Port Hawkesbury (2001 population 3,701) is a town located on the southwestern end of Cape Breton Island, on the north shore of the Strait of Canso, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The town, which was originally named Ship Harbour, is the business and industrial centre for the lower part of Cape Breton. Major employers include a large pulp and paper mill owned by the Swedish company Stora and a large oil fired power generating plant. Sad relics of failed industrial policies past include a mothballed oil refinery built by Gulf Oil in the early 1970's and a disused heavy water plant built by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL).
Modestly famous persons coming from Port Hawkesbury include Cora Cluett, a widely shown painter and photographer (now teaching at the University of Dundee in Scotland), and Glenn Peers, an authority on medieval art and iconography (teaching at the University of Texas at Austin).
