Up at a leisurely pace this morning, the first rainy one of our trip. Wandered around lunenburg seeing its sights and talking to the friendly people. Went to the Atlantic Fisherman's Museum, visited a local shipyard, and had lunch in a local cafe. Here's what we gathered from our morning's excursion.
Sadly Lunenburg, and much of coastal Nova Scotia, is nearly dead. The fishing is gone, the boatbuilding is gone, and no new industry has sprung up to take their place. The young people leave, mostly, as soon as they are able, and the old ones stay behind because this is all they know. The able men go to 'Fort Mac' (Fort MacMurray, Alberta) because that is where the jobs and money are. There are no education facilities beyond high school in the coastal towns, so the kids drift off to find work or to go to university/technical school somewhere else.
The past is glorious, no doubt. In 'the age of sail' with wooden boats and iron men, the maritimes shone and their present and future were bright. That was the 20's and 30's, before the offshore banks were fished out. The great schooners went out with their crew of dorries and men and the 'long liners' brought in plenty of fish to drive the salt fish and fresh fish industry ashore. Storms came and went, boats and crew were swept away onto the reefs of Sable Island and down to the bottom of the surrounding seas. The list of lost sailors, and ships lost with all hands, is stunning. But the way of life went on and the people had a fierce pride in their dangerous way of life, and boys grew to be men and went to sea. The legend of the coast was the Bluenose, a fishing schooner by trade and fast, with a captain and crew who loved to race anything on the sea even with a load of fish and dorries aboard. They say that captain never lost a race.
Then came steel boats, engines, ships from foreign shores, and draggers replaced the long liners, and the ocean floor was scooped clean of fish of all sizes and species. And within a few years it was all over, fished out, and the way of life gone. The last great wooden ship built here was the 'Bounty' for the 1960 movie. Now it is completely finished, only a few lobster boats go out in the short and quota-controlled season, as well as a few scallop fishermen. The canneries are shuttered, and tourism brings in the dollars now. Lunenburg is like an old dowager, grand in her early days but living off her capital now, a shade of her former self. And evidently Lunenburg is doing well compared to other legends like Yarmouth, reduced to a colony of potters and artisans said one of their number that I spoke with.
I used the phrase 'Sic transit gloria mundi' in jest a couple of days ago, but now I mean it.
By noon, our spirits were lower but the skies were sunny, and we headed off to Peggy's Cove. Visited the Swissair Flight 111 memorial nearby, took between us today over 600 images of these incredibly scenic towns and harbors, and headed north then west to spend the night in the town of Parrsboro on the north coast of the Bay of Fundy.
