Port Hawkesbury

Port Hawkesbury (2001 population 3,701) is a town located on the southwestern end of Cape Breton Island, on the north shore of the Strait of Canso, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The town, which was originally named Ship Harbour, is the business and industrial centre for the lower part of Cape Breton. Major employers include a large pulp and paper mill owned by the Swedish company Stora Enso, a call centre owned by EDS Canada, and a large coal fired power generating plant. Sad relics of failed industrial policies past include a mothballed oil refinery built by Gulf Oil in the early 1970s and a disused heavy water plant built by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL).

Modestly famous persons coming from Port Hawkesbury include Cora Cluett, a widely shown painter and photographer (now teaching at the University of Waterloo in Ontario), Glenn Peers, an authority on medieval art and iconography (teaching at the University of Texas at Austin), Aaron Johnson an NHL draft pick now playing with the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets, Mark Day a Canadian Film and Television actor now living in Toronto, Well known Politician also Mayor Billy Joe MacLean and Ian MacKinnon, a musician and occasional political candidate.