Christmas Island,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

() is a Canadian community of the

Cape Breton Regional Municipality Cape Breton Regional Municipality (often referred to as simply "CBRM") is the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia's second largest municipality and the economic heart of Cape Breton Island. As of 2021 the municipa ...

Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island (, formerly '; or '; ) is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18.7% of Nova Scotia's total area. Although ...

. It has a post office, a firehall and a very small population. It has a beach with access to the

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 ...

. A small island just off shore, also named Christmas Island, encloses Christmas Island Pond, a pond that runs into the lake.

History

The original inhabitants of the land, the

Miꞌkmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Mi'kmaw'' or ''Mi'gmaw''; ; , and formerly Micmac) are an Indigenous group of people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Bru ...

people, called the area ''Abadakwichéch'', which means "the small reserved portion." Christmas Island received its present name from a Mi'kmaw leader, said to have been a chief named "Noel", which translates from the French as "Christmas", who died and was buried on the island opposite the beach. The first European settlers in the area arrived in 1802–1804. Angus McNeil, a native of

Barra Barra (; or ; ) is an island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, and the second southernmost inhabited island there, after the adjacent island of Vatersay to which it is connected by the Vatersay Causeway. In 2011, the population was 1,174. ...

, in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

’s

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an Archipelago, island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islan ...

was one of the first. He was soon followed by other MacNeils from Scotland, attracted by reports of the good agricultural farmland that was available, as well as the nearby fish stocks in the Bras d’Or Lake. By June, 1812, Donald, James, Alexander, Roderick, and John MacNeil were living at Goose Pond, and Hector and John MacDougall, and Donald McNeil were at Christmas Island. Other early settlers were John McKenzie, Hugh Gillis, and Archibald McDougall. John McDonald came from

South Uist South Uist (, ; ) is the second-largest island of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. At the 2011 census, it had a usually resident population of 1,754: a decrease of 64 since 2001. The island, in common with the rest of the Hebrides, is one of the ...

in 1822 and settled at Rear Christmas Island. A log

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

Chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...

was under construction by 1814, and completed in 1815. A new church was built in 1823–1824. The new St. Barra Roman Catholic church was consecrated on 22 July 1883, and a

League of the Cross The League of the Cross was a Roman Catholic total abstinence confraternity, founded in London in 1873 by Cardinal Manning. Its aim was to unite Catholics, both clergy and laity, in the warfare against intemperance; and thus to improve religious ...

Hall was completed in October 1908. In 2015 the Bishop of Antigonish ordered the church closed because of a declining congregation. However, a few parishioners continue to hold services in the church. The

Diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

considers them to be trespassers. The parishioners maintain that a nineteenth-century deed names the church's trustees as its rightful owner. A

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

house was in place in Christmas Island by 1875, and in 1918–1919 a new school building was completed. The

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

was moved from a neighbouring community to Christmas Island for January 1856.

Postmark

The post office of Christmas Island gets thousands of postcards and packages a day—up to a thousand on the busiest days—during the peak holiday timeframe. These come from around the world during Christmastime so they can be sent on to their destinations with the unique Christmas Island postmark. Greeting cards and packages come from as far as Hong Kong, Seoul, Paris, Mexico City, Sydney, Tahiti and various points across Canada and the United States from collectors and holiday enthusiasts to be franked with the official postmark of Christmas Island. Each year the post office mails out from 12,000 to 14,000 Christmas cards hand-stamped with the special postmark. The postmark dates back to 1994 when MacKinnon's predecessor, Margaret Rose MacNeil, asked Canada Post to create a postmark named after Christmas Island. Canada Post agreed to the request, creating a postmark with a simple motif with three conifers. It was one of the first pictorial postmarks that Canada Post created.

"Last Christmas and the Christmas before, we had 17,000 Christmas cards," Postmaster Margaret Rose McNeil told (CBC's) King, who noted the rural outlet typically served "a few hundred people."

The current postmark is more ornate, including a wreath laden with decorations and a bow. To have Christmas Cards or packages stamped with the Christmas Island postmark, address and place the correct postage on the actual greeting card envelope, insert the card or cards into a large envelope and send it to Christmas Island Post Office, 8499 Grand Narrows Highway, Christmas Island, N.S., B1T 1A0.

Gaelic

The Christmas Island fire hall holds the '' Fèis An Eilein'' every summer, a

Gaelic Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to: Languages * Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...

festival featuring Gaelic music, dancing and culture. It is held in August and includes such things as a milling frolic, square dance, bonfire, bag-piping, step dance, fiddle and piano lessons. As well there is instruction in Gaelic language, folklore and music.

is still spoken by a few elderly residents, as many

Highland Scots The Highlands (; , ) is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowla ...

emigrated to Christmas Island during the

Highland Clearances The Highland Clearances ( , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulted from Scottish Agricultural R ...

References

{{coord, 45, 58, 20.32, N, 60, 44, 54.00, W, region:CA-NS_type:city, display=title Communities in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality Unincorporated communities in Nova Scotia