Chéticamp is a fishing community on the Cabot Trail on the west coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia at the western entrance to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The downtown area overlooks a large bay, into which the Chéticamp River flows, that is protected from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Chéticamp Island. Having a number of public facilities it performs a service function for the northernmost part of Inverness County. The community has almost 4,000 residents, a large number of whom are Acadians and speak French natively, as well as English.