Entrance to Little Lorraine Harbour

Little Lorraine Harbour, which lies about 6 km (3.7 mi) northeast of Big Lorraine Harbour and the same distance due west of Cape Breton (the cape), is not a great deal smaller physically than Big Lorraine Harbour, but it is considerably more populated (this source gives its population in 2001 as 62), with at least a couple dozen houses along the main road and Burkes Road, a short road which runs on the west side of the harbour parallel to it and from whose end photo #1, showing the Lorraine Harbour entrance, was taken. You will note here at the left of the photo one of the humpy prominences seen in the previous photo, but which one?

Photo #2 was taken from the Louisbourg-Main-à-Dieu Road looking down the full length of the harbour. The day I was there, a considerable amount of lobster fishing activity was in progress on both sides of the harbour. Just a bit right of centre you can see a lobster boat going out to sea through the harbour entrance. There are piers on both sides of the harbour and two boats are visible moored at the pier on the left side of the harbour. The barn on the right side of the photo to the right of the pier one sees there has a very bright and cheery red roof, unfortunately not visible in this photo because of the angle from which it was shot.

As recounted here (link courtesy of the Wayback Machine archive, since the original is no longer on line), two different ship wrecks occurred in the 19th century on this coast, one in 1816 and one in 1834, with the loss of life numbered in the hundreds in each case. The people of Little Lorraine were left with the sad task of burying the many bodies that washed up on shore. These events resulted in 1839 in establishing lighthouses along the coast of Cape Breton Island (including bringing the Louisbourg Lighthouse back to life), leading to a significant reduction in the loss of life due to ship wrecks.