What is Cape Breton Island?

Cape Breton Island is the northeastern part of Nova Scotia, separated from the Nova Scotia mainland by the 2-kilometre-wide Strait of Canso. The island covers 10,311 square kilometres, making it the 18th-largest island in Canada and the largest in Nova Scotia. The population is about 132,000, mostly in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (which includes Sydney, Glace Bay, New Waterford, North Sydney, and Sydney Mines). Cape Breton has been part of Nova Scotia since 1820 (it was briefly its own colony from 1784 to 1820).

The island is connected to the Nova Scotia mainland by the Canso Causeway, a rock-fill causeway opened on August 13, 1955. The Canso Canal alongside the causeway (opened 1956) allows ship passage. Before 1955, ferries provided the only mainland connection. The Cape Breton Highlands rise to 532 metres on the northern part of the island and are protected within Cape Breton Highlands National Park (designated 1936). The Cabot Trail, a 298-kilometre scenic route around the highlands, is named after explorer John Cabot, who reached eastern Canada in 1497.

Bras d'Or Lake in central Cape Breton is a saltwater inland sea connected to the Atlantic at three points (Great Bras d'Or, Little Bras d'Or, and St. Peter's Canal). The lake covers 1,099 square kilometres, making it the largest saltwater lake in Canada. Bras d'Or Lake was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2011. The Mi'kmaq Nation has lived in Cape Breton (Unama'ki) for thousands of years, with five Mi'kmaq communities on the island today: Eskasoni, Membertou, Wagmatcook, Waycobah, and Potlotek.

Cape Breton's economy centred on coal mining and steel production from the late 1800s until the closure of the Sydney Steel Corporation (SYSCO) in 2001 and the last underground coal mine in 1999. The federal government's 1967 expropriation of the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation and the 2001 Sydney Tar Ponds remediation (one of Canada's largest environmental cleanups) shaped the regional economy. Modern industries include tourism (especially the Cabot Trail and Louisbourg Fortress National Historic Site, a reconstructed 18th-century French fortress), Cape Breton University, the Marble Mountain Quarry, and the growing Cape Breton Regional Hospital. The Celtic music scene of Cape Breton (with origins in 18th-century Scottish Highland Clearance immigration) is internationally celebrated, particularly during the annual Celtic Colours International Festival each October.