] The fishermen may have learned of Moses Harvey's interest in the giant squid when the latter visited Notre Dame Bay only a couple of months earlier, in August 1878, as part of a geological survey.

[60][61][62][63] Such lengths are now generally regarded as exaggerations and often attributed to artificial lengthening of the two long feeding tentacles (analogous to stretching elastic bands) or to inadequate measurement methods such as pacing.

[17][16][77] The sculpture was designed by fine arts teacher Don Foulds of Saskatoon[h] and built by him and his students, with help from Jason Hussey, Niel McLellan, and Edward O'Neill.

[74][75] The museum details the capture of the Thimble Tickle specimen—including among its collections the "official records of the encounter"[20] and a "life-sized" replica of the squid's eyeball[23]—but also the history of the local area and particularly its fishing heritage.