Cape Smokey, at Ingonish on Cape Breton, has started a 4.5-year expansion: three new lifts and a target of more than 600 skiable acres.
Target vertical at completion is 400 metres — up from the roughly 305 m the hill lists today.
That would make it Atlantic Canada's largest ski area by terrain, though Newfoundland's Marble Mountain keeps the region's biggest vertical drop.
Lift lines are already being cut. Some terrain is meant to open this season, though early access may depend on natural snow.
The new trails skew black and double-black, with uphill routes for touring and splitboarding in phase one.

What Cape Smokey announced

On August 6, 2026, Cape Smokey CEO Martin Kejval confirmed a 4.5-year expansion of the Cape Breton ski area: three new lifts, new trails, and a finished footprint of more than 600 skiable acres. Trade coverage puts the target at 642 acres and a 400-metre vertical drop.

Kejval's own framing, quoted by SnowBrains, was less corporate than the numbers: "Standing on the top of Smokey is like being in an Indiana Jones movie hunting for treasure."

Work has already started. Crews are cutting lift lines and trails now, and the resort wants some new terrain skiable this coming winter — the first slice of a build-out that runs into the early 2030s.

How big is that, in regional terms?

Within the Maritimes, Cape Smokey is already the tallest hill and the expansion widens the gap. The independent database Skiresort.com measures its vertical at 268 m, ahead of every other ski area in the three provinces.

Ski area — Province — Measured vertical
Cape Smokey — N.S. — 268 m
Crabbe Mountain — N.B. — 243 m
Wentworth — N.S. — 233 m
Poley Mountain — N.B. — 201 m
Mont Farlagne — N.B. — 188 m
Martock — N.S. — 162 m
Sugarloaf Park — N.B. — 157 m
Ben Eoin — N.S. — 140 m
Brookvale Ski Park — P.E.I. — 76 m

Source: Skiresort.com, accessed August 11, 2026. Maritimes only — Newfoundland is not included.

One correction worth making. Several write-ups have called this a bid to become Atlantic Canada's biggest ski area, full stop. That is true on terrain and not on vertical. Marble Mountain, near Corner Brook in Newfoundland, runs 536 m of vertical across roughly 225–230 acres and about 40 runs. A finished Cape Smokey would have far more terrain than Marble, but Marble would still have the longer fall line — and, at five metres of average snowfall, considerably more of the stuff falling on it.

A note on Smokey's own numbers, too: the resort and its pass partners advertise about 1,000 feet (305 m) of vertical, while Skiresort.com measures 268 m. Marketed and measured figures often diverge; both are quoted here as published.

Acreage is where the story really sits. Cape Smokey's Indy Pass listing puts the current hill at 150 acres, 16 trails and two lifts. Wentworth runs around 150 acres across roughly 20–23 trails; Crabbe Mountain in New Brunswick covers about 87 acres. A 642-acre Cape Smokey would be several times the size of anything else east of Quebec.

There is a second-order effect worth noting. Cape Breton already has a second ski hill: Ben Eoin, near Sydney above the Bras d'Or Lakes, with 11 runs and 140–153 m of vertical depending on the source. An island with one small hill is a day trip. An island with a 600-acre destination and a second hill starts to look like a ski region — and regions are what pull visitors, and gear, across provincial lines.

What opens first — and the catch

Phase one is the part worth planning around; the rest is a decade-scale promise. The resort wants some of the new terrain skiable in 2026–27, and crews are cutting the lines for it now.

The catch is worth reading carefully. Reporting on the announcement notes that early access may be natural-snow, backcountry-style skiing rather than groomed, lift-served runs. New trails need snowmaking and lift capacity before they behave like the rest of the hill, and neither arrives in a single summer. Cape Smokey installed snowmaking in 2022, but that coverage was built for the existing footprint — a bit over half the current trails.

The first phase also includes something quieter: dedicated uphill routes for ski touring and splitboarding in the 2026–27 season. That is a real change on the East Coast, where sanctioned uphill access is often informal or negotiated resort by resort.

Why a small hill going big matters on the East Coast

Atlantic Canada has never had a destination-scale ski area outside Newfoundland. The Maritimes' hills are short, weather-beaten and beloved anyway, but none of them gives anyone a reason to book a week rather than a Saturday. A 642-acre Cape Smokey would be the first that could plausibly hold a multi-day trip.

Cape Smokey's geography is doing some of that work already. The hill sits on the Cabot Trail beside Cape Breton Highlands National Park and drops toward the North Atlantic. Its 2021 gondola — Atlantic Canada's first four-season lift — turns summer sightseeing into revenue that helps pay for winter infrastructure. Access is simple for anyone already shopping passes, too: Cape Smokey is an Indy Pass partner, and the no-blackout Indy+ tier covers it without date restrictions.

What it means for your gear

Six hundred acres of new advanced and expert terrain in Cape Breton means East Coast conditions on steeper pitches, and East Coast usually means firm. That points at a specific kind of setup — narrower, sharper, tuned — rather than the wide skis a western trip rewards. Three things follow from it.

Skis for hardpack, not powder. Gear testers and fitters converge on the same range for the East Coast: an 80–90 mm waist. A narrower ski puts your boot closer to the edge, so it holds on hard snow where a wide powder ski washes out and feels heavy underfoot. A quiver set up for a Rockies trip is the wrong tool for Smokey's new black runs — and a dedicated hardpack ski gets used on a narrow set of days, which makes it a good candidate to buy used rather than new.

Tune matters more than the badge. On firm snow, edge sharpness does more for your day than the ski model does. A stone grind, edge sharpening and hot wax restore grip that spending cannot. A well-cared-for used ski often outperforms a neglected new one.

Touring gear becomes relevant here. Sanctioned uphill routes change what is worth owning. If natural-snow access is how the new terrain opens first, touring bindings and skins stop being a Rockies-only purchase for Maritime skiers — as do splitboards for anyone on standard used snowboards, or a steeper step up for those already on cross-country gear.

And the inverse. If a new hill nudges you into a different setup, the old one need not sit in the garage. List it — someone starting out at Wentworth or Martock this winter wants exactly the gear you have outgrown.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Cape Smokey? At Ingonish, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, on the northern loop of the Cabot Trail beside Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

How long will the expansion take? The announced plan runs 4.5 years from the 2026–27 season. Three new lifts and the full 600-plus acres arrive in phases, not at once.

Will the new terrain be open for the 2026–27 season? Some of it is meant to be. Reporting on the announcement cautions that the earliest access may be natural-snow terrain rather than groomed, lift-served runs.

Would this make Cape Smokey the biggest ski area in Atlantic Canada? By skiable terrain, yes. By vertical drop, no — Marble Mountain in Newfoundland stays ahead at 536 m.

Is Cape Smokey on a multi-resort pass? Yes — it is an Indy Pass partner, covered without blackout dates on the Indy+ tier.

Is the new terrain beginner-friendly? Mostly not — it targets advanced and expert skiers, with black and double-black runs. The existing trail network still carries the beginner and intermediate terrain.

Retrade Editorial Team — last updated August 11, 2026.

Cape Smokey Is Building Atlantic Canada's Largest Ski Area