- This article refers to the place in Nova Scotia. For other meanings, see Sydney (disambiguation), or Sidney.
Sydney is a community in Nova Scotia, Canada, and is located on its namesake harbour. With roughly 26,000 citizens, it forms the nucleus of the largest population centre on Cape Breton Island, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, with which it has been amalgamated since 1995.
Sydney suffered an economic decline for several decades in the later part of the 20th century as the local coal and steel industries underwent significant changes. The closure of the Sydney Steel Corporation's steel mill and the Cape Breton Development Corporation's coal mines in 2000-2001 have resulted in attempts by the municipal, provincial and federal governments to diversify the area economy.
At the start of the 21st century, Sydney faces a significant challenge in the cleanup of the Sydney Tar Ponds, a tidal estuary contaminated with a variety of coal-based wastes from coke ovens that supplied the steel industry. After extensive public consultation and technical study, a CDN$400-million cleanup plan jointly funded by the federal and provincial governments awaits further environmental assessment.
Sydney is home to a significant tourism industry based on cruise ships as a result of its extensive port facilities. The port also holds potential as a logistics base for future offshore petroleum and natural gas exploration in the Laurentian Basin, southeast of Sydney; an area that has been touted as a potential economic catalyst for the industrial Cape Breton area. Light manufacturing and information technology are other sectors which governments are attempting to strengthen in the local economy.
Cape Breton University is located immediately east of Sydney on the main highway to Glace Bay and the Nova Scotia Community College maintains the Marconi Campus adjacent to the university campus. It is also home to the QMJHL's Cape Breton Screaming Eagles.
People born in Sydney include:
- David Dingwall, former cabinet minister
- Danny Gallivan, Hockey Night in Canada sportscaster
- Calvin Ruck, activist and senator
- Harold Russell, actor
- Nathan Cohen, theatre critic, broadcaster
History
Sydney was founded by Col. Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres in 1785, and named in honour of Lord Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney (also the Home Secretary in the British cabinet at the time). Lord Townshend appointed Col. DesBarres to be the governor of the new colony on Cape Breton Island. Col. DesBarres landed a group that consisted primarily of poor English citizens and disbanded soldiers. A group of Loyalists from the state of New York, fleeing the aftermath of the American Revolution, were added to the immigrants upon their arrival in Nova Scotia.
The site DesBarres chose for the new settlement was along the Southwest Arm of Sydney Harbour, which forms part of Spanish Bay. Between 1784-1820, Sydney was the capital of the British colony of Cape Breton Island.
During World War Two, Sydney was a very important port, being one of the two Canadian harbours from which convoys left North America for Britain. They tended to be slower convoys and had the prefix SC (for Sydney). For particulars about one convoy, SC 7, see the section in the article, HMS Scarborough. Also there were plans drawn up in case of a loss of the British Isles that the majority of the North Atlantic fleet would fall back to Sydney harbour.
Sydney's coal shipping and steel manufacturing were essential ingredients in the Allied victory.