Cape Sable Island webcam

Check out the new webcam on the block -- showing the Cape Sable Island causeway. The name's a bit misleading, since the webcam is located in Barrington Passage, on Nova Scotia's mainland, but view is of the causeway and the island itself.

Speaking of misleading names, there's a certain tendency on the part of people not familiar with Nova Scotia's geography to confuse Cape Sable Island with Sable Island, that magical, drifting crescent of sand famous for wild ponies and breeding seals. It's understandable that the

names are so similar, since the word sable is French for "sand" and both island are notable for their dunes and beaches. To add another layer of confusion, just to the south of Cape Sable Island is another island known simply as Cape Sable, where a lighthouse warns mariners off the constantly shifting undersea sandbars.

Cape Sable Island is connected to the mainland of Nova Scotia by a causeway that's roughly three-quarters of a mile long, built of stone from a nearby quarry. The causeway was completed in 1949 and replaced a coastal ferry service that linked North East Point, on the island, with the mainland

community of Barrington Passage. The ferry had run, in one form or another, since the closing years of the 17th Century. Interestingly, one of the later ferry boats employed on the run, the Edgar N. Rhodes ended out its days plying Bonne Bay, Newfoundland, between the ports of Woody Point and Norris Point; this was the principal route to the Great Northern Peninsula prior to the construction of a road along the north side of Bonne Bay.