Lunenburg NS Canada (Part 1)

BV at anchor in Lunenburg

With BV safely at anchor just a short distance away from the Lunenburg waterfront, we took our dinghy ashore to the public dinghy dock in front of the Zwickers & Co Ltd warehouse.  We wanted to get a quick look around this very attractive town to plan what we would visit during our few days here.

The British founded Halifax in 1749 and wanted to expand their presence and control in the region.  Promising land and building materials, the British recruited people from the Upper Rhine region and, in June 1753, Lunenburg was established when a collection of 1453 German, Swiss and French farmers landed here to establish a new life.

Whilst there is a Lüneburg town in Germany, and despite this being the only German settlement in Nova Scotia, the name of the town did not come from that link because the original settlers were not from that region of Germany.  George II, the King of England at the time, was from the house of Hanover and was also titled the Duke of Braunsweig-Lüneburg, and so it was in honour of the King of England that the town was named Lunenburg.

Lunenburg has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995, recognised as the best surviving example of a British planned colonial settlement in North America.  We read that the town was originally mostly painted white and black, like the churches, but more recently the town has had a facelift with most buildings painted in vibrant colours.  Many of the buildings are heritage properties and most have a small plaque highlighting when they were built and the significance of the structure.  The Victorian style influenced the architecture but there are also some local distinctive features.  The ‘Lunenburg Bump’ is a mid-roof level five-sided projection (pictured below middle top), whilst the ‘Widow’s Watch’ is a similar looking glazed projection with a sea view but higher up, at attic level (2 lower pictures above).  Some of the houses further up the hillside also have a railed rooftop viewing platform at chimney height which is known locally as the ‘Widow’s Walk’.  The names, inevitably, are testament to the risks that the fishermen took when harvesting the sea’s bounty.

St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church with its cod shaped windvane (top left), lamppost signs around the town show all of the fish caught in the area (bottom left)

Fleur de Sel restaurant

Cod was the main source of wealth for the town [Ed: though pollack, haddock and flounder were also big catches] and with fishing schooners filling the harbour there was also plenty of work ashore in fish plants, blacksmith shops and the extensive shipyards.  With the Grand Banks fishing ground now closed (since the 1990s) for cod regeneration and conservation reasons, more recently scallops and lobsters have become the catch.  Additionally, tourism is also now big business and the town is filled with boutique shops, galleries, craft shops and a huge number of restaurants. We spotted the Fleur de Sel (pictured right) which had an excellent menu – one to make a booking for, we decided, when we travel back this way.

St John’s Anglican Church (1754), town bandstand and military memorials (top right)

For the size of town, Lunenburg has a lot of large churches because of the mix of religious beliefs in the founding families.  St John’s Anglican Church (the 2^ndoldest Protestant church in Canada) in particular is very striking.  It had to be extensively restored following a fire in 2001.

At the war memorials beside the town’s band stand we also learned of a link between the town and Norway.  During WWII Lunenburg had a large encampment for Norwegian whalers, caught over in Canada when Norway was invaded. There has been a strong connection ever since and the Canadian whaling industry (which closed down in the 1970s) started as a result of a number of the Norwegians remaining in Canada after the war.

A little seafood snack of snow crab to accompany our wine

Having stomped up and down the high street and some of the 48 blocks of old Lunenburg, we decided that we needed a little refreshment.  The best location we had spotted was a busy decked area overlooking the harbour with The Fish Shack on one side and the exciting looking Half Shell oyster and seafood bar on the other.  We managed to bag a couple of stools at the seafood bar which proved to be the perfect perch from which to watch what was going on.  We ordered a carafe of wine and a little snack of snow crab to accompany it whilst we watched the busy kitchen area at work.  Not only did we have great views over the harbour, but we also got to see nearly every dish on the menu.  There was not one that we would have refused and they all looked fabulous.  We also got chatting to a couple who live on their yacht in the harbour and work in the town.  They own the Boat Locker chandlery near the boatyard and are saving up funds for their own long term sailing adventure planned to start in 2020.

View of the harbour from the Half Shell seafood bar

But with the sun starting to get low in the sky it was time for us to return to BV to eat some of the food in the fridge, which still seemed to be filled to bursting point after our big shop when we were in Shelburne, hence our having to resist the temptations of the nearby restaurants.  As we set off from the dinghy dock we spotted Bluenose II returning and looking spectacular in the golden evening light. It was a lovely sight to end the day and we hoped to learn more about her in the morning when we planned to visit the Fishing Museum of the Atlantic.

Bluenose II in the evening light

Lunenburg, NS, Canada