Cartwright has been a settled community since 1775 when Captain George Cartwright, for whom the place is named, settled there, establishing a fish and fur trading business. Eleven years later he left Labrador, maintaining a business interest there until it was sold to Hunt and Henley in 1815. It was again sold in 1873 to the Hudson's Bay Company and has remained under company ownership ever since.
Since 2002, Cartwright has been connected by road with Blanc Sablon, Quebec where there is a car ferry to Newfoundland. Since December 2009 the remaining link between Cartwright and Goose Bay, Labrador has been completed and open to the public.
At the 2011 census the population was 516, down 6.5% from 552 in the 2006 census.
Cartwright has a subarctic climate (Dfc) with very snowy winters and short, mild summers. Owing to its maritime location, the winters are however a little milder than on most of the Labrador Peninsula, but snow depth from the stormy Icelandic Low, which circulates cold and saturated air around the region, is extreme: it averages around 1.6 metres (63 in) at its peak early in March and has reached as high as 3.51 metres (138 in) on April 7, 2003. Snow is usually fully melted early in June and is established again in mid-October. Unlike most of Labrador, there is no permafrost because of the insulation from the deep snow cover, although the annual mean temperature is 0.0 °C (32.0 °F).
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