Iona is a small village on the Barra Strait of the Bras d'Or Lake, named for the Hebridean island that many local settlers came from. The Highland Village Museum here is one of the great living-history sites in Atlantic Canada — eleven period buildings spanning 1773–1920, with costumed interpreters demonstrating Gaelic crofting life.
A short ferry crosses the Barra Strait to Grand Narrows, a useful Bras d'Or shortcut.