Lunenburg NS Canada (Part 2)

The Fishing Museum of the Atlantic

Our plan for Saturday revolved around visiting the Fishing Museum of the Atlantic which was situated right behind us on the waterfront in the old icehouse.  During the winter, ice was cut from the nearby fresh water lakes, brought to the icehouse to be stored before being loaded aboard the fishing boats just before departure.  The icehouse was so well insulated and effective that the ice stored in it lasted well into the summer.

On our walk to the museum we looked up at the balconies of the restaurants and bars on Montague Street, the main shopping street one road back from the seafront.  We thought them attractive but not a patch on those of the wharfside buildings with the views out over the harbour.

Home crafts and household items

Having paid our entrance fee we were given a coloured wrist band that allowed us to come and go from the museum all day and which gave us access to all of the outdoor displays.  We were also given a timetable of events in the museum that day, which mean that we needed to actually plan our visit, rather than wander around aimlessly as the wont took us.  To supplement the artefacts, the museum runs a series of detailed films, presentations and tours which range from explaining how lobsters live to the current work of the marine biologists who are trying to protect the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.  In between watching these films, we zipped around the static displays, starting with the top floor which focussed on life ashore in a Nova Scotian fishing village at the height of the schooner fishing period.  We saw displays of household items and watched volunteers weaving, spinning and making loop rugs.  These skills are now all hobbies and ‘home crafts’ but back in the day they were essential skills for the women of the village to provide clothing and furnishings for their families.  And in amongst the essential knitting, spinning, weaving and cooking they’d be out growing vegetables or turning the salted cod to dry in the wind and sun (and bringing it back under cover when the fog came down or it started to rain). It was a hard life ashore as well as going out to fish.

Having sat through a couple of the films in the old ice room theatre we needed to get out to defrost!  The air-conditioning was so effective and so cold that ice probably wouldn’t melt in the room today.  We stretched our legs and warmed up in the sun on a short stroll out to the Dory’s Seafood shop.  There we bought a large bag of local scallops but left it with them so that it could be kept refrigerated whist we returned to the museum [Ed: though we could probably have left the bag in the ice-room theatre and the food would have kept just as well!]

Back at the museum we found that there was an interesting display about the racing schooner Bluenose.  The first International Fisherman’s Race Series was held in the autumn of 1920 between the Grand Banks fishermen of Lunenburg (sailing Delawana) and Gloucester, MA (sailing Esperanto).  On this first race the silver cup, pictured centre above, was won by the American yacht. The Lunenburg crew returned the following year competing in a completely new schooner, Bluenose.  The photograph, above left, shows her sailing in Halifax harbour in 1921 and, as the challenger for the cup she wore the number 2 on her mainsail, but only once. Winning the prize back for Canada, she went on to remain undefeated in her 18-year career.  She was sold at the end of the 1930s and sailed as a cargo ship in the Caribbean for some time.  Sadly, she hit rocks and sank off the coast of Haiti in 1946.  But her triumphs so inspired the Canadian people that even today she features on their 10 cent coin; the only Canadian coin, we have been told, that does not feature a living creature on it.  She is also pictured on Nova Scotian car number plates. Today her spirit lives on in Bluenose II, launched in 1963, Canada’s sailing ambassador and a living tribute to the Nova Scotian fishing and ship building heritage.

We hadn’t realised that we were lucky to see Bluenose II in Lunenburg. Each year (apart from the captain and first mate) a new young crew is recruited, all aged under 26 years old. For their year on board, they sail Bluenose II on the day trips we had seen her doing from Lunenburg but they also take the schooner on tours of North American ports. They would be leaving Lunenburg on Sunday, the same day that we planned to; if we had arrived a few days later we would have missed her entirely.

Theresa E Conner – Canada’s oldest saltbank schooner

Our next stop was a guided tour of Theresa E Conner, Canada’s oldest saltbank schooner.  She was built in Lunenburg and launched in 1938 for the Maritime National Fish Company (Halifax), and was named after the wife of the president of the company. She was designed to go ‘saltbanking’, preserving the catch with salt, but in winter she also went ‘fresh fishing’ with the catch being preserved on ice.

On deck we saw some examples of the stacked up dories we’d seen being built in Shelburne.  These we knew had been built in Lunenburg because they didn’t have the Shelburne clips on the frames, nor an outer rub rail around the top. The dories brought back their catch to the schooner and then the same fishermen set about processing the catch and storing it in salt or ice.  When full, the Theresa E Connercould carry nearly 193 tons of salt fish.

(Top and left) TheTheresa E Conner‘s forepeak area with bunks and the galley.  (Right) her engine
room, behind the fish store

In her day she was very advanced with a large inboard engine to supplement the sail power.  Accommodation was split either side of the central hold for the fish. The forward accommodation shared space with the galley area and aft was where the captain had his cabin and rest of the crew had their bunks.

The hold for storing the catch. When full she
could carry nearly 193 tons of salt fish

The schooner used to leave Lunenburg undermanned but would pick up the extra crew needed at shore stops in Newfoundland on the way to the fishing areas.  She would be away for Lunenburg for about 3 months when saltbanking but during that time she came into port every couple of weeks to get food.  The crew ate well but they needed to because they were out in the dories all day and then spent until late in the evening processing the fish so that they could be salted or put on ice in the hold for storage; long days in difficult conditions.  During the winter when they were fresh-fishing and the catch was stored on ice, the fishing trips were much shorter, 7-10 days.  On these trips the Theresa E Conner would fish the banks 100nm or so outside Lunenburg whereas, the saltbanking trips took place over the banks off Newfoundland.  Theresa E Conner’s final saltbanking trip took place in the summer of 1962. She left Lunenburg in May the following year for another such trip and sailed to Newfoundland en route to pick up the extra crew required.  But no-one wanted to join the ship because by then fishermen preferred to go aboard the more modern trawlers which had such luxuries as running water and showers.  So,Theresa E Conner returned to Lunenburg without a single catch – the end of a long career.  [Ed: and we found it remarkable that she was still being used for fishing under sail and oar-power so late on in the 20^thcentury].

Cape Sable

Following our tour around a sailing saltbanker we took a look around the Cape Sable, a trawler of the type that lured the fishermen of 1963 away from the Theresa E Conner and replaced her.  Here we found luxury of sorts.  Each fisherman had his own bunk (those bunking in the stern cabin of the Theresa E Conner slept 2-up in the berths) and they had access to a toilet and a hot shower too.  The captain, mate, cook and engineer each had his own cabin, with the captain and mate sharing a set of ablutions next to their cabins just off the bridge. Everything was mechanised, with the trawls being lifted onto the deck using a crane and the fish relatively quickly and easily emptied into the hold where they were stored in ice.  The ship was the height of modernity in her time but she now looks very dated being about 55 years old.

Fishing has always been a hard way to earn a living but from 1920 to 1933, during the American Prohibition, fishermen took part in a much more lucrative activity: liquor smuggling. Nova Scotian fishing vessels and their crews would load barrels of liquor at the French port of Saint Pierre, just off the coast of Newfoundland, and transport them to just outside the United States’ 12 mile limit.  There it was transferred to smaller American boats for the ‘run’ to shore.  Allegedly, it was all legal provided that the Canadian ships did not enter United States waters but the United States Coastguard cutters patrolled aggressively and did not hesitate to fire on vessels they believed were smuggling (the information boards did not state whether the target vessels were inside or outside the US’s territorial waters).

We finished off our tour of the museum with a look at the aquarium which has examples of all of the local fish and shellfish, as well as some of those caught off the Grand Banks.  By then, with the day still swelteringly hot and we were ‘all museumed out’ (as were all the fish in the aquarium’s ‘touching pool’ so, for the day, it was designated the ‘observation pool’), so we wandered back into town.

The Ironworks Distillery in Lunenburg

Seared scallops with prosciutto

On a somewhat indirect route back to our dinghy, we stopped off at the Ironworks Distillery.  They were doing a roaring trade, selling their gin, vodka, fruit liqueurs and rum, all of which are distilled on site.

We also picked up the scallops that we had bought earlier in the day from the Dory’s Seafood shop.  Seared and served with prosciutto they were a delicious dinner.

Lunenburg, NS, Canada