Accommodations Nova Scotia
Your Guide To Accommodations In Nova Scotia
North Sydney, Nova Scotia
North Sydney is a community in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional
Municipality. Located on the north side of Sydney Harbour, along the
eastern coast of Cape Breton Island, North Sydney is an important
port in Atlantic Canada as it is the western terminus of the
Marine
Atlantic ferry service. It acts as the marine link for the
Trans-Canada Highway to the island of
Newfoundland and Labrador, which is why
North Sydney's nickname is called The Gateway To Newfoundland.
Marine Atlantic ferries currently operate from North Sydney's
terminal to the ports of
Port aux Basques and
Argentia. The company
is one of the largest employers in the area.
North Sydney emerged as a major shipbuilding centre in the early
1800s building many brigs and brigantines for the English market and
later moving on to larger Barques and, in 1851, the full rigged ship
Lord Clarendon, the largest wooden ship ever built in Cape Breton.
Wooden shipbuilding declined in the 1860s but the same decade saw
the arrival of increasing numbers of steamships drawn to North
Sydney for bunker coal. By 1870 it was the fourth largest port in
Canada dealing in ocean-going vessels, drawn for coal and due to the
fact that The Western Union cable office had been established here
in 1875. The railroad came to Cape Breton Island in 1891. At this
time there were 2,513 people in North Sydney, compared to 2,417 in
Sydney.
In 1898 North Sydney was chosen by the Reid-Newfoundland Company as
the Canadian mainland terminal for a ferry service to Newfoundland;
in June of that year the SS Bruce sailed from Port Aux Basques, it
was the first ship to make that run.
During the first and second World wars, North Sydney played an
important role in the relay of information from Europe to both
Ottawa and Washington. North Sydney was home to a Western Union
Cable office. It was here where coded messages were sent from
overseas then relayed on to the rest of North America.
On the morning of November 10, 1918, the office received a
top-secret coded message from Europe. It stated that effective at 11
am the next day (November 11, 1918) all fighting would cease on
land, sea and in the air.
Therefore the people of North Sydney, in particular Mrs. Annie
Butler Smith, were the first to know about the end of the Great War.
It is reported that on the night on November 10, 1918, over 200
servicemen celebrated by marching through the streets of the town to
celebrate the end of the war, one day before the rest of the world
knew.
