Sydney, Nova Scotia
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- This is about the city of Sydney in Nova Scotia. For other meanings, see Sydney (disambiguation), or Sidney.
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Sydney is a former city in Nova Scotia, Canada 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 has been undergoing an economic decline for several decades as the local coal and steel industry underwent significant changes. With the closure of the Sydney Steel Corporation (or SYSCO) in the late 1990s and the nearby Cape Breton Development Corporation (or DEVCO) coal mines in 2001, governments have been attempting to diversify the local economy.
Today, Sydney is facing 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 Government of Canada and Nova Scotia, awaits further environmental assessment.
Sydney is home to a growing tourism industry based on cruise ships to its extensive port facilities. The port also holds potential in any 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.
The University College of Cape Breton (UCCB) is located immediately south of Sydney on the main highway to Glace Bay.
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.