We awoke to the same gray skies of yesterday. By noon it was raining and very chilly with temperature not getting out of the 50’s We are being told by locals that this is unusual weather for this time of the year. A change for the better is being predicted for tomorrow.
We started out this morning going to the Lunenburg Festival of Crafts, an indoor event. It was a fairly big show of mostly nautical themed crafts. We then stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few groceries which we took back to the motorhome. Returning to the Lunenburg harbor we went to the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic which is housed in the old fish market building that we had eaten lunch yesterday. Unbeknownst to us yesterday, what we thought was a small museum that the restaurant had was really a part of this museum that we had to go through to get to the restaurant. Today we entered the museum through the proper entrance and paid our fee ($14.50 for both with AAA discount). On the first level there are aquariums with the various fish that are caught in the Atlantic. A demonstration of a launch of a model schooner was done in the outside area. Launches are never done on Sundays or Friday 13ths. We listened to a talk about “Bluenose”, a working schooner that won the working schooner race between the U.S. and Canada for many years and became a celebrity eventually honored by being on the Canadian dime. Unfortunately, an aged Bluenose sank . A Bluenose II was built in 1963 and then rebuilt in 2012. The Bluenose II was in port yesterday and then set sail early this morning for Cape Breton.
The highlight of the museum for us was a talk/ tour on the salt-banks schooner, Theresa E. Connor. The gentleman conducting the tour had worked on the fishing and scalloping boats, beginning in 1967 after the era of salting fish as a way to preserve the catch. The salt –bank schooner is so named because they fished along the banks and then salted the fish. Fishing was done for a variety of fish but mainly cod. This guide had many interesting stories and seemed to enjoy telling us about the fishing industry.
By noon today it was raining and is continuing this evening.
