Lunenburg

I spent a whole day in the amazingly picturesque village of Lunenburg.





Lunenburg is a UNESCO heritage site. UNESCO sites are places around the world that the UN has determined to have important cultural and historic value.

I spent time in the local museum that specializes in fish and fishing history.





They had a couple of ships to tour including a schooner and a fishing boat. This was a visiting ship on one of the docks.





This is the bunk area for the seamen on the fishing boat right next to the engine room. It must have been really noisy and stinky.





The wheel used to be in the open and in rough weather, the sailor at the wheel was tied to a ring in the deck so he wouldn't fall overboard. Later, wheelhouses were built to give some shelter.





Men would row out from the ship in dories to fish using longlines.





Before the industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century, everything was done using muscle power. Simple machines like levers, screws, wedges, wheels, and pulleys were used to help but it still took immense amounts of muscle power. To build a wooden ship, thousands of holes were drilled through hardwood, like oak, using augers. Then, trunnels (treenails), which were large dowels, were pounded into the holes. Drilling through feet of hardwood with a hand auger is brutally hard work. We might think that life back in the day was romantic but in reality, it was incredibly tough and uncomfortable.

They gave a demonstration of how ships were launched. The whole process involved using an inclined plane, a cradle for the ship, wedges, gravity, and friction.





I spent a bunch of time taking lots of photos of neat buildings and ships.











I went to the edge of town where the restoration of the wooden ship Bluenose II is going on.





The original Bluenose was a Nova Scotia built fishing schooner that won international fishing boat races during the 20s and 30s. It was a national hero during the depression kinda like the racehorse Seabiscuit was in the states and now is immortalized on the back of the Canadian dime. The ship was eventually sold and wrecked in a storm off of Haiti. a replica, the Bluenose II was built in the 60s and the hull is now being completely rebuilt in Lunenburg. Launch is scheduled for next spring.

There are several lovely churches in town.


You can certainly tell that the money to build them came from the sea.


-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Lunenburg