This section describes maps that I have found useful; they are listed alphabetically. If you are aware of other maps not listed here that you think should be, please so notify me using the address at the left.
This superb bilingual Parks Canada brochure is given to each visitor to the Cape Breton Highlands National Park upon payment of the park entry fee. It unfolds into a surprisingly detailed map of the northern portion of Cape Breton Island, including all of the territory belonging to the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. It shows the locations of and tersely describes all of the maintained hiking trails and camp grounds within the park boundaries; symbols indicate the look-offs and interpretive exhibits that are scattered throughout the park. I have found it extremely useful and highly recommend it.
This paper map is produced by Destination Cape Breton (the Cape Breton tourism industry association whose very useful web site is here); it is on sale for $2 at the gift shop adjacent to the Visitors’ Centre in Port Hastings just beyond the bridge over the Canso Causeway Canal (it may well be on sale in other locations, though I have never seen it elsewhere). One side is mostly given over to advertisements, but the other side has a very finely detailed map with a place name index and two very useful tables, one giving distances and one giving driving times, between 31 selected Cape Breton localities, making it an excellent tool for planning vacation drives. The level of detail, both of back roads and streams, is excellent. Unfortunately, I find its print far too small for my aging eyes, but, fortunately, it is also available on-line (and for free!) as a PDF file on this Destination Cape Breton web site; this file can be scaled up to make it easily readable even by my eyes or to focus in on a specific area. This is without any question the single most useful map of Cape Breton of which I am aware.
It does contain a few anomalies in place names, e.g., Ragged Point and Emerson Point on St. Georges Bay and Bridgend Brook near Whycocomagh are respectively designated as MacNeil Point, Big Rorys Point, and Indian River on the Natural Resources Canada topographic maps. On the other hand, it is one of the few road maps to get the location of Route 19 in the Port Hood area correct (the provincial road map does not and many other maps are based on the incorrect provincial road map).
Google Earth is an application program which runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows; it presents maps derived from satellite photographs on your computer in real-time using information stored in Google’s data bases. By selecting various features, you can show roads, boundaries, hospitals, etc., on the map. Amazingly, you can zoom in on a spot until you are hovering above it, as if in an airplane looking down; most amazingly, you can tilt the view to obtain a three-dimensional view of the terrain. Alas, the resolution of much of Cape Breton Island is not at the same level of detail as, say, New Jersey, where it is so good that I can make out the rhododendron bush by the garage of my house and the car parked in front of the garage (though, for some bizarre reason, it associates my address with a house further down the street), but it is sufficient for one to make out geographic features, follow roads, and gauge the terrain. It is a very good way to explore Cape Breton “virtually” from your desktop. Moreover, numerous photographs become available at a sufficiently detailed level of exploration, making the program even more valuable. Hopefully, at some point the satellite photography of Cape Breton will become as good as that in New Jersey.
Nova Scotia’s Official Tourism Website provides a Google Earth .kml file that adds a Nova Scotia layer to Google Earth which displays features of interest to Nova Scotia tourists. Some of those features are on Cape Breton Island. Once you have downloaded the .kml file, double click on it to install it into Google Earth and you will have access to its information, which includes videos.
If you are on broadband, your experience of Google Earth will be much better than if you are on dial-up; however, you can still very profitably use the program on dial-up but you need some patience.
This paper map, currently in its second edition, is produced by the Cape Mabou Trail Club. It is the sine qua non of any hiker using the superb Cape Mabou Trail Club system in the Cape Mabou Highlands. The map, which arrives as a folded flier, unfolds into a sheet 63.5 × 39.3 cm (25 × 15.5 in); the front side contains a wealth of information in its twelve panes—useful information about the trail system and hiking the Cape Mabou area, a map showing how to get to the three trail heads, and detailed descriptions of the individual trails with difficulty ratings; the entire back side is given over to a large scale map of the trail system. The map shows the fifteen trails in the trail system at the time it was published; three new trails have been added since then, but two of those three are shown as proposed trails on the map (and the third is quite short), so the second edition of the map remains very serviceable. It is available at a nominal charge ($5 as of January, 2007) either in local stores or by writing to the CMTC directly (enclosing a stamped self-addressed envelope) at:
Cape Mabou Trail Club
Inverness, NS B0E 1N0
Natural Resources Canada publishes[2] topographic maps that cover Cape Breton on a scale of 1 : 50 000. The grid that Natural Resources Canada has chosen unfortunately results in dividing Cape Breton into rather awkward sections, with several consisting mostly of water and others broken at inconvenient points. They measure 94 × 66 cm (37 × 26 in) and are available unfolded in heavy cardboard cylinders at various outlets on Cape Breton Island, including the book store in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park Visitors’ Centre outside Chéticamp. Details and specifications for these topographic maps can be found at this Natural Resources Canada web site. The maps can be ordered on-line in either paper or tyvek versions at this Nova Scotia Government web site for $11.45 each; shipping and handling fees are added to the order.
For complete coverage of Cape Breton Island, one needs the following twenty-five maps:
I do not yet have a complete set, but am working on it.
These maps provide the greatest amount of detail of any maps I know of. Their large format, however, makes them somewhat inconvenient to handle, unless they are folded into something manageable in the wind. For the casual tourist, these maps are clearly overkill, but they are the sine qua non for the backcountry hiker and very useful to anyone considering purchasing real estate.
The Nova Scotia Atlas, sixth edition, prepared by Service Nova Scotia’s Nova Scotia Geomatic Centre, co-published by the Formac Publishing Company Limited and the Province of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2006, spiral bound paperback, 90 map plates. Includes gazetteer and listing of national and provincial parks. ISBN 10: 0-88780-707-0, ISBN 13: 978-0-88780-707-7.
As its name indicates, this set of maps covers the entire province of Nova Scotia, with twenty-five plates (out of ninety plates) providing full coverage of Cape Breton Island. Its scale of 1 : 150 000 and its format makes it basically a reduced-scale version of the Natural Resources Canada topographic maps (which are published on the scale 1 : 50 000), with each plate having the same name and covering the same area as the corresponding topographic map. As a convenience, a small amount of the adjacent area is provided beyond the edges of each plate to help the user transition between plates (the grid Natural Resources Canada uses results in dividing Cape Breton into rather awkward sections, with several consisting mostly of water and others broken at inconvenient points). This work provides the greatest amount of detail of any maps I know of other than the aforementioned topographic maps themselves. Moreover, its spiral binding makes it far more convenient to deal with than the topographic maps—it is even practical to use in the car—and it comes with a complete place name index that covers geographical features as well as localities. After substantial usage, I have discovered no anomalies in the information it provides,[3] though I have encountered occasional local usages at variance with those given in the atlas. This work is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Cape Breton areas off the beaten track or a need for the level of detail it provides.
I got my copy for $29.95 at the book store in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park Visitors’ Centre outside Chéticamp, but I have also seen it in book stores throughout the province. It can also be purchased on-line from this Nova Scotia Government web page.
Nova Scotia Backroad Mapbook Outdoor Recreation Guide by Linda Aksomitis, Backroad Mapbooks, 5811 Beresfort Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, 2006, spiral bound paperback, 176 pages. Includes 52 map plates and four pages of inset maps. ISBN 1-894556-83-6.
This book covers the entire province of Nova Scotia and includes information about backroads attractions, fishing, paddling routes, parks, trails, wildlife viewing, and winter recreation. (It lost points with me because its trails section omits any mention of the fine Cape Mabou Highlands trail system, but it otherwise seems to include most of the major Cape Breton trails.) It contains a set of fifty-two map plates, of which fourteen provide full coverage of Cape Breton, based on a much more convenient grid scheme for Cape Breton than that used by Natural Resources Canada. The maps lack any topographic markings for altitude, but otherwise the level of detail in the maps is impressive and seems to be independent of the Natural Resources Canada maps. Its spiral binding and 21.75 × 28 cm (8.5 × 11 in) format make it very convenient to deal with and very practical for car use. It has an adequate place name index and city maps (including Sydney in Cape Breton). The names given to some roads sometimes differ from those in local use, but back roads are very definitely quite prominent in its coverage. This atlas is a very useful complement to other sources of information and often provides information not available elsewhere.
I got my copy for $20.95 at the book store in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park Visitors’ Centre outside Chéticamp, but I have also seen it in book stores throughout the province.
A high-quality computer-readable map of Nova Scotia, of which Cape Breton Island is a part, is available for free as a PDF file on this Nova Scotia Government web site. This file can be scaled up to make it easily readable or to focus in on a specific area. This map is quite good but it leaves many geographical features unnamed and lacks the index and tables on the Cape Breton Travel Map described above.
This provincial map has its own anomalies, e.g., it shows Route 19 passing too far inland at Port Hood and it misspells Belle-Côte as “Bell Cote”.
The Rand McNally Cape Breton Island Regional Map, published in 2000, which I purchased in a Sydney bookstore a few years ago for $3.95, is a typical folding paper map intended for car use. It has a considerable amount of detail, showing back roads and some geographic features. Symbols locate museums, lighthouses, historic sites, beaches, whale watching, and other such features of interest to tourists. It has a place names index and a driving distance chart (though the latter includes only one Cape Breton Island location, North Sydney, rendering it of marginal value to the Cape Breton tourist). The reverse side of the map has street maps of Glace Bay, Sydney Mines/North Sydney, Baddeck, Louisbourg, Port Hawkesbury, Sydney, and New Waterford, including a street index for Sydney and area.
This map has a few anomalies, showing Route 19 passing too far inland at Port Hood and naming as Bridgend Brook near Whycocomagh what the Natural Resources Canada topographic map designates as Indian River. Nevertheless, it is now so tattered and torn from very frequent use that it needs to be replaced, so I have certainly found it very helpful.
This paper map is available for free from any Nova Scotia Visitors’ Centre; in previous years, it was called the Scenic Travelways Map, but the 2008 edition was renamed as Tourism Regions Map. Updated annually, it usually accompanies the provincial Does and Dreamers Guide—both can be ordered without cost from this tourism web site. Like the Cape Breton Travel Map described above, it provides a localities index and time/distance driving charts (though for the whole province rather than just for Cape Breton Island, which means that space considerations cause it to list only six Cape Breton Island destinations) and detailed inset maps of certain municipal areas (Sydney, North Sydney, Glace Bay, Louisbourg, and Baddeck on Cape Breton Island). Its reverse side provides information about the Cèilidh, Cabot, Marconi, and Fleur-de-Lis Trails and the Bras d’Or Scenic Drive. Given that its scope is of the entire province, not just Cape Breton, it does a decent job and is a useful map to carry in the car.
This provincial map also shows Route 19 passing too far inland at Port Hood though, unlike the Nova Scotia Government Map described above, it spells Belle-Côte correctly, though without a hyphen.[4]
[1] I am indebted to Kimberley Wotherspoon for the reference to this map in a posting on 2007 July 24 to the Cape Breton Music Mailing List (available by going to this web page and clicking on “cbmusic list” in its left column).↩
[2] According to this story dated 2006 October 11, “Natural Resources Canada plans to get out of the business of printing paper topographical maps. […] Rather than print the maps, the government will make the digital information available for people to download and print themselves […]. […] The government plans to stop printing the maps at the end of 2006.” I do not know whether this change in policy was actually put into effect. However, the paper maps were still readily available in 2007 and, as of the end of 2007 were still for sale at the Nova Scotia Government web site given above.↩
[3] The St. Anns Harbour topographic map (11K07), in its lower right corner, labels the waters east of River Bennett as “ST ANNS BAY (GULF OF ST LAWRENCE) (GOLFE DU SAINT-LAURENT)", though The Nova Scotia Atlas does not, using only “St Anns Bay” on its plate (p. 9). Similarly, the Ingonish topographic map (11K09) and The Nova Scotia Atlas on its Ingonish plate (p. 7) both identify the waters off Cape Smokey as belonging to the “Gulf of St Lawrence”. Initially, I thought these labels to be in error, but, after some research, have concluded that they might technically be legitimate. The definition of “Gulf of St. Lawrence” is not terribly precise, but all authorities I consulted consider it to include the Cabot Strait, which runs between Cape Breton and Newfoundland. I had heretofore believed that the Cabot Strait did not descend much to the south of Cape North, as shown on most of the world atlases I have, but it appears that, at least in some sources, it also includes the waters considerably further south and east. There is unanimity that the waters off Wreck Point to the east of Glace Bay belong to the Atlantic Ocean, but where the boundary between the Cabot Strait and the Atlantic Ocean is remains completely unclear after consulting a number of sources. Both the Bras d’Or topographic map (11K08) and the Bras d’Or plate (p. 10) in The Nova Scotia Atlas label the waters north of Boularderie Island as the Atlantic Ocean, as I had always thought. But the labelling of St. Anns Bay and the waters off Cape Smokey as the Gulf of St. Lawrence indicates that official Canadian usage must consider the Cabot Strait to run from somewhere east of Cape North southwest to Cape Dauphin and includes the waters to the west of the Bird Islands, which is not at all what I had believed.↩
[4] For compound place names formed as Belle-Côte (Beautiful Coast) is, standard French usage is to hyphenate the component words. In English text, this usage seems to be followed sometimes (e.g., Grand-Étang (Big Pond) and Belle-Marche (Beautiful Walk) usually have the hyphen) and ignored other times (e.g., Petit-Étang (Little Pond), Terre-Noire (Black Land), and Belle-Côte are more frequently found without the hyphen than with). I follow the standard French usage for all such names.↩