Nova Scotia's Southern shore

After seeing Halifax, we went on to explore the Southern Shore of Nova Scotia. One of the first towns we came to was Mahone Bay. They claim to have the most photographed churches in Canada. From left to right, the three spires belong to the Anglican, Lutheran, and United churches.

One the most promoted things on the Southern Shore of Nova Scotia is the Bluenose. It was a working fishing vessel, but also a racing schooner. It was never beaten. This replica of the original Bluenose was located in Lunenburg where the original Bluenose was built. The original was lost on the rocks in the Carribean after its days as a fishing vessel came to an end in the late 1940s.As we traveled further south, we felt the need for a "bio-break". This was the sign on the men's room door. Pretty cute, huh? The women's room had a similar one. We think that all restrooms should have similar signs to express their real purpose.
Further down the coast was the community of Shelburne. Here, the cry of "The redcoats are coming" would be reassuring. It was a community consisting of British loyalists that came from the U.S. after the Revolution. One family came from Florida and I am talking about in the 1780s! Further south was Birchtown, a black loyalist community. At one time, it was the largest community of black freemen in North America.

Shelburne was, above all, a seafaring community. This is a monument to the fishermen who have lost their lives at sea. There was another large tablet to the left and one beside me as I took this photo. In one accident in 1989, nine fishermen lost their lives. When a so small a community has lost so many, it is a real testament to the dangers of fishing the north Atlantic.

Nor were the fishermen the only ones to suffer the wrath of the sea. Each artifact in this display case is from a different ship that wrecked in the area, and some have been removed for cleaning.

This is a view of Shelburne from the second floor of a former town store, now a museum. The floor above this one served as the garrison room for the local loyalist militia.

As you can see, they sold everything from household goods to fishing supplies. There were also hogsheads of tobacco and barrels of hardtack and salt beef. The proprietor and his family lived in attached rooms.

One of the shops in Shelburne was a dory boat builder. I was particularly taken with the lighting, colors, and mood of this shop. The dory you see here is of the Lunenberg design. The ribs were made of misshapen trees or branches similar to the one you can see above the oars. Note the lobster trap in the back.

The detail here is of the dory clip that Shelburne claims to have made famous. This enabled dory builders to construct the dories with straight pieces of timber.

There was also a very active builder of larger sailing vessels.

These are half-shell models. They're not just wall hangings. Measurements for the hulls of full- sized boats are taken from these and scaled appropriately.

The next morning we continued on to the southwestern side of Nova Scotia. There is a large and very active Acadian community here. The lowest flag on the pole is an Acadian flag. In the middle is the flag of Nova Scotia. We also saw Acadian flags on the backs of cars and on almost every house.

We're sure it was quite beautiful, but this is about all we saw until late in the day. These boats sit, ghostlike, at the dock at Metaghan, a very large and very active Acadian fishing community.

There are natural dry docks in southwestern Nova Scotia, no pumps required. Simply bring the boats in during high tide, let the tide go out from under them, then close the gates of the drydock. While this is not really a dry dock, we saw several people who had brought their boats in during high tide and were working on them while the tide was out. This is possible because of the unusual tide phenomenon of the Bay of Fundy. Due to the funneling of the water into the bay, the tides can range in excess of 40 feet between high and low and come in at about 3 stories an hour. You have to see it to believe it.

This twin spire church was l'Eglise St. Alphonse, in an Acadian community. The Acadians are known for their beautiful and unique churches.

St. Mary's Church at Pointe-d-Eglise is billed as the largest wooden church in North America; another Acadian-made church.

As the day wore on, the fog began to lift. Here only a thin layer hangs over Tiverton as viewed from East Ferry. The water flowing in the foreground was the Bay of Fundy tide coming in. It was unbelievably swift, but that's difficult to capture in a photograph. With that, we turned again home to prepare for our trip to Cape Breton.