Port Hastings is a unincorporated settlement 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. ...

, within the

Municipality of the County of Inverness The Municipality of the County of Inverness is a county municipality on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. It provides local government to about 17,000 residents of the historical county of the same name, except for the incorporated town ...

, Canada. The population in 2021 was 90. The community is located at the eastern end of 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 ...

. It is named after

Charles Hastings Doyle Sir Charles Hastings Doyle (10 April 1803 – 19 March 1883) was a British military officer and he was the second Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia post Confederation and the first Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick. Military career Bo ...

History

The community was previously known as Plaster Cove. 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 ...

was built from coal mines in

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 ...

to a loading dock at Point Tupper in 1901.Welcome to Inverness, Nova Scotia
/ref> The construction of the Canso Causeway which opened in 1955 saw the community become a

railway junction A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes (assuming they are of the same gauge), provided by ''points'' ( ...

after the

Truro Truro (; kw, Truru) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

mainline of

Canadian National Railways The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...

(CNR) was diverted from the railcar ferry terminals at Mulgrave and Point Tupper. The CNR line to Inverness was eventually abandoned in the 1980s, although the Truro-Sydney mainline continues to operate under 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 ...

. The construction of the Canso Causeway also 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 ...

(

Highway 104 Route 104, or Highway 104, may refer to: Brazil * BR-104 Canada * New Brunswick Route 104 * Nova Scotia Highway 104 (Trans-Canada Highway) * Prince Edward Island Route 104 * Quebec Route 104 China * China National Highway 104 Costa Rica * ...

and Highway 105) through the community. A

traffic circle A roundabout is a type of circular intersection (road), intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The N ...

named the Port Hastings Rotary creates an important interchange between

, Highway 105, Trunk 19 and Trunk 4 several hundred metres east of the

Canso Canal Bridge The Canso Canal Bridge is a rotating swing bridge in Nova Scotia, Canada. It crosses the Canso Canal at the eastern end of the Canso Causeway, connecting the Nova Scotia peninsula to Cape Breton Island. The bridge carries the 2 traffic lanes of ...

. The growth of automobile-focused tourism following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

saw several motels and gas stations and a tourist information centre located at the traffic circle. The community is home to the Strait Area Museum, which documents local history, including that of the Canso Causeway.

Climate

Similar to most of Nova Scotia, Port Hastings 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 ...

with some maritime influences, including high snowfall in winter and relatively narrow temperature fluctuations by Canadian standards.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Port Hastings had a population of 90 living in 45 of its 50 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 89. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Notable Persons

Linden MacIntyre Linden Joseph MacIntyre (born May 29, 1943) is a Canadian journalist, broadcaster and novelist. He has won ten Gemini Awards, an International Emmy and numerous other awards for writing and journalistic excellence, including the 2009 Scotiabank ...

, journalist and novelist, grew up in Port Hastings. *

Angus Walker Angus Reynolds Walker (born August 27, 1939) is a Canadian bluegrass and country musician from Port Hastings, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He has been called "Canada's Prime Minister of Country Music" and "The Cape Breton Rebel". Walker has appeare ...

, country musician, known as "Canada's Prime Minister of Country Music".

References

{{wikivoyage, Port Hastings Communities in Inverness County, Nova Scotia Designated places in Nova Scotia General Service Areas in Nova Scotia