The Municipality of the County of Inverness is a county municipality on

Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island (french: link=no, île du Cap-Breton, formerly '; gd, Ceap Breatainn or '; mic, Unamaꞌki) is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18. ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, Canada. It provides local government to about 17,000 residents of the historical county of the same name, except for the incorporated town of

Port Hawkesbury Port Hawkesbury (Scottish Gaelic: ''Baile a' Chlamhain'') is a municipality in southern Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. While within the historical county of Inverness, it is not part of the Municipality of Inverness County. History ...

and the

Whycocomagh 2 Waycobah First Nation is composed of two Mi'kmaq Indigenous reserves on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of t ...

Miꞌkmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Miꞌkmaw'' or ''Miꞌgmaw''; ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the nort ...

reserve, both of which are enclaves. Public services are provided in the areas of recreation, tourism, administration, finance, and

public works Public works are a broad category of infrastructure projects, financed and constructed by the government, for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community. They include public buildings ( municipal buildings, sc ...

History

The county was named after

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

in the

Scottish Highlands The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sco ...

from where many immigrants came. The boundaries were defined when

was divided into districts in 1823. In 1996, the county was amalgamated into a single municipality with the exception of Port Hawkesbury.

Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

deposits exist between Port Hastings and Cheticamp. The

Inverness and Richmond Railway The Inverness and Richmond Railway was a railway that operated on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia from 1901 to the 1980s. It is now a rail trail for snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, and human-powered transport called the Celtic Shores Coastal ...

, from

Port Hastings Port Hastings is a unincorporated settlement on Cape Breton Island, within the Municipality of the County of Inverness, Canada. The population in 2021 was 90. The community is located at the eastern end of the Canso Causeway on Cape Breton Isla ...

, was built around 1900 to transport coal. Coal mining was unprofitable, and small scale local operations ended in 1992. The railway was abandoned in the 1980s and is now a

snowmobile A snowmobile, also known as a Ski-Doo, snowmachine, sled, motor sled, motor sledge, skimobile, or snow scooter, is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. It is designed to be operated on snow and ice and does not ...

and

all-terrain vehicle An all-terrain vehicle (ATV), also known as a light utility vehicle (LUV), a quad bike, or simply a quad, as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI); is a vehicle that travels on low-pressure tires, with a seat that is stra ...

trail marketed as The Celtic Shores Coastal Trail. The settlement of Marble Mountain is named for

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

deposits there that were quarried until 1921. MacLeod Resources quarried red marble in River Denys, with a $2-million expansion in 2009 that saw the installation of finishing and polishing equipment. Operations shut down in December 2011 due to insufficient

working capital Working capital (WC) is a financial metric which represents operating liquidity available to a business, organisation, or other entity, including governmental entities. Along with fixed assets such as plant and equipment, working capital is consi ...

Geography

The municipality covers the entire western coast of Cape Breton Island. The rugged western coast borders the eastern extremity of the

Gulf of Saint Lawrence , image = Baie de la Tour.jpg , alt = , caption = Gulf of St. Lawrence from Anticosti National Park, Quebec , image_bathymetry = Golfe Saint-Laurent Depths fr.svg , alt_bathymetry = Bathymetry ...

, while the eastern side borders

Bras d'Or Lake Bras d'Or Lake (Mi'kmaq language, Mi'kmawi'simk: Pitupaq) is an irregular estuary in the centre of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. It has a connection to the open sea, and is tidal. It also has inflows of fresh water from rivers, ma ...

. The land rises to the north, culminating at the

Cape Breton Highlands The Cape Breton Highlands (french: Plateau du Cap-Breton, gd, Àrd-thalamh Cheap Bhreatainn), commonly called the Highlands, refer to a highland or mountainous plateau across the northern part of Cape Breton Island in the Canadian province of N ...

. As well as Port Hood, site of the municipal offices, populated areas include the fishing ports of

Mabou Mabou is an unincorporated settlement in the Municipality of the County of Inverness on the west coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. The population in 2011 was 1,207 residents. It is the site of The Red Shoe pub, the An Drochaid Mu ...

and Judique, and former mining centre Inverness. The municipality contains an

Acadian The Acadians (french: Acadiens , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Acadians live in the region of Acadia, as it is the region where the de ...

enclave at the ports of Saint-Joseph-du-Moine and Chéticamp.

Demographics

In the

Canada 2016 Census The 2016 Canadian census was an enumeration of Canadian residents, which counted a population of 35,151,728, a change from its 2011 population of 33,476,688. The census, conducted by Statistics Canada, was Canada's seventh quinquennial census ...

, the municipality had a population of 13,190 and 8,842 dwellings, a population drop of 4.3% from 2011. The municipality accounts for 1.5% of the population of Nova Scotia.

Economy

Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting account for 32% of the economy. Other major sectors are construction, retail, accommodation, and food services. More than 80% by value of Nova Scotia's fishery is in Inverness. The main species are shellfish such as

lobster Lobsters are a family (biology), family (Nephropidae, Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae) of marine crustaceans. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on the sea floor. Three of their five pairs of legs ...

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

, and

scallop Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families ...

. Ranching and animal production is the main agricultural activity. In terms of employment by sector, it is: Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting 12%; retail 12%; health care 12%; manufacturing 10%; accommodation and food services 9%. Fifty-seven per cent of the municipality's expenses go towards public housing, more than double the provincial rural average. In 2020 the municipality received about $1.9 million in infrastructure funding from the government and local groups.

Infrastructure

In 1955 the

Canso Causeway The Canso Causeway (''Cabhsair Chanso'' in Gaelic) is a rock-fill causeway crossing the Strait of Canso, connecting Cape Breton Island by road to the Nova Scotia peninsula. Its crest thickness is , carrying the two vehicle traffic lanes of th ...

brought what would become the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway ( French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean o ...

(

Nova Scotia Highway 104 Highway 104 in Nova Scotia, Canada, runs from Fort Lawrence at the New Brunswick border near Amherst to River Tillard near St. Peter's. Except for the portion on Cape Breton Island between Port Hawkesbury and St. Peter's, it forms the main ...

and

Nova Scotia Highway 105 Highway 105 in Nova Scotia represents the Cape Breton Island leg of the Trans-Canada Highway. It runs from the Port Hastings Rotary just east of the Canso Causeway in Port Hastings to the Marine Atlantic ferry terminal in North Sydney, representi ...

) through the southern part of the municipality. Tracks of the

Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway The Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway is a short line railway that operated in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. CBNS operated () of main line and associated spurs between Truro in the central part of the province to Point Tuppe ...

cross the causeway, but it has not seen train traffic since 2015. Policing is provided by the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

Education

The

Université Sainte-Anne Université Sainte-Anne is a French-language university in Pointe-de-l'Église, Nova Scotia, Canada. It and the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick are the only French-language universities in the Maritime Provinces. History It was founde ...

in Pointe-de-l'Église, along with the

Université de Moncton The Université de Moncton is a Canadian francophone university in New Brunswick. It includes campuses in Edmundston, Moncton, and Shippagan. The university was founded in 1963 following the recommendations of the royal commission on higher ed ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

are the only

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

universities in

Atlantic Canada Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (french: provinces de l'Atlantique), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising the provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec. The four provinces are New Brunswick, Newfoundlan ...

References

{{Authority control Inverness County, Nova Scotia