The name Mabou is thought to derive from
Mi'kmaq name
Malabo, shortened from
Malabokek, meaning "place where two rivers meet" (the Mabou and Southwest Mabou rivers). It is also thought to mean "Shining Waters" or "Sparkling Waters". In
Canadian Gaelic it is called
An Drochaid, meaning "The Bridge". French maps from the 1700s include names such as "Ance a la Peinture", "Harve a la Peinture", "Harve Pantur", and "Deguats de la peches des Basques". These names are denoted on what would be considered the Mabou inlet/harbour. Maps denote "Cap Mabou" separately from the inlet/harbour; however, the location varies with it being shown both to the south and the north. In 1846, a series of bad harvests caused by the
same blight as the
Great Irish and
Highland potato famines caused an exodus of Gaels from Mabou to
Antigonish County (). According to Marcus Tanner, "The Catholic clergy in rural west Cape Breton [also] included notorious enemies of
the fiddle, such as Father Kenneth MacDonald, who conducted a local war with the music-makers in the 1860s and the 1870s. His campaign met with little success, however, and Cape Breton never saw the ceremonial burning of fiddles and bagpipes, as happened in
Skye under the instigation of the famous blind catechist Donald Munro." During the last quarter of the 19th century, according to historian Fr. Vincent Yzermans, the town of
Holdingford, Minnesota was founded by Catholic
Canadian Gaelic-speaking immigrants from Sight Point near Mabou. For this reason, Holdingford was originally called, "The Scotch Settlement", but now proudly describes itself as, "The Gateway to
Lake Wobegon", after the fictional Central Minnesota town created by novelist and former
radio host
Garrison Keillor. During the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century Mabou's primary economic activity centered around gypsum and
coal mines with several collieries located in the surrounding area. In 1865 plans were undertaken to modify the Mabou Inlet mouth. This entailed blocking of the existing channel and dredging a new and deeper channel on the north side of the inlet. This was to facilitate improved ship access to transport gypsum. The
Inverness and Richmond Railway opened in 1901 to connect the mines in Mabou and
Inverness to wharves in Mabou and
Port Hastings. Mining activity ceased following
World War II and the railway was abandoned during the late 1980s and is now a
snowmobile and
ATV trail. Today Mabou is primarily a
fishing port for a small fleet of
lobster boats. It also hosts a high school serving central Inverness County. In 2021, Mabou became important to the ongoing
language revival efforts for
Canadian Gaelic when () () (fig. Mabou Schoolhouse) opened there as the first
Gaelic-medium primary school in
North America. ==Geography==