Cape North, Nova Scotia

Cape North is a Canadian rural community in Victoria County, Nova Scotia near the northeastern tip of Cape Breton Island. The community derives its name from Cape North, a headland located 18 km to the north.

Cape North in Nova Scotia

The village is located at the northernmost point on the Cabot Trail at the intersection with a local road leading to Bay St. Lawrence. Its closest neighboring community is Dingwall. Cape North is located in the federal electoral district of Sydney—Victoria.

History

At the time the first Loyalist settlers arrived in the area of the present-day village of Cape North, the area was known as Uktutuncok, meaning "Highest Mountain" in Miꞌkmaq.[1]

Moose were quite plentiful in the area in the 1800s, and a wholesale slaughter of these moose was carried out in the area around present-day Cape North. So barbaric were these slaughters that the government of the day was forced to step in and put a stop to the "wanton destruction". While the large populations of moose and caribou provided sustenance to the early settlers of the remote area, a growing portion of the meat and skins began to be transported to Sydney and Newfoundland by ship for sale. Hunters began arriving in the area from Newfoundland and in the winter of 1789 alone, approximately 9,000 moose were killed in this area for their meat and skins. So barbaric was the slaughter that crews of vessels passing along the coast reported smelling the rotting carcasses miles away. Ordinances were passed by the Governor and Council to stop the wholesale destruction, but this did little to end the slaughter. Magistrates Thomas Crawley and George Moore, supported by thirty men of the 21st regiment, were subsequently dispatched to Cape North and later Ingonish in the spring of 1790 to deal with the situation. They found a number of men assembled at present-day Cape North, confiscated “a considerable quantity of skins” and dispersed the hunters while destroying their huts. These events provided perhaps the earliest argument in favor of the establishment of a police force of some type in northern Cape Breton, as it was noted at the time that civil power, armed only with ordinances, was ineffectual in dealing with such troubles.[1]

Sunrise Valley, Cape North in 2010

Communications

Museums
  • North Highlands Community Museum

References
  1. Patterson, G.G. (1885). History of Victoria County. College of Cape Breton Press. ISBN 0-920336-02-7.
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