Point Tupper, Nova Scotia
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Point Tupper is a small rural community located in western Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia on the Strait of Canso.
In the 1880s, Point Tupper became the eastern terminal for a railcar ferry service operated from the port of Mulgrave, directly opposite on the western shore of the Strait of Canso. The Intercolonial Railway line continued east from Point Tupper to Sydney, making Point Tupper an extremely important port for Cape Breton Island.
In 1955, the Canso Causeway opened, closing the railcar ferry service and resulting in a decline in Point Tupper's economy as railway facilities were removed or abandoned.
But the causeway, which completely closed the Strait of Canso's water flow (except for the Canso Canal) also created a sheltered ice-free deepwater port to which Point Tupper's waterfrontage was uniquely suited to the vast numbers of modern deep draught cargo ships.
In the early 1960s, the government of Robert Stanfield's Industrial Estates Limited Crown corporation designated all of the Point Tupper Peninsula for industrial development, along with a corresponding area on the opposite shore between Mulgrave and Melford in Guysborough County. New highways and roads were constructed and railway lines were extended to service the various properties.
One of the first industries to locate at Point Tupper was Swedish pulp and paper manufacturer Stora and was one of the largest in eastern North America at the time that it opened. Stora merged in the 1990s with Finnish pulp maker Enso to form Stora Enso. In 2007, Stora Enso sold its North American production facilities including the Point Tupper mill to NewPage Corporation.
To service the electrical requirements for the pulp and paper mill, Crown corporation Nova Scotia Power constructed a new oil-fired generating station at an adjacent property later to be converted to coal in 1986. These industries were soon followed by a gypsum loading terminal for gypsum being mined by Georgia Pacific in River Denys and delivered to Point Tupper by rail - ironically the ship loader was on the same site as the former railcar ferry dock.
Point Tupper was also the site of several failed industrial policies, when the Gulf Oil refinery was closed and mothballed in the late 1970s and later dismantled, although its storage tanks remain to this day, now operated by Statia Terminals. Another more infamous folly involved a heavy water manufacturing plant built in the 1970s following the 1973 oil crisis by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), but quickly closed and later mothballed and dismantled. A gypsum drywall manufacturing plant also closed after experiencing difficult economic conditions.
During the late 1990s, Point Tupper's strategic location proved useful when the Sable Island natural gas project located a gas liquids processing plant. In the early 2000s, Nova Scotia Power built a large bulk coal terminal. A liquified natural gas terminal was under construction at the southern end of the Point Tupper Industrial Park at Bear Head but this has since been discontinued.
In the first half of 2006, Finnish paper giant Stora Enso locked out its workers at the Point Tupper mill, however a resolution was achieved during the summer and the company is currently seeking improved electricity rates from Nova Scotia Power. A new company, Federal Gypsum, has reactivated the mothballed drywall plant as well.
