Strait of Canso

The Strait of Canso (also Gut of Canso or Canso Strait, also called Straits of Canceau or Canseaux until the early 20th century), is a strait located in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It divides the Nova Scotia peninsula from Cape Breton Island.

It is a long thin channel approximately 27 kilometres long and averaging 3 kilometers wide (1 km at its narrowest). The strait connects Chedabucto Bay on the Atlantic Ocean to St. George's Bay on the Northumberland Strait, a sub basin of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The strait is extremely deep (200+ feet) with two major communities at Port Hawkesbury on the eastern side facing Mulgrave on the western side, both ports. The strait is crossed by the Canso Causeway for vehicular and rail traffic, opened in 1955. The Canso Canal allows ships to pass through the causeway, and this can accommodate any vessel capable of transiting the St. Lawrence Seaway.

An account of early settlement in the area is given in the letters of local resident Henry Nicholas Paint (1830-1921), Member of Parliament for Richmond county and merchant, whose father Nicholas secured valuable land grants and settled in a stone-built house at Belle Vue in 1817. Port Hawkesbury, at first known as Ship harbour, emerged as a shipbuilding and boatbuilding port on the Strait in the 19th century with firms such as H.W. Embree and Sons producing distinctive fishing boats that came to be known as "Canso Boats" after the Strait.

Port Hastings, Nova Scotia

Port Hastings (Scottish Gaelic: Còbh a' Phlàstair) is a Canadian rural community in Inverness County, Nova Scotia.

The community is located at the eastern end of the Canso Causeway on Cape Breton Island. It is named after Charles Hastings Doyle.

History

The community was previously known as Plaster Cove.

The Inverness and Richmond Railway was built from coal mines in Inverness to a loading dock at Point Tupper in 1901. The construction of the Canso Causeway which opened in 1955 saw the community become a railway junction after the Truro-Sydney mainline of Canadian National Railways (CNR) was diverted from the railcar ferry terminals at Mulgrave and Point Tupper. The CNR line to Inverness was eventually abandoned in the 1980s, although the Truro-Sydney mainline continues to operate under the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway.

The construction of the Canso Causeway also brought what would become the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 104 and Highway 105) through the community.

Survey

Survey may refer to:

Quantitative research

Geography

Coast guard

A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with search and rescue functions and lacking any law enforcement powers. However, a typical coast guard's functions are distinct from typical functions of both the navy (a pure military force) and a transportation police (a civilian law enforcement agency).

History

The modern Her Majesty's Coastguard of the United Kingdom was established in 1809 as the Waterguard, and was originally devoted to the prevention of smuggling as a department of the HM Customs and Excise authority. It was, however, also responsible for giving assistance to shipwrecks.

Each Water Guard station was issued with Manby's Mortar which was invented by Captain George William Manby in 1808. The mortar fired a shot with a line attached from the shore to the wrecked ship and was used for many years up and down the coastline. This began the process in which the Coastguard assumed a life saving role. In 1821 a committee of inquiry recommended that responsibility for the Preventative Water Guard be transferred to the Board of Customs. The Treasury agreed and in a Minute dated 15 January 1822, directed that the preventative services, which consisted of the Preventative Water Guard, cruisers, and Riding Officers should be placed under the authority of the Board of Customs and in future should be named the Coast Guard. In 1845 the Coastguard was subordinated to the Admiralty.

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia (Latin for "New Scotland", pronounced in English as /ˌnoʊvə ˈskoʊʃə/) (French: Nouvelle-Écosse; Scottish Gaelic: Alba Nuadh; Scots: New Alba) is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces, and one of the four provinces which form Atlantic Canada. Its provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest province in Canada, with an area of 55,284 square kilometres (21,300 sq mi), including Cape Breton and another 3,800 coastal islands. As of 2011, the population was 921,727, making Nova Scotia the second-most-densely populated province in Canada.

Etymology

Nova Scotia means New Scotland in Latin and is the recognized English language name for the province. In Scottish Gaelic, the province is called Alba Nuadh, which also simply means New Scotland. The province was first named in the 1621 Royal Charter granting the right to settle lands including modern Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the Gaspé Peninsula to Sir William Alexander in 1632.