THE CHARM OF CAPE BRETON ISLAND 



The Most Picturesque Portion of Canada's Maritime 



Provinces — A Land Rich in Historic Associations, 



Natural Resources, and Geographic Appeal 



By Catherine Dunlop Mackenzie 



With Photographs by Gilbert Grosvenor 



The Editor of the Geographic Magazine has had the good fortune to spend 

 the better part of twenty summers in Cape Breton Island, and from his personal 

 experience can testify that Miss Mackenzie's account of the merits of this fair 

 island is very conservative. One can search the world in vain for lovelier or 

 happier scenes than meet one everywhere throughout romantic Cape Breton. 



C 



l APE BRETON an island? Ha! 

 Are you sure of that ? Show it 

 to me on the map. So it is ! 

 My dear sir, you always bring us good 

 news. I must go and tell the King that 

 Cape Breton is an island !" 



Smollett does not tell us whether it 

 was after he had rejoiced his sovereign 

 with this news that the Duke of New- 

 castle made his historic statement, "If 

 France was master of Portsmouth, I 

 would hang the man who should give up 

 Cape Breton in exchange for it." 



But perhaps it was this glance at the 

 map that influenced England's policy 

 when, at the end of the Seven Years' 

 War, France offered to waive her claim 

 to the whole of Canada in return for the 

 single possession of Cape Breton Island. 

 England refused, and negotiations for 

 peace were broken off- 



Although a British possession from 

 the time of the Cabots, it was the French 

 who as a government first valued Cape 

 Breton as a "nursery for her seamen," 

 and a French writer of the seventeenth 

 century who calls it "a very beautiful 

 island on the coast of Acadie, where there 

 are plains and prairies, vast forests filled 

 with oak, maple, cedar, walnut, and the 

 finest fir trees in the world" ! 



BASQUE SEAFARERS NAMED CAPE BRETON 



The island, no miles long by 87 miles 

 wide, forms the northeastern part of the 

 Province of Nova Scotia, with which it 

 shares identification as Lief Ericson's 

 "Markland." Undoubtedlv her coasts 



were frequented by Norwegian rovers as 

 early as the tenth century, and we even 

 have it on the authority of the Flemish 

 geographers that the island was discov- 

 ered and named by Basque fishermen, 

 who crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of 

 whales a hundred years before the voy- 

 ages of Columbus. 



"Whether or not one credits them with 

 so early a discovery, it is undoubtedly to 

 the seafarers of the Basque provinces 

 that Cape Breton owes her name — per- 

 haps the oldest name in North American 

 geography. 



It is from the voyages of the Cabots, 

 however, that Cape Breton dates her his- 

 tory. The highland to the north of the 

 island is now generally agreed to have 

 been the landfall of John Cabot — the first 

 sighting of North America of which we 

 have record. Peter Martyr's account of 

 the voyage of the younger Cabot in 1498, 

 when the island was claimed in the name 

 of "Kyng Henry," shows that a landing 

 was made on these northern shores at 

 least a year before Columbus touched 

 upon the mainland of the continent. 



Standing far out in the Atlantic, the 

 most easterly extremity of the Dominion 

 of Canada, Cape Breton owes much of 

 her colorful history to her geographical 

 position. Of all the ports on the Atlantic 

 seaboard, hers are the nearest to the ship- 

 ping centers of Europe and Africa by 

 hundreds of miles. She reaches out into 

 the ocean trade lanes, the landfall of 

 west-bound shipping today as in the time 

 of the Cabots. and as rich in the promise 



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