Cabot Strait (ˈkæbət; , kabo) is a
straitA strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...
in eastern
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
approximately 110 kilometres wide between
Cape RayCape Ray is a headland located at the southwestern extremity of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador....
,
Newfoundland and
Cape NorthCape North is a headland located at the northeastern extremity of Cape Breton Island in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.Cape North delineates the westernmost boundary of the Cabot Strait, and hence also forms the boundary for the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is located opposite Cape Ray on the...
,
Cape Breton IslandCape Breton Island is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America. It likely corresponds to the word Breton, the French demonym for Brittany....
. It is the widest of the three outlets for the
Gulf of Saint LawrenceThe Gulf of Saint Lawrence , the world's largest estuary, is the outlet of North America's Great Lakes via the Saint Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean...
into the
Atlantic OceanThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
, the others being the
Strait of Belle Isle and
Strait of CansoThe Strait of Canso , is a strait located in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It divides the Nova Scotia peninsula from Cape Breton Island....
. It is named for the
GenoeseGenoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
explorer Giovanni Caboto.
The strait's bathymetry is varied, with the
Laurentian ChannelThe Laurentian Channel is a submarine valley in eastern Canada.The channel is of glacial origin and is the submerged valley of the historic St. Lawrence River, running 1400 km from a sharp escarpment downstream from the confluence of the St. Lawrence with the Saguenay River, past Anticosti Island...
creating a deep trench through its centre, and comparatively shallow coastal waters closer to Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. These bathymetric conditions have been known by mariners to cause rogue waves. The steep slope of the Laurentian Channel was the site of a disastrous submarine landslide at the southeastern end of the strait, triggered by the
1929 Grand Banks earthquakeThe 1929 Grand Banks earthquake, also called the Laurentian Slope earthquake and the South Shore Disaster, was a magnitude 7.2 earthquake that occurred on November 18, 1929 in the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Laurentian Slope Seismic Zone.The earthquake was centred on...
and leading to a
tsunamiA tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
that devastated communities along Newfoundland's south coast and parts of Cape Breton Island.
A strategically important waterway throughout Canadian and Newfoundland history, the strait is also an important international shipping route, being the primary waterway linking the Atlantic with inland ports on the
Great LakesThe Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
and St. Lawrence Seaway.
The strait is crossed daily by the
Marine AtlanticMarine Atlantic Inc. is an independent Canadian Crown corporation offering ferry services between the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.Marine Atlantic's corporate headquarters are in St...
ferryA ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
service linking
Channel-Port aux BasquesChannel-Port aux Basques is a town at the extreme southwestern tip of the island of Newfoundland fronting on the eastern end of the Cabot Strait. A Marine Atlantic ferry terminal is located in the town which is the primary entry point onto the island of Newfoundland and the western terminus of...
, and
North SydneyNorth Sydney is a community in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality.Located on the north side of Sydney Harbour, along the eastern coast of Cape Breton Island, North Sydney is an important port in Atlantic Canada as it is the western terminus of the Marine Atlantic ferry service...
.
FerriesA ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
have been operating across the strait since 1898 and a submarine
telegraphTelegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...
cable was laid in 1856 as part of the
transatlantic telegraph cableThe transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable used for telegraph communications laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. It crossed from , Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable connected North America...
project.
An infamous location in the strait for
shipwreckA shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
s during the
age of sailThe Age of Sail was the period in which international trade and naval warfare were dominated by sailing ships, lasting from the 16th to the mid 19th century...
,
St. Paul's IslandSt. Paul Island is a small uninhabited island located approximately northeast of Cape North on Cape Breton Island and southwest of Cape Ray on Newfoundland; it is along the boundary between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Cabot Strait....
, came to be referred to as the
"Graveyard of the Gulf" (of St. Lawrence).
In October 1942, German U-boat
U-69 torpedoed and sank the unlit Newfoundland ferry , killing 137 people. Then on 25 November 1944 the (K136) was torpedoed and sunk with all hands on board by
U-1228.