![NS Ingonish1 tango7174](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/NS_Ingonish1_tango7174.jpg)
Ingonish is a popular tourist destination in
Victoria County,
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. The regional economy is tied to fishing and tourism. Tourist facilities include
Cape Breton Highlands National Park
Cape Breton Highlands National Park is a Canadian national park on northern Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.
The park was the first national park in the Atlantic provinces of Canada and covers an area of . It is one of 42 in Canada's system ...
, the
Keltic Lodge
Keltic Lodge is a premier resort hotel in the village of Ingonish, Nova Scotia in Canada, on the northeastern coast of Cape Breton Island.
Facilities
The Keltic Lodge is owned by Parks Canada and operated by GolfNorth, and has guest rooms and s ...
, a downhill skiing centre, and a public golf course, the
Highlands Links Cape Breton Highlands Links golf course is a public golf course located near the village of Ingonish, Nova Scotia, Ingonish Beach in Nova Scotia, Canada. Highlands Links is located in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, and is owned by Parks Canada ...
.
History
The name may be from the
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
or
Mi'kmaq
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 northe ...
languages.
French explorer
Nicolas Denys
Nicolas Denys (1598? – 1688) was a French-born merchant, governor, author, and settler in New France. He founded settlements at St. Pierre (now St. Peter's, Nova Scotia), Ste. Anne (Englishtown, Nova Scotia) and Nepisiquit (Bathurst, New Bru ...
visited the area in the 1600s, and he made note of the area's potential as a base of operations for French fishing fleets having good fishing though a harsh coastline and no safe harbour.
In 1854, local farmers plowing a field found 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 ...
chapel bell, upon which was inscribed:
An 1885 English translation reads:
The bell was described as being "nearly as large around as an ordinary flour barrel" and weighed 586 pounds. It was ultimately lost after being sold to a foundry owner in Halifax.
In another part of Ingonish, the remains of a second church were found. A small cannon of French origin, similar to those found at
Neil’s Harbour was also found.
According to an official report sent to the Board of Trade in 1749 by Captain Smith, commander of the guard ship at Canso, there were 48 schooners and 393
shallop
Shallop is a name used for several types of boats and small ships (French ''chaloupe'') used for coastal navigation from the seventeenth century. Originally smaller boats based on the chalupa, the watercraft named this ranged from small boats a l ...
s fishing the grounds off Ingonish. The community's population at that time was estimated to be approximately 300.
Mica
Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...
was mined prior to the late 1800s.
Climate
Ingonish has a
humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
(
Dfb DFB may refer to:
* Deerfield Beach, Florida, a city
* Decafluorobutane, a fluorocarbon gas
* Dem Franchize Boyz, former hip hop group, Atlanta, Georgia
* Dfb, Köppen climate classification for Humid continental climate
* Distributed-feedback ...
) with extremely high precipitation for this climate (annual average precipitation being 69 inches, about the highest anywhere in Canada outside coastal British Columbia). Furthermore, Ingonish experiences its wettest months from November to January, with over 7.3 inches of precipitation each month, much of it falling as snow, while June and July are the driest months, but still averaging over 3.5 inches of precipitation each. Winters are long, cold, snowy and exceptionally stormy. In December and January, snow can fall nearly every day due to sea-effect snow showers which blow in from the unfrozen Gulf of St. Lawrence. Primarily from October to April, Ingonish is also prone to intense
nor'easters
A nor'easter (also northeaster; see below), or an East Coast low is a synoptic-scale extratropical cyclone in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The name derives from the direction of the winds that blow from the northeast. The original use o ...
- mid-latitude cyclones that approach from the U.S. Northeastern and New England states, bringing high winds and heavy precipitation, especially snowfall. As winter progresses, the surrounding waters become covered in ice which delays the onset of spring. Summer arrives quickly though, usually in mid to late June. The cold spring gives way to a beautiful summer, with lots of warm, sunny days. In summer, the weather pattern shifts to a warm southwest flow, and lasts into the fall. These warm southwest winds blow down-slope from the Cape Breton Highlands, drying out and warming as it descends. Although the surrounding water freezes during winter, it warms very quickly through the summer, with sea surface temperatures peaking around 21 °C (70 °F) in August. The highest temperature ever recorded was on 10 August 2001.
The lowest temperature was on 18 January 1982.
Weather data has been recorded at Parks Canada in Ingonish Beach since 1950. In 2000, Environment Canada upgraded the climate station to an automated weather station.
References
External links
Ingonish tourist information
{{Authority control
Communities in Victoria County, Nova Scotia