Cape Breton Island (French: île du Cap-Breton, Irish/Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Cheap Breatuinn, Mi'kmaq: U'namakika) is a large island on the Atlantic coast of North America. It is part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, although physically separated from the peninsular Nova Scotian mainland by the Strait of Canso. 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.

Contents

1 History 2 Geography 3 Demographics 4 Economy 5 See also

History

Originally inhabited by the Mi'kmaq Nation, the island saw active settlement by Acadians and the French garrison at Louisbourg during the 17th and 18th centuries. The French named the island Île Royale. The mid 18th century brought many Irish who assimilated into the French culture. Following the island's fall to British control in the French and Indian War, a significant influx of Highland Scots (around 50,000) arrived in the first half of the 19th century as a result of the Highland Clearances. Today their descendants dominate the culture, and up until the 1970s Gaelic could still be heard spoken by many people of older generations. The Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts and formal Gaelic language immersion/instruction in public schools attempt to address the loss of this culture to English assimilation. An industrial collapse brought on by the closing of the main Steel Plant in Sydney and the gradual phasing out of the Coal Mines has brought the Island to a continuous unemployment problem. From the 1950s to very recently, many have had jobs with the Cape Breton Development Corporation (Commonly known as DEVCO), a national grant to help develop the area.

Geography

The island measures 10,311 square kilometres in area (3,981 square miles), making it the 75th largest island in the world, and is composed mainly of rocky shores, rolling farmland, glacial valleys, barren headlands, mountains, forests and plateaus. Geological evidence suggests that at least part of Cape Breton Island was originally joined with present-day Scotland and Norway, now separated by millions of years of continental drift.

Cape Breton's landscape is dominated by the Bras d'Or Lake system, which the island wraps around, the Strait of Canso, and the Cape Breton Highlands , which are considered a continuation of the Appalachian chain. Principal freshwater features are 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 divided into four counties: Cape Breton, Inverness, Richmond, and Victoria.

Cape Breton 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 constraining marine traffic to pass through the Canso Canal at the eastern end of the causeway.

Demographics

The four main cultures are Mi'kmaq, Acadian, Scottish, and English, with respective languages Mi'kmaq, French, Scottish Gaelic, and English. English is now the primary spoken language, though some Gaelic and Acadian French are still heard.

Later migrations of black loyalists, Irish, Italians, and Eastern Europeans enriched the eastern part of the island around Industrial Cape Breton. Cape Breton has been seeing a population exodus in recent years.

Economy

Sydney on the east coast of the island has traditionally been the main port, with various facilities in a sheltered harbour. The Marine Atlantic terminal at North Sydney is where large ferries have daily departures year-round to Channel–Port aux Basques and seasonally to Argentia on the island of Newfoundland. Point Edward is the location of Sydport, a former navy base now converted to commercial use, as well as the Canadian Coast Guard College. Petroleum, general cargo, bulk coal, and cruise ship facilities are also located in Sydney Harbour. Port Hawkesbury has risen to prominence since the completion of the Canso Causeway created an artificial deep-water port, allowing extensive petrochemical, pulp and paper, and gypsum handling facilities to be established.

The Canso Strait 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 principal road on the island is the Trans-Canada Highway, Nova Scotia route 105. Nova Scotia route 125 is an important arterial route in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, and Nova Scotia routes 104 and 4, as well as the Cabot Trail, are important secondary roads. Railway connections extend from the port of Sydney to mainland Nova Scotia via Port Hawkesbury and the Canso Causeway.

Cape Breton Island is famous for:

• coal mining and steelmaking, although both industries are now dormant. The Industrial Cape Breton region sits atop some of the most extensive subsurface coal deposits in the world, and, through the Second World War, industrial concerns in the area were among the largest employers in all of Canada;
• the Cabot Trail, a scenic road circuit around and over the Cape Breton Highlands with spectacular coastal vistas;
• Cape Breton fiddle music, a two-century-old Scottish fiddle style of music, containing remnants of Irish and Acadian music as well, and dance form preserved by Irish and Scottish descendants and readily accessible along the Ceilidh Trail;
• Fortress Louisbourg, a restored 18th-century fortified French harbour town;
• Alexander Graham Bell, the Scottish-born inventor who eventually settled permanently at his summer residence near Baddeck and who invented the telephone, hydrofoil, hearing aid, and iron lung, among other creations, as well as doing extensive work with hearing- and visually-impaired persons, notably Helen Keller; Bell also made the first powered flight in the British Empire using the Silver Dart on Cape Breton Island.
• the Marconi Museum , a museum celebrating the first trans-Atlantic radio signal s sent by Marconi;
• Alistair MacLeod, the noted fiction writer and winner of the Dublin Prize;
• Glen Breton , the only single-malt whisky brewed in North America.

See also

• Provinces and territories of Canada
• Cape Breton Labour Party
• Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia