Cape Breton Island

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Cape Breton Island (French: île du Cap-Breton, Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Cheap Breatuinn, Mi'kmaq: U'namakika), almost always just Cape Breton, 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. The eastern and southern coasts front the Atlantic Ocean, its eastern coast also forming the western limits of the Cabot Strait.

1 History
- 1.1 Industrial history
2 Geography
3 Demographics
4 Economy
5 Cape Breton Island is famous for:
6 See also

History

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 Caboto first visited Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island.

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-Ann in the early 18th century before relocating to a much larger fortification at Louisbourg so as 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 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 both rich in music and tradition. From 1763 to 1784 the island was administratively part of the colony of Nova Scotia and governed from Halifax. 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. In 1820, the colony of Cape Breton Island was merged for the second time with Nova Scotia; this being present-day peninsular Nova Scotia. Prince Edward Island was also annexed to mainland Nova Scotia at the time but was later seperated. The annexation is by some considered an illegal act and there is a small movement in Cape Breton that advocates seperating from mainland Nova Scotia and forming a seperate territory or province. Cape Breton Labour Party

During the first half of the 19th century, Cape Breton Island experienced an influx of Highland Scots numbering approximately 50,000; 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 Bretonners. 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.

Tourism promotions beginning in the 1950s recognized the importance of the Scottish culture to the province (although it wasn't dominant throughout Nova Scotia), 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.

Industrial history

The southeastern part of Cape Breton Island fronting the Atlantic Ocean is home to the Sydney Coal Field, an extensive underground coal seam extending at an angle from the shore beneath the seafloor of the Cabot Strait. This large deposit of high-sulphur coal was first extracted by French soldiers from Fortress Louisbourg in 1720 at nearby Port Morien. An area of Inverness County fronting the Gulf of St. Lawrence between Port Hood and Inverness also hosts an undersea coal seam which is part of the Pictou Coal Field.

In 1826 all mining rights in Nova Scotia were transferred from the Duke of York to a monopoly named the General Mining Association. The GMA developed some mines in the Sydney area but mostly concentrated on the mainland part of Nova Scotia. In 1858, the GMA's monopoly was broken and many American-financed mining companies were developed in the Sydney area. In the 1890s, two large conglomerates were formed; the Dominion Coal Company (DOMCO) merged all the mines on the south side of Sydney Harbour and built the Sydney & Louisburg Railway. The GMA was transformed into Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company (SCOTIA) and developed mines on the north side of Sydney Harbour. In 1899, DOMCO financed the construction of a large integrated steel mill in Sydney's Whitney Pier neighbourhood, which was named Dominion Iron and Steel Company (DISCO); the DISCO mill smelted iron ore mined in Bell Island, Newfoundland. SCOTIA also built a steel mill in Sydney Mines. The booming economy in the Sydney area experienced immigration from Newfoundland and Eastern Europe to fuel the labour demand.

In 1914 the SCOTIA steel mill was closed and in 1920 both DOMCO/DISCO and SCOTIA were merged into a new company named British Empire Steel and Coal Company (BESCO). BESCO was reorganized in 1930 as Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (DOSCO). At one point, DOSCO was the largest private employer (in terms of the number of employees) in the nation. While employment in coal and steel peaked in 1913 in the Sydney area, production increased until the early 1940s as a result of mechanization and increased consumption during the Second World War. Following the war, coal production went into a decline as newer and cheaper open-pit mines were opened in western North America, railways switched to diesel fuel for locomotives, and nuclear energy and hydroelectricity gained increased acceptance.

In the mid-1960s, DOSCO fell into financial difficulty as coal and steel usage continued to decline. DOSCO announced that its mines had 15 years of production left and that its steel mill was uneconomic to operate without significant modernization. In 1965-1966, a federal Royal Commission of Inquiry called the "Donald Commission" recommended that the federal government create a Crown corporation to take over operation of DOSCO mines with the aim being to gradually wean the Sydney area economy off natural resources and into a more diversified service-oriented economy. On July 7, 1967 the Cape Breton Development Corporation (DEVCO) was created and on March 30, 1968 all DOSCO mines were expropriated for $12 million by DEVCO. At the same time, the provincial government formed the Sydney Steel Corporation (SYSCO) and took over DOSCO's steel mill, with the aim being to gradually control the shut down of this industry.

DEVCO brought in new tourism initiatives throughout Cape Breton Island and funded various community economic development programs, however politics and other factors such as the 1973 oil crisis brought about by the OPEC embargo following the Yom Kippur War saw demand for coal increase dramatically, particularly for electrical generation. The federal government reversed course and chose to expand, rather than retract, the production of coal and opened new mines and modernized its DOSCO-inherited properties to serve new electrical generating stations. During the 1980s the provincial government also modernized the steel mill, however both coal and steel encountered production and financial difficulties in the 1990s and DEVCO and SYSCO both decommissioned their operations by the turn of the century or shortly thereafter. The last underground coal mine on Cape Breton Island closed in November 2001.

Sydney's economy faces signficant challenges with unemployment and out-migration, as well as ongoing efforts to clean up the Sydney Tar Ponds; a legacy of DOSCO, and later DEVCO, producing coke to fuel the blast furnaces at the steel mill. The Muggah Creek estuary opening onto Sydney Harbour near the coke ovens site is contaminated with a variety of coal-based wastes. After extensive public consultation and technical study, a CDN$400-million cleanup plan, jointly funded by the federal and provincial governments awaits further environmental assessment.

While the urban area of eastern Cape Breton County influenced by the coal and steel industries came to be referred to as "Industrial Cape Breton", many rural communities in the rest of Cape Breton Island have been relatively stable economically, largely due to the mix of fishing, forestry, small-scale agriculture, and a growing tourism industry as a result of the spectacular scenery found throughout the island.

Geography

The island measures 10,311 km² 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, woods 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, Boularderie Island, 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 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 constraining marine traffic to pass through the Canso Canal at the eastern end of the causeway.

Demographics

The five main cultures are Mi'kmaq, Acadian, Scottish, Irish, 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, 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.

According to the Census of Canada, the population of Cape Breton Island in 2001 was 147,500, down from 158,260 in 1996.

Racial Composition

95.0% White
3.6% Aboriginal
0.7% Black
0.1% Arab

Religious Groups

95.8% Christian

Jewish and a minimal Sikh population exists in the city.

Economy

Sydney on the east coast of the island has traditionally been the main port, with various facilities in a large sheltered natural harbour. The Marine Atlantic terminal at North Sydney is where some of Canada's largest ferries have daily departures year-round 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, 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 and Canso Canal created an artificial deep-water port, allowing extensive petrochemical, pulp and paper, and gypsum handling facilities to be established. The St. Peters Canal is no longer used by commercial shipping on Cape Breton Island but is an important waterway for recreational vessels.

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 primary east-west road on the island is Nova Scotia Highway 105, the Trans-Canada Highway, although the Nova Scotia Highway 104 expressway is scheduled to be extended from Port Hawkesbury along the south side of Bras d'Or Lake to the Sydney area and will likely see the Trans-Canada designation switched to this route when completed. Nova Scotia Highway 125 is an important arterial route around Sydney Harbour in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Nova Scotia Highway 4, as well as the Cabot Trail, 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 Sydney area faces several challenges with the closure of the Cape Breton Development Corporation's (DEVCO) coal mines by 2001 and the Sydney Steel Corporation's (SYSCO) steel mill. In recent years a federal agency Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation has been attempting to diversify the area economy by investing in tourism developments, call centres, and small businesses.

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 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.