Cape Chignecto

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Cape Chignecto is a headland located on the Bay of Fundy coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

Both headland and bay are two coastal features that are related and often found on the same coastline. A bay is a body of water—usually seawater and sometimes fresh water— mostly surrounded by land, whereas a headland is surrounded by water on three sides. Headlands are characterized by breaking waves, rocky shores, intense erosion and steep sea cliffs. Bays generally have less wave activity and typically have sandy beaches. Headlands and bays form on discordant coastlines, where the land consists of bands of rock of alternating resistance that run perpendicular to the coast.

Bay of Fundy A bay on the east coast of North America between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

The Bay of Fundy is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the US state of Maine. It has an extremely high tidal range.

Canada Country in North America

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Canada's southern border with the United States is the world's longest bi-national land border. Its capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land area being dominated by forest and tundra. Consequently, its population is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, many near the southern border. Canada's climate varies widely across its vast area, ranging from arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons.

Cape Chignecto is located at the westernmost tip of Cumberland County and is the western limit of the Cobequid Hills, a low mountain range that is part of the Appalachian Mountains and extends across the northern part of the Nova Scotia peninsula.

Cumberland County, Nova Scotia County in Nova Scotia, Canada

Cumberland County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

Appalachian Mountains mountain range in the eastern United States and Canada

The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before experiencing natural erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east–west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines and valleys oriented in opposition to most highways and railroads running east–west.

The Nova Scotia peninsula is a peninsula on the Atlantic coast of North America.

Cape Chignecto viewed from the southeast at the Cape Chignecto Provincial Park trailhead Capechignectoprovpark.jpg
Cape Chignecto viewed from the southeast at the Cape Chignecto Provincial Park trailhead

The cape bifurcates the Bay of Fundy into Chignecto Bay to the north and the Minas Channel, leading to the Minas Basin to the east. Since 1998 the cape has been located within Cape Chignecto Provincial Park, the largest provincial park in the province and a renowned wilderness reserve. The cape features a rugged topography with reportedly the highest cliffs on the Nova Scotia peninsula, created by the upthrusting Cobequid fault.

Chignecto Bay bay

Chignecto Bay is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy located between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and separated from the waters of the Northumberland Strait by the Isthmus of Chignecto. It is a unit within the greater Gulf of Maine Watershed. Chignecto Bay forms the northeastern part of the Bay of Fundy which splits at Cape Chignecto and is delineated on the New Brunswick side by Martin Head. Chignecto bay was also the site of an unsuccessful railway and canal project of the 1880s and 1890s that would have intersected the landmass, thereby providing a transit passage between New England and Prince Edward Island. After several investigations into the feasibility of a new canal project, including most importantly by the Chignecto Canal Commission, the proposed Chignecto Canal was deemed commercially and economically unjustifiable and the project was abandoned. Some of the physical remnants of the 1880s project still continue to dot the landscape of Chignecto Bay today.

Minas Basin

The Minas Basin is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy and a sub-basin of the Fundy Basin located in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known for its extremely high tides.

Cape Chignecto Provincial Park Canadian provincial park located in Nova Scotia

Cape Chignecto Provincial Park is a Canadian provincial park located in Nova Scotia. A wilderness park, it derives its name from Cape Chignecto, a prominent headland which divides the Bay of Fundy with Chignecto Bay to the north and the Minas Channel leading to the Minas Basin to the east. The park, which opened in 1998, is the largest provincial park in Nova Scotia.

The cape is mostly uninhabited. It includes the ghost towns of Eatonville and New Yarmouth. The nearest inhabited village is Advocate, Nova Scotia.

Eatonville, Nova Scotia Ghost town in Nova Scotia, Canada

Eatonville is a former lumber and shipbuilding village in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. It includes a large tidal harbour at the mouth of the Eatonville Brook beside several dramatic sea stacks known as the "Three Sisters". It was founded in 1826 and abandoned in the 1940s. The site of the village is now part of Cape Chignecto Provincial Park.

The name "Chignecto" derives from the Mi'kmaw name Siknikt, meaning "drainage place", the name of the Mi'kmaq District in which the cape is located.

Coordinates: 45°20′00″N64°56′57″W / 45.33333°N 64.94917°W / 45.33333; -64.94917

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.


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Isle Haute

Isle Haute is an island in the upper regions of Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, near the entrance to the Minas Basin. It is 16 kilometers from the coast of Harbourville and eight kilometers south-southwest of Cape Chignecto. The island is part of Cumberland County, Nova Scotia and is three kilometres long and 400 metres wide. The Mi'kmaq used the island to make stone tools before Europeans arrived and called the island "Maskusetik", meaning place of wild potatoes.. In 1604, Samuel de Champlain gave the present name to the island, which means "High Island" in French, when he observed the towering bluffs, timber and fresh-water springs. The steep 100 m (328 ft) basalt cliffs of the island are the result from volcanic eruptions in the Jurassic period and may have been connected to the North Mountain volcanic ridge on the mainland 200 million years ago, before the Bay of Fundy was formed.

New Yarmouth community in Nova Scotia, Canada

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Cobequid fault

The Cobequid Fault is a fault that is the extension of the Chedabucto Fault. This fault runs from Truro to Cape Chignecto south of the Cobequid Hills. Both the Cobequid fault and the Chedabucto Fault form the Minas Fault zone splitting Nova Scotia into the Avalon Zone and the Meguma Zone. Movement on the Cobequid Fault started before 400 million years ago and end around 40 million years ago. Between that time around 350 million years violent volcanic eruptions at Spicers Cove north Cape Chignecto Provincial Park and 50 million years after grey sandstone rich in fossil plants were deposited. At Five Islands Provincial Park there are red rocks formed by the large accumulation of mud, sand and gravel around 210 million years ago.