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Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
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Cape Breton Island
Cape Breton Island (French: île du Cap-Breton - formely île Royale,
Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Cheap Breatuinn, Míkmaq: Únamakika, simply: Cape
Breton) is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America. It likely
corresponds to the European word "Breton", referring to Brittany.
Cape Breton Island is part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada,
although physically separated from the Nova Scotia peninsula by the
Strait of Canso, it is artificially connected to mainland North America
by the Canso Causeway. The island is located east-northeast of the
mainland with its northern and western coasts fronting on the Gulf of
St. Lawrence; its western coast also forming the eastern limits of the
Northumberland Strait. The eastern and southern coasts front the
Atlantic Ocean; its eastern coast also forming the western limits of the
Cabot Strait. Its landmass slopes upward from south to north,
culminating in the highlands of its northern cape. A saltwater estuary,
Bras d'Or Lake, dominates the centre of the island.
The island is divided into four of Nova Scotia's eighteen counties: Cape
Breton, Inverness, Richmond, and Victoria. Their total population as of
the 2001 census numbered 147,454 "Cape Bretoners"; this is approximately
16% of the provincial population. Cape Breton Island has experienced a
decline in population of approximately 6.8% since the previous census in
1996. Approximately 72% of the island's population is located in the
Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) which includes all of Cape
Breton County and is often referred to as Industrial Cape Breton, given
the history of coal mining and steel manufacturing in this area.
The island contains five reserves of the Mi'kmaq Nation, these being:
Eskasoni, Membertou, Wagmatcook, We'kopaq/Waycobah, and Potlotek/Chapel
Island. Eskasoni is the largest in both population and land area.
History
A bulk carrier in the Strait of Canso docked at the Martin Marietta
Materials quarry located at Cape Porcupine. The photo is taken from Cape
Breton side of the Canso Causeway.
A bulk carrier in the Strait of Canso docked at the Martin Marietta
Materials quarry located at Cape Porcupine. The photo is taken from Cape
Breton side of the Canso Causeway.
Cape Breton Island's first residents were likely Maritime Archaic
Indians, ancestors of the Mi'kmaq Nation, who later inhabited the island
at the time of European discovery. Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot)
reportedly visited the island in 1497 to become the first Renaissance
European explorer to visit present-day Canada. However, historians are
unclear as to whether Cabot first visited Newfoundland or Cape Breton
Island. This discovery is commemorated by Cape Breton's Cabot Trail.
A fishing colony was established on the island about 1522 by the
Portuguese under João Alvares Fagundes. As many as 200 settlers lived in
the nameless village in what is now present day Ingonish on the island's
northwestern peninsula. The fate of the colony is unknown, but it is
mentioned as late as 1570.[citation needed]
On February 8, 1631, Charles I granted Cape Breton Island to Robert
Gordon of Lochinvar and his son Robert.
The island saw active settlement by France with the island being
included in the colony of Acadia. A French garrison was established in
the central eastern part at Ste-Anne in the early 18th century, before
relocating to a much larger fortification at Louisbourg to improve
defences at the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and defend France's
fishing fleet on the Grand Banks. The French named the island "Île
Royale." It remained part of colonial France until it was ceded to the
Britain under the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Britain merged the island
with its adjacent colony of Nova Scotia (present day peninsular Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick).
Some of the first British-sanctioned settlers to the island following
the Seven Years' War were Irish, although upon settlement, they merged
with local French communities to form a culture rich in both music and
tradition. From 1763 to 1784 the island was administratively part of the
colony of Nova Scotia and governed from Halifax.
The first permanently settled Scottish community on Cape Breton Island
was Judique, settled in 1775 by Michael Mor MacDonald. He spent his
first winter using his upside-down boat for shelter, which is reflected
in the architecture of the village's Community Centre. He composed a
song about the area called "O's alainn an t-aite" , or 'Fair is the
Place.
In 1784, Britain split the colony of Nova Scotia into three separate
colonies: New Brunswick, Cape Breton Island, and present-day peninsular
Nova Scotia, in addition to the adjacent colonies of Prince Edward
Island and Newfoundland. The colony of Cape Breton Island had its
capital at Sydney on its namesake harbour fronting on Spanish Bay and
the Cabot Strait. Its first Lieutenant-Governor was Joseph Frederick
Wallet DesBarres (1784–1787) and his successor was William Macarmick
(1787). From 1799 to 1807 the military commandant was John Despard,
brother of Edward.[1]
An order forbidding the granting of land in Cape Breton, issued in 1763,
was removed in 1784. The mineral rights to the island were given over to
the Crown by an order-in-council. The British government had intended
that the Crown take over the operation of the mines when Cape Breton was
made a colony, but this was never done, probably because of the
rehabilitation cost of the mines. The mines were in a neglected state,
caused by careless operations dating back at least to the time of the
final fall of Louisbourg.
In 1820, the colony of Cape Breton Island was merged for the second time
with Nova Scotia, this being present-day peninsular Nova Scotia. This
development is one of the factors which led to large-scale industrial
development in the Sydney Coal Field of eastern Cape Breton County (see
Industrial Cape Breton). By the late 19th century, as a result of the
faster shipping, expanding fishery and industrialization of the island,
exchanges of people between the island of Newfoundland and Cape Breton
increased beginning a cultural exchange that continues to this day.
During the first half of the 19th century, Cape Breton Island
experienced an influx of Highland Scots numbering approximately 50,000
as a result of the Highland Clearances. Today, the descendants of the
Highland Scots dominate Cape Breton Island's culture, particularly in
rural communities. To this day Gaelic is still the first language of a
number of elderly Cape Bretoners. A campaign by the provincial
government during the 19th and early 20th centuries aimed to eradicate
the use of Gaelic among school children. The growing influence of
English-dominated media from outside the Scottish communities saw the
use of this language erode quickly during the 20th century. Many of the
Scots who immigrated there were either Roman Catholics or Presbyterians.
Tourism promotions beginning in the 1950s recognized the importance of
the Scottish culture to the province, and the provincial government
started encouraging the use of Gaelic once again. The establishment of
funding for the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts and formal
Gaelic language instruction in public schools are intended to address
the near-loss of this culture to English assimilation.
The turn of the 20th century saw Cape Breton Island at the forefront of
scientific achievement with the now-famous activities launched by
inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Guglielmo Marconi.
Following his successful invention of the telephone and being relatively
wealthy, Bell acquired land near Baddeck in 1885, largely due to
surroundings reminiscent of his early years in Scotland. He established
a summer estate complete with research laboratories, working with deaf
people - including Helen Keller - and continued to invent. Baddeck would
be the site of his experiments with hydrofoil technologies as well as
the Aerial Experiment Association, financed by his wife, which saw the
first powered flight in the British Empire when the AEA Silver Dart took
off from the ice-covered waters of Bras d'Or Lake. Bell also built the
forerunner to the iron lung and he experimented with breeding sheep.
Marconi's contributions to Cape Breton Island were somewhat less than
Bell's as he merely used the island's geography to his advantage in
transmitting the first trans-Atlantic radio message from a station
constructed at Table Head in Glace Bay to a receiving station at Poldhu
in Cornwall, England.
Geography
The island measures 10,311 km² in area (3,981 square miles), making it
the 75th largest island in the world and Canada's 18th largest island.
Cape Breton Island is composed mainly of rocky shores, rolling farmland,
glacial valleys, barren headlands, mountains, woods and plateaus.
Geological evidence suggests that at least part of the island was
originally joined with present-day Scotland and Norway, now separated by
millions of years of continental drift.
The northern portion of Cape Breton Island is dominated by the Cape
Breton Highlands, commonly shortened to simply the "Highlands", which
are an extension of the Appalachian mountain chain. The Highlands
comprise the northern portions of Inverness and Victoria counties. In
1936 the federal government established the Cape Breton Highlands
National Park covering 949 km² across the northern third of the
Highlands. The Cabot Trail scenic highway also encircles the coastal
perimeter of the plateau.
* Cape Breton Highlands - Nova Scotia Museum website
* Cape Breton Highlands - Parks Canada website
Cape Breton Island's hydrological features include the Bras d'Or Lake
system, a salt-water fjord at the heart of the island, and freshwater
features including Lake Ainslie, the Margaree River system, and the Mira
River. Innumerable smaller rivers and streams drain into the Bras d'Or
Lake estuary and onto the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Atlantic coasts.
Cape Breton Island is now joined to the mainland by the Canso Causeway,
completed in 1955, enabling direct road and rail traffic to and from the
island, but requiring marine traffic to pass through the Canso Canal at
the eastern end of the causeway.
Cape Breton Island is divided into four counties: Cape Breton,
Inverness, Richmond, and Victoria.
Demographics
The island's residents can be grouped into five main cultures; Scottish,
Mi'kmaq, Acadian, Irish, and English, with respective languages Gaelic,
Míkmaq, French, and English. English is now the primary spoken language,
though Míkmaq, Gaelic and French are still heard.
Later migrations of black Loyalists, Italians, and Eastern Europeans
mostly settled in the eastern part of the island around the Industrial
Cape Breton region. The population of Cape Breton Island has been in
decline for almost two decades with an increasing population exodus in
recent years due to economic conditions.
According to the Census of Canada, the population of Cape Breton Island
in 2001 was 147,454, a 6.8% decline from 158,260 in 1996.
Racial/Ethnic Composition
* 95.0% Caucasian
* 3.6% Mi'kmaq (Canadian First Nation)
* 0.7% Black
* 0.1% Arab
Religious Groups
Statistics Canada in 2001 reported a "religion" total of 107,880 for
Cape Breton, including 3,915 with "no religious affiliation."[2] Major
categories included:
* Roman Catholic: 69,820
* Protestant: 32,575 (including 13,790 United Church and 10,170
Anglican)
* Orthodox: 395
* Jewish: 235
* Muslim: 135
Synagogues in Sydney and Glace Bay serve a small historic Jewish
community (which was once one of the larger ones in eastern Canada)
while more recent Muslim immigrants hold Friday prayers at Cape Breton
University. Buddhists are a tiny minority (70 in 2001, according to
Statistics Canada), although Gampo Abbey in Pleasant Bay has been
operational since 1984.
Economy
Cape Breton Island has two major coal deposits: the Sydney Coal Field in
the southeastern part of the island along the Atlantic Ocean drove the
Industrial Cape Breton economy throughout the 19th and 20th centuries -
until after World War II its industries were the largest private
employers in Canada; the Inverness Coal Field in the western part of the
island along the Gulf of St. Lawrence is significantly smaller but
hosted several mines.
Sydney has traditionally been the main port, with various facilities in
a large, sheltered, natural harbour. It is the Island's largest
commercial center and home to the Island's daily newspaper, the Cape
Breton Post, as well as its only active television studio, CJCB-TV, and
several radio stations. The Marine Atlantic terminal at North Sydney is
the terminal for large ferries travelling to Channel–Port aux Basques
and seasonally to Argentia on the island of Newfoundland.
Point Edward on the west side of Sydney Harbour is the location of
Sydport, a former navy base now converted to commercial use. The
Canadian Coast Guard College is located nearby at Westmount. Petroleum,
bulk coal, and cruise ship facilities are also located in Sydney
Harbour.
Glace Bay is the second largest urban community in population and was
the island's main coal mining centre until its last mine ceased
operation in the 1980s. Glace Bay served as the hub of the Sydney &
Louisburg Railway and also as a major fishing port. At one time, Glace
Bay was known as the largest town in Nova Scotia, based on population.
Port Hawkesbury has risen to prominence since the completion of the
Canso Causeway and Canso Canal created an artificial deep-water port,
allowing extensive petrochemical, pulp and paper, and gypsum handling
facilities to be established. The Strait of Canso is completely
navigable to seaway-max vessels, and Port Hawkesbury is open to the
deepest-draught vessels on the world's oceans. Large marine vessels may
also enter Bras d'Or Lake through the Great Bras d'Or channel whereas
small craft have the additional use of the Little Bras d'Or channel or
St. Peters Canal. The St. Peters Canal is no longer used by commercial
shipping on Cape Breton Island but is an important waterway for
recreational vessels.
The industrial Cape Breton area faced several challenges with the
closure of the Cape Breton Development Corporation's (DEVCO) coal mines
and the Sydney Steel Corporation's (SYSCO) steel mill. In recent years
the Island's residents have been attempting to diversify the area
economy by investing in tourism developments, call centres, and small
businesses, as well as manufacturing ventures in such fields as auto
parts, pharmaceuticals, and window glazings.
While the Cape Breton Regional Municipality is in transition from an
industrial to a service-based economy, the rest of Cape Breton Island
outside of the industrial area surrounding Sydney-Glace Bay has been
more stable, with a mixture of fishing, forestry, small-scale
agriculture, and tourism.
Tourism in particular has grown throughout the post-Second World War
era, especially the growth in vehicle-based touring, which was furthered
by the creation of the Cabot Trail scenic drive. The scenery of the
island is rivalled in northeastern North America only by Newfoundland
and Cape Breton Island tourism marketing places a heavy emphasis on its
Scottish Gaelic heritage through events such as the Celtic Colours
Festival, held each October, as well as promotions through the Gaelic
College of Celtic Arts and Crafts.
The primary east-west road on the island is Highway 105, the
Trans-Canada Highway, although Trunk 4 is also heavily used. Highway 125
is an important arterial route around Sydney Harbour in the Cape Breton
Regional Municipality. The Cabot Trail, circling the Cape Breton
Highlands, and Trunk 19, along the western coast of the island, are
important secondary roads. Railway connections between the port of
Sydney to Canadian National Railway in Truro are maintained by the Cape
Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway.
The Cabot Trail is a scenic road circuit around and over the Cape Breton
Highlands with spectacular coastal vistas; over 400,000 visitors drive
the Cabot Trail each summer and fall. Coupled with Fortress Louisbourg,
it has driven the growth of the tourism industry on the island in recent
decades. The Condé Nast travel guide has rated Cape Breton Island as one
of the best island destinations in the world.
Traditional music
Cape Breton is well known for its traditional fiddle music, which was
brought to North America by Scottish immigrants during the Highland
Clearances. The traditional style has been well preserved in Cape
Breton, and ceilidhs have become a popular attraction for summer
tourists. Inverness County in particular has a heavy concentration of
musical activity, with regular performances in communities such as Mabou
and Judique. Judique is recognized as 'Bhaile nam Fonn', (literally:
Village of Tunes) or the 'Home of Celtic Music', featuring the Celtic
Music Interpretive Centre. Performers who have received significant
recognition outside of Cape Breton include Buddy MacMaster, Natalie
MacMaster, Ashley MacIsaac, The Rankin Family, Aselin Debison, and The
Barra MacNeils.
The Men of the Deeps are a male choral group of current and former
miners from the industrial Cape Breton area.
Notable facts
* Cape Breton has a large contaminated industrial site. The Sydney Tar
Ponds and coke oven sites are located near Whitney Pier in Sydney, Nova
Scotia. Waste from the coke ovens and steel plant was dumped in the
ponds during the industry's heyday. The problem is further compounded by
the former municipal dump uphill from these sites. The landfill has now
been capped. A 400-million dollar cleanup plan is currently underway.
Early stages of environmental remediation have begun.
* District 26, United Mine Workers of America, from the Industrial Cape
Breton region was the only district of the UMWA to attempt to join the
Red International of Trade Unions.
* Fortress Louisbourg is Canada's largest National Historic Site and the
largest historic restoration in North America - it depicts the
18th-century fortified French harbour town of Louisbourg.
* Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born inventor who eventually
settled permanently at his summer residence near Baddeck on Cape Breton
Island's Bras d'Or Lake. He is credited with inventing the telephone,
hydrofoil, hearing aid, and iron lung, as well as doing extensive work
with hearing- and visually-impaired persons, notably Helen Keller. Bell
contributed to the design of the Silver Dart, an aircraft that made the
first powered flight in the British Empire from the ice of Bras d'Or
Lake. He and his wife are buried on their estate near Baddeck.
* The Marconi Museum in Glace Bay is a museum celebrating the first
trans-Atlantic radio signals sent by Marconi.
* Glen Breton, based in Inverness County, is the only single malt whisky
distillery in North America.
* A former coal mine at Port Morien is considered the first
commercially-run coal mine in North America, supplying Louisbourg with
coal in the 1700's.
* Disney's Squanto: A Warrior's Tale was shot on location here in 1994.
Film and television
* Squanto: A Warrior's Tale starring Adam Beach
* Johnny Belinda by Elmer Blaney Harris.
* Margaret's Museum starring Helena Bonham Carter.
* The Bay Boy starring Kiefer Sutherland.
* New Waterford Girl
* The Hanging Garden
* Marion Bridge
* My Bloody Valentine
* Pit Pony, TV movie and series adapted from the novel by Joyce
Barkhouse
* Mass for Shut Ins
Famous people
The arts
* Nathan Bishop,singer-songwriter from Celtae
* Randy Conrad, teenager who described a McDonald's sandwich as "one
gigantic cornucopia of awesomeness"
* John Allan Cameron, singer-songwriter, from Glencoe Station, credited
as the "Godfather" of Cape Breton's modern Celtic music revival
* Lesley Crewe, Author of Relative Happiness and Shoot Me
* Aselin Debison, singer-songwriter
* Danny Gallivan, Hockey Night in Canada sportscaster
* Bruce Guthro, singer-songwriter
* Mary Jane Lamond, Gaelic singer
* Angus MacAskill, Giant and Circus Performer
* Ashley MacIsaac , fiddle player from Creignish
* Daniel MacIvor,actor, playwright, theatre director and film director
from Sydney
* Hugh MacLennan, Governor General's Awards winning Author Barometer
Rising, and Two Solitudes.
* Alistair MacLeod, Author
* Steve Arbuckle, actor
* The Barra MacNeils, singing group
* Rita MacNeil,singer-songwriter, from Big Pond
* Buddy MacMaster, fiddle player from Judique
* Natalie MacMaster, fiddle player from Troy
* Duncan Wells, singer-songwriter
* Daniel Petrie, Hollywood filmmaker
* The Rankin Family, singers-songwriters, from Mabou
* Rick Ravanello Actor, Hart's War- Various TV including 24, CSI,
Desperate Housewives etc.
* Harold Russell, Acedemy Award winning actor for his portrayal of Homer
Parrish, in the 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives.
* Gordie Sampson, singer-songwriter Big Pond
Athletes
* Al MacInnis
* Mike McPhee
* Johnny Miles
Politics and business
* John Buchanan, Premier of Nova Scotia
* Mayann Francis, First Black Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia
* Rodney MacDonald, Premier of Nova Scotia
* Allan MacEachen, Former Deputy Prime Minister / Finance Minister
* Russell MacLellan, Premier of Nova Scotia
* Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada
* John W. Morgan, Mayor, Cape Breton Regional Municipality
* Irving Schwartz, Businessman, Philanthropist, member of the Order of
Canada
References
1. ^ John Despard; The Companion to British History, Routledge
2. ^ Table from Statistics Canada
* Counties of Nova Scotia; Statistics Canada
* Sea islands: Natural Resources Canada Atlas of Canada
* Cape Breton County and its divisions, Nova Scotia; Statistics Canada
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