Cabot Strait is a strait in eastern Canada approximately 110 kilometres wide between Cape Ray , Newfoundland and Cape North , Cape Breton Island. It is the widest of the three outlets for the Gulf of Saint Lawrence into the Atlantic Ocean, the others being the Strait of Belle Isle and Strait of Canso. It is named for the Genoese explorer Giovanni Caboto.
A strategically important waterway throughout Canadian and Newfoundland history, the strait is also an important international shipping route, being the primary waterway linking the Atlantic with inland ports on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway. The strait is crossed daily by the Marine Atlantic ferry service linking Channel-Port aux Basques, and North Sydney. Ferries have been operating across the strait since 1898 and a submarine telegraph cable was laid in 1856 as part of the transatlantic telegraph cable project.
An infamous location in the strait for shipwrecks during the age of sail, St. Paul's Island, came to be referred to as the Graveyard of the Gulf (of St. Lawrence).
