CAPE BRETON ISLAND 



1165 



CAPE COD CANAL 



notable for their beauty occur in the Canadian 

 Rockies. 



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Colorado Park 



CAPE BRETON ISLAND, bret'un, or brit' 

 un, a rocky, irregularly-shaped island which 

 is part of the province of Nova Scotia, Can- 

 ada. The island takes its name from a cape 

 at the eastern end, a name which always re- 



LOCATION MAP 



minded many of the good Acadian peasants 

 of their distant home across the seas. Cape 

 Breton Island is geologically a continuation of 

 the Nova Scotia peninsula, and is separated 

 from it only by the narrow Strait of Canso, 

 which connects Saint George's Bay, to the 

 north, with Chedabucto Bay, to the south. 



Like the adjoining mainland, Cape Breton 

 Island is noted for its forests, its mines, its 

 fisheries and its picturesque landscapes. The 

 timber, consisting chiefly of pine, hemlock, 

 spruce, birch, oak and maple, is locally val- 

 uable, but has long since become an insig- 

 nificant factor in the Canadian supply. The 

 coal fields, however, are among the most im- 

 portant in the whole Dominion. The important 

 fields are three: the Sydney field, in the north- 

 east, with the splendid harbor of Sydney as its 

 central point; the Inverness field, along the 

 west shore of the island; and the Richmond 

 field, just north of Chedabucto Bay. These 

 fields are the largest contributors to the prov- 

 ince's annual output of about 8,000,000 tons, 

 more than half of the present total for the 

 Dominion. 



Next in importance to the industries de- 



pendent on coal and iron are the fisheries, 

 which employ about 7,000 men and support 

 about one-third of the population of the island. 

 Cod, mackerel, herring and whitefish are the 

 big catches. Compared with New Brunswick 

 and the mainland of Nova Scotia, there is 

 little game fishing, but many tourists are at- 

 tracted to the island by its picturesque scen- 

 ery and delightful summer weather. Potatoes, 

 wheat and other grains are raised in small quan- 

 tities, but most foodstuffs are brought from the 

 mainland. 



Like the mainland of Nova Scotia, the island 

 was originally a French possession. The Eng- 

 lish seized it in 1745, restored it to France 

 three years later, recaptured it in 1758, and 

 finally gained permanent possession in 1763. 

 At first it was a separate colony, but later was 

 united with Nova Scotia. 



The island has an area of 3,120 square miles 

 and is practically divided from north to south 

 into two separate parts by the chain of Bras 

 d'Or Lakes and the canal on Saint Peter's 

 Isthmus. It is divided into four districts or 

 counties Cape Breton, Inverness, Victoria and 

 Richmond. The principal towns are Sydney, 

 having a population of about 20,000, Dominion, 

 Sydney Mines, North Sydney, Glace Bay and 

 Inverness, each of which is described elsewhere 

 in these volumes. Louisburg, once a great 

 fortress and the most important point on the 

 island, is now an incorporated town. The total 

 population of the island, including a few hun- 

 dred Indians, was 122,084 in 1911. Most of the 

 people are descendants of Scotch Highlanders, 

 but about 15,000 are French Acadians. A.H.M. 



CAPE COD CANAL, a sea-level waterway 

 without locks, built across the narrow strip of 

 land where Cape Cod joins the Massachusetts 

 mainland, and opened to navigation in 1914. 

 It connects Buzzard's Bay with Barnstable 

 Bay, an extension of Cape Cod Bay, at Sand- 

 wich, Mass., and from shore to shore is eight 

 miles in length. The total length of the chan- 

 nel, however, excavated from a thirty-foot 

 depth in either bay, is thirteen miles. The 

 canal has a uniform depth of twenty-five feet 

 at average low water, and with the exception 

 of one bend runs straight across the Cape. 

 The approaches in both bays are from 250 to 

 350 feet wide at the bottom. To protect 

 the entrance on the Cape Cod Bay side a mas- 

 sive breakwater 3,000 feet long has been built, 

 and a lighthouse has been constructed on the 

 end of this breakwater. The canal throughout 

 the greater part of the coarse >s 100 feet wide 



