We were slow to get going today. The campsite was
very quiet, the sun was shining and we had no motivation for a
speedy start. They had good showers and separate marine toilets.
Very clean the loos came equipped with reading material (lets
face it we all take a book to the loo at some stage they, just made
it easy) and a comments book. Above the loo they also had a great
little poem - "If you sprinkle while you twinkle, be a sweetie and
wipe the seatie". If only every public loo had this sign!
The farm dog came and paid us
a visit. He was so quiet I did not hear him coming and three times
on the trot I jumped and startled him, His barks brought the farmer
running as the dog is not meant to go on the campsite. We also had
another visit from yesterday's birthday girl. She has written a book
about the local history (we opted not to stop at the local store to
buy it) and he son has a website,
www.8_stones.com, with photos of the local area (we have not had
a chance to look at it yet). She spends as much time as she can
here, rather than in her second floor flat in Barrington.
Our route today took us up and
through to Shelburne, a historic place and home to ship builders. It
was first settled by three hundred wealthy American families who
wanted to make it a mercantile/trading port. Soldiers from the
British army were decommissioned here after the American War of
Independence and a few thousand freed black slaves also called it
home. With these and other new settlers the massive influx of people
caused the garrison town of Halifax to renege on its promise to
provide supplies and assistance to the new settlement. As a result,
what had once been the fourth largest city in the Americas was
quickly reduced to just a small village.
The freed black slaves were
not well treated by the British. Promised suitable land they were
given poor quality plots in Birchtown a few kilometres away from
Shelburne. One worked his passage across to the UK an went to lobby
on behalf of the black community. His efforts yielded a result. For
those who wanted to go free passage was given for them to emigrate
and set up a new settlement in Sierra Leone in South Africa. The new
settlement was called Freetown, a bit of history neither of us was
familiar with.
In Shelburne we visited the
Dory museum to see how they build this unique type of boat. Really
no more than a fifteen foot dinghy without the sail, their flat
bottomed design gave them high stability and enabled them to be
stacked one on top of each other. Used for fishing, a schooner would
set sail for three to four weeks with up t twelve Dory's on board.
Each Dory was manned by a team of two. When the schooner was two
hundred miles out in the Atlantic, the dories would be launched and
the men set off with their trawler nets to fish.
They only had basic food and
water supplies on board but the boats were designed to enable the
men to survive for a few days in case the fog rolled in and they
could not find the schooner. They had a small sail that could be
used if the wind was in the right direction and one of the oars
could be used as a tiller. In the bottom, a plug allowed water to be
drained when the boats were hauled back on to the schooner. A rope
loop on the underside of the plug was the only thing the men would
be able to hold on to if their boat capsized. The fish they caught
was packed in salt to preserve it until they got back to land.
We were talked though the
process for building the Dory's. This is a skilled job, learned as a
trade on an apprentice basis. Even though they are no longer used
for fishing (they and the schooners have been replaced by modern
trawlers) there is still a demand for them either as pleasure craft
or as scaled down versions for children's toys. One was even being
made as a coffee table! They are all painted a mucky yellow colour,
apparently easy to spot in the fog. They have a set of templates
that are used for cutting the wood which are now well worn having
been in use for over eighty years.
The County Museum has samples
of quilt work and embroidery and the oldest fire pumping cart in
Canada dating back o the 1700's. It also has lots of photos of the
boat building history of the town. A room at the back looks like a
well informed local archive and provides a great research room for
those interested. They also have photos of Charles and Di's visit
when they inaugurated the opening of the Dory museum. Prince
William, somewhere, has one of the five foot toy models.
By this time Stef had had
enough sight seeing so I went on my own to the Ross-Thomson House
and general store. This was home to a Scottish family and was
spartan to say the least. The rooms were very simple and sombre with
few furnishings. The basement kitchen was cold and damp and at the
time the house was lived in it had a dirt floor. The staircase down
was steep and low ceilinged and I do not envy the maid who had to
maker her way up and down with plates of food to serve to the
family. The bedrooms were also simple except for a very fine chest
of drawers and a commode. There was the original sailors chest that
the mean of the house had brought with him from Scotland.
To the side of the house was
the general store which the family also ran. It sold pots, pans,
rolls of cloth, provisions, fine china - everything for the house
and family. I asked what the white cone shaped pillar was on the
counter to be told it was sugar. It came either in cones or in loaf
shaped blocks (hence why things get named Sugar Loaf this and that -
we passed a Sugar Loaf mountain in Ecuador) and people would come in
and get a chunk cut off the block and then cut it into cubes at
home. White sugar was only for the well off, most had brown
unrefined sugar.
Above the shop was what used
to be a storage area. When the village was under threat of a
potential invasion (which never in the end occurred) the store room
was turned into a base for the local militia. The racks they used to
house their guns are still there for all to see. With Stef in tow
once again we went to the Muir-Cox shipyard museum. This is where
large boats were made, in effect in dry dock. More wall panels told
again of the local ship building industry. There was also an
impressive collection of tools.
Andy, "we saw this and
thought of you"!
Even though it is a small
place, Shelburne had a welcoming feel. It is now simply a
destination n the tourist map and, as one of the elderly ladies who
act as the guides said "it is just full of old people now". Its
harbour is apparently one of the three best in the world. Its
waterfront makes for a pleasant stroll especially on days like today
when the sun was shining.
Leaving Shelburne we tool to
the main route 103 for the fast track to Lunenburg, passing the
turning to Liverpool without stopping. At Lunenburg we headed for
the Board of Trade campsite on the outskirts of tow by Tourist
Information, We ummed and aahhed about sites - not of them were
great because the flat one had electric hook ups too far to reach
and the ones we could reach did not have flat sites! We really need
a small supply of planks of wood to even us out when we park as more
often than not we have a bit of a tilt.
As we were chilling before
dinner another couple from the site walked by. They have a really
clever tent that hooks up to the back of their estate car so they
actually sleep in the car, Both of Dutch descent, they have lived in
Canada for well over forty years, but surprisingly still spoke with
a Dutch accent. As they walked past us one way I heard the lady say
to her husband "that's what I really want" as she eyed up Mortimer.
I offered her a sneak inside but her husband (full head of white
hair, bushy white beard and stetson hat) pulled her away. I repeated
the offer as they walked back and this time she could not resist.
She marvelled at al the bits and pieces we have inside. We chatted
for a while and we parted ways with a small female voice asking how
much we would sell him for and a deeper make voice telling her not
to even think about it! It is good news for us through as it is
reinforcing the assumption we have that we should be able to sell
easily in Vancouver.
The midges won tonight. Stef
never actually managed to sit outside at the campsite. I lasted
about half an hour after the Dutch/Canadian couple let. For some
reason they have taken a fancy to my head and neck and I got fed up
with hearing their whiney buzz and batting them away.
