Cape Breton Island (French: île du Cap-Breton - formerly Île Royale, Scottish Gaelic: Ceap Breatainn or Eilean Cheap Bhreatainn, Míkmaq: Únamakika, simply: Cape Breton) is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America. The name most likely corresponds to the word Breton, the French adjective referring to the Atlantic province of Brittany.
Cape Breton Island is part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The 10,311 km2 (3,981 sq mi) island accounts for 18.7% of the total area of Nova Scotia. Although physically separated from the Nova Scotia peninsula by the Strait of Canso, it is artificially connected to mainland Nova Scotia by the 1,385 m (4,544 ft) long rock-fill Canso Causeway. The island is located east-northeast of the mainland with its northern and western coasts fronting on the Gulf of Saint 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. Its landmass slopes upward from south to north, culminating in the highlands of its northern cape. One of the world's larger salt water lakes, Bras d'Or ("Arm of Gold" in French), dominates the centre of the island.
The island is divided into four of Nova Scotia's eighteen counties: Cape Breton, Inverness, Richmond, and Victoria. Their total population as of the 2011 census numbered 135,974 "Cape Bretoners"; this is approximately 15% of the provincial population. Cape Breton Island has experienced a decline in population of approximately 4.4% since the previous census in 2006. Approximately 75% of the island's population is located in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) which includes all of Cape Breton County and is often referred to as Industrial Cape Breton, given the history of coal mining and steel manufacturing in this area.
The island contains five reserves of the Mi'kmaq Nation, these being: Eskasoni, Membertou, Wagmatcook, Waycobah, and Potlotek/Chapel Island. Eskasoni is the largest in both population and land area.
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Famous quotes containing the words cape, breton and/or island:
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
“They all came, some wore sentiments
Emblazoned on T-shirts, proclaiming the lateness
Of the hour, and indeed the sun slanted its rays
Through branches of Norfolk Island pine as though
Politely clearing its throat....”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)