Cape Breton Places & Foods

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia stretches 500 kilometres on a southwest-northeast axis from Cape Sable to Cape North, the shape of the province is often compared to that native delicacy, the lobster, with Cape Breton Island representing the outstretched claws, preparing to nip unsuspecting Newfoundland across the Cabot Strait.

The outstanding geographical fact about Nova Scotia is not the land, but the sea. The province is virtually an island connected to the rest of Canada by the narrow Isthmus of Chignecto. No point of land is more than 55 kilometres from the coastline. Cape Breton is an island joined to the mainland by the Canso Causeway. It is the sea that has carved the wild and ragged shoreline of the Atlantic coast and the sea that creates the wondrous tides of the Bay of Fundy. It is the sea upon which the first European settlers arrived and the sea from which they pulled their livelihood in once bursting nets. It is the sea for which they built ships to sail to other seas, bringing back goods rare and precious and tales even stranger. Not surprisingly, it is to the sea that Nova Scotians today are looking for new sources of wealth from offshore oil and gas.

The province can be divided into three distinct physiographic regions - the lowlands, the uplands and the highlands, which in tum may be subdivided into distinct sub-regions. The lowlands include the fertile Annapolis Valley, the low-lying areas around the Northumberland Strait and large parts of Cape Breton Island. The geology is primarily sedimentary and it is in these areas that most of Nova Scotia's rich coal seams are located. These coasts tend to be low and flat, and there are few good harbours. The shoreline is characterized by sandbars and occasional dunes. Bathers can often wade many hundreds of metres on these sandbars when the tide is out.

The Atlantic uplands comprise an area equal to half the province, running from Cape Canso, Guysborough County, to the extreme southern tip, including all of Yarmouth, Shelburne, Queens and Lunenburg counties, and most of Digby, Halifax and Guysborough counties. The uplands are a mass of Pre-Cambrian hard granite and quartzite, interspersed with belts of weaker slate. l'he area has been heavily glaciated with the result that much of the soil has been scraped away and redeposited in numerous glacial formations, the most famous of which is the drumlin that forms Halifax's Citadel Hill.

Nova Scotia The coastline of the uplands region is deeply indented, forming many good harbours, some of which are considered outstanding. Hundreds of islands dot the landscape along the entire Atlantic coast, most notably at St. Margarets Bay and Mahone Bay. Reefs and shoals abound, accounting for the many lighthouses erected along this coast. In many ways the Atlantic uplands coast epitomizes the North Atlantic coastline with its bare granite sheets plunging headlong into the raging surf to produce an awesome cataclysm between land and sea. When people think of Nova Scotia, they usually envisage the rocky granite shores of the uplands.

The highlands are those parts of the province where metamorphosed igneous and sedimentary rocks have either intruded through the preexisting lowland sediments or resisted erosion to a better degree than the surrounding softer rock. The Cape Breton Highlands are the most notable example. The Cobequid Mountains of Cumberland and Colchester counties, the Antigonish highlands, and the North Mountain, which runs parallel with the Fundy shore from Cape Blomidon to Digby Neck, are the other Nova Scotia highlands. Appearing as sharp ridges when viewed from below, the highlands are actually flat tablelands. This may be observed first hand in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. At Ingonish, and at Cheticamp, the Cabot Trail rises to the tablelands, several hundred metres above the sea level.

The outstanding feature of the highlands is rectilinear coastlines. In contrast with the hundreds of bays and peninsulas of the Atlantic coast, the shoreline of the Bay of Fundy and western Cape Breton are virtually straight. Here, uplifted highland cliffs that soar up hundreds of metres directly from the ocean create stretches of spectacular landscapes. Less well known, but no less spectacular, are the cliffs of the Bay of Fundy coast, which are interspersed with fossils and unusual minerals.


Island of Cape Breton Restored to France

Filed under: Cape Breton — admin @ 1:17 am

Cape Breton Island Though the Island of Cape Breton was restored to France by the Treaty of Aix in Chapelle in 1748, the British government was determined to retain a firm hold of Nova Scotia. It was decided to settle therein a numerous colony of British subjects, “as the best means of firmly attaching it to the Throne, as well as the most effectual protection against aggression.” Accordingly in the spring of 1749,a fleet of thirteen transports with 2,576 officers and soldiers, farmers and tradesmen, under the Hon. Edward Cornwallis appointed as Governor of the Province, set sail for Nova Scotia. Halifax was founded by these settlers on June 21, 1749.

When the French power was finally shattered, the total white population of Nova Scotia was only 13,000, of which 2,000 were French. The capital, Halifax. Was a little garrison town only fourteen years old, comprising some 500 families. Settlers from the neighbouring New England colonies caused a considerable increase in this number, and additions came from King George’s German kingdom of Hanover. Afterwards, when the American colonies had thrown off their allegiance some 20,000 who either would not or could not remain in their homes under a new flag, migrated to Nova Scotia, calling themselves the United Empire Loyalists. A rebel invasion was repulsed in 1776, and until 1812 the menace of privateers persisted, but from that time until the present day, the history of Nova Scotia has been one of uninterrupted peace, although her son’s have taken part in the Empires struggles in other parts of the world, and have brought much honour to their native Province and Canada. In the present struggle, Nova Scotians are doing their part, with many overseas as well as on guard along her coast, and on the sea, and in the air, in Canada’s Active Forces. Let us hope that war may be kept away from our shores by these gallant men.

Some amazing things have happened in this fair province during the past three hundred years, that are worth relating. For instance: The Government paid the board of a man for sixty years, and even today does not know who he was.

That sounds very strange, but when you are familiar with a story of a man who was simply known as Jerome, you will know that it’s true. This man Jerome was landed on the shores of St. Mary’s Bay in 1854, from a sailing ship. When the good people of Sandy Cove found him, he was suffering extreme pain, as both his legs had been amputated, just below the knees, and he was left on the shore with simply a jug of water and a loaf of bread. Every effort was made to find out who he was and the case reported to the government. For sixty years he lived, during which time he never spoke, he never read and he never wrote a line. In the meantime $104 per year was appropriated for his board. He died in 1912 and was buried at Meteghan. The secret of his identity went to the grave with him.

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