Tab 5: Lunenburg

"Get in that lobster trap or I'm leaving you."

-Adrienne and Marco, at various times, to each other

Welcome to Lunenburg!

We started off the morning with a walking tour of our neighbourhood. Lunenburg is one of Nova Scotia’s most historic villages - it is not surprising that in 1995 UNESCO declared the old downtown a World Heritage Site.

The houses are as unique as the lamppost decorations which are all over the downtown.

The waterfront is lovely and scenic as opposed to condo-filled (I’m looking at you, here, Toronto). We walked along the public pier

took pictures of the buildings along the waterfront

and saw Adam’s and Knickle, a 150 year old shipbuilding business that is still in operation today.
We also saw the Fisherman’s Tribute, a monument designed to resemble the points of a compass and listing all the men and vessels from the town that were lost at sea (a surprisingly high number given the size of the town).

Next up was the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic (not exactly the twin sister to the ROM, but they do have “Lobster Lore” and Model Schooner launches, which make up for the lack of ROMiness).

We visited the Millennium Aquarium, which contained a number of different kinds of fish

The whaling exhibit was disturbing.

It contained detailed information about how whales were killed and captured. For instance, the Right Whale was so-named because it was the “right” whale to kill because it floated when dead and was therefore easier to harvest. To make matters worse, the whale processing plant here was inefficient... as badly inefficient as a a certain community college. It had processes which meant it was unable to harvest a lot human grade whale meat from each whale. The inefficiency was so great that during its first year of operation, most of the whale meat was only fit for pet food. The quantity of human-grade whale meat available from each whale improved in subsequent years after a couple of Japanese whale meat consultants were brought in.

Um, I’m really not surprised whales are now endangered.

After lunch at The Old Fish Factory (attached to the museum)… (and we did not eat whale) we did stupid tourist things

and then wandered around the shops downtown. Just before we went back to the hotel, we were able to board and walk around on the deck of the Bluenose II.

Some of you may remember the Bluenose from such currency as the back of the Canadian dime. The original Bluenose was built in Lunenburg in 1921 as a fishing schooner. What made it unique is that is was an exceptionally fast schnooer.

At that time, US and Canadian fishing fleets had raced informally for years. In 1920, a formal competition was started. The first year, the Americans won. Peeved, the Nova Scotians set about taking the trophy back – the Bluenose was entered the next year and won that year and for the next 18 years straight. During WWII the competition was shelved. Following the war, schooners were replaced by steel-hulled fishing ships and sadly, ships like the Bluenose sailed into the footnotes of history. The Bluenose was sold in 1942 to work as a freighter in the West Indies and sank in 1946 off the coast of Haiti. Ohhhh noooo…

This replica Bluenose, aptly named Bluenose II, was built in 1963 from the same plans as the original, in the same shipyard, and even by some of the same workers. We wanted to take a ride but unfortunately tickets have to booked months in advance (can you believe that even I didn’t plan something far enough in advance? Neither can I.)

Dinner was exceptional. On the advice of Hilary (who is full of excellent suggestions it seems) we went to Fleur de Sel. Best. Dinner. Yet. The chef graduated from Le Cordon Bleu program and then worked in France and Ireland before landing in Lunenburg.

Going back to the Campbell soup days of Ottawa will be difficult.

See you tomorrow in Mahone Bay.