Isle Madame is an island off southeastern

Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island (, formerly '; or '; ) is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18.7% of Nova Scotia's total area. Although ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

. It is part of the

Municipality of the County of Richmond The Municipality of the County of Richmond is a county municipality on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. It provides local government to the eponymous historical county, except for the Chapel Island 5 reserve. The municipality also cont ...

. Once part of the French colony of

Île-Royale The Salvation Islands ( French: ''Îles du Salut'', so called because the missionaries went there to escape plague on the mainland), sometimes mistakenly called the Safety Islands, are a group of small islands of volcanic origin about off the co ...

, it may have been named for

Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon Françoise d'Aubigné (27 November 1635 – 15 April 1719), known first as Madame Scarron and subsequently as Madame de Maintenon (), was a French nobility, French noblewoman and the second wife of Louis XIV, Louis XIV of France from 1683 until ...

. After the fall of

Louisbourg Louisbourg is an unincorporated community and former town in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia. History The harbour had been used by European mariners since at least the 1590s, when it was known as English Port and Havre à l'An ...

in 1758, 4,000 inhabitants were deported. However, a group of 10 Acadian families from Port Toulouse fled to this Isle Madame where their descendants still live today. It is separated from Cape Breton Island by the Lennox Passage, but connected by a

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet T ...

. The island is also connected by bridge to

Petit-de-Grat Island Petit-de-Grat Island is a Canadian island off the coast of Cape Breton Island, in Richmond County, Nova Scotia. The island's main community is Petit-de-Grat. The first settlers came from the Basque region of Spain in 1714. Petit-de-Grat Island i ...

, and by causeway and bridge to Janvrin Island. Since 1994, the island has been served by a community television station, CIMC-TV, also known as Telile. Isle Madame is home to approximately 4,300 residents located mostly in the island's communities of

Arichat Arichat is an unincorporated village in the Municipality of the County of Richmond, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is the primary settlement on Isle Madame, off the southeastern tip of Cape Breton Island. Toponym The name derives from a Mi'kmaq wo ...

, D'Escousse, and Petit de Grat.

Demographics

According to the 2021 census, residents of Subdivision C of Richmond County, which comprises Isle Madame and its islets, had the following mother tongues: 65.4% reported English as a mother tongue, while 39.0% had French as a mother tongue. The next most common mother tongue was German at 0.4%. (Percentages sum to more than one hundred due to many residents claiming multiple mother tongues).https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810018001&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.590&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.1&pickMembers%5B2%5D=3.1

Localities

* Pondville South

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madame, Isle Islands of Nova Scotia Landforms of Richmond County, Nova Scotia