Lunenburg NS

 Canada day today so busier around town. Went to the fisheries museum, walked around town, and walked on a 1940 fishing vessel replica, and a 1962 fishing vessel. Saw a modern day stern dragger in the bay. 

We listened to a lobster talk: lobster fishing license is about 1.25 million now. They divide NB and NS into multiple areas. Each area has a season at a different time of the year. They store the lobster in lobster pounds in the ocean for up to two months so they can sell them slowly as needed. 

We listened to a Dorry fishing talk. This was cod fishing in the early 1900's. These guys went out in two man dory's from the ship and dropped 300 hook lines down. They would then pull the line up, remove fish, and re-bate. Cod was gutted and salted and stacked in holds in the boat. 

We then toured a 1962 vessel that used a net deployed off the side. Motors to haul the net and a metal vessel. We also saw a modern day stern dragger in port. These pull up an amazing number of fish at a time. They started being used around 1982 and cod were fished out by 1992. 

Lunenburg also has a lot of interesting architecture. The town was built from the cod industry. Always an interesting place to walk around.

Good day, eh.

Piece of Berlin wall;

Blue Nose II out in the bay:

You can see Grand Banks and Flemish Cap on this map:

Fort from the early 1900's fishing:

Salted cod:

Blue Nose II:

Modern day stern dragger:

1962 fishing vessel:

Digby Neck, NS

We went to Digby Neck and long Island today. A hike to Balancing Rock trail first. This was a walk in the woods down to the ocean on a long staircase. There is of course Balancing Rock and a lot of other ancient volcanic rock structures.

Then off to whale watching. It was early in the season so we went pretty far out toward the mouth of the bay. Just when we thought there would be no whale sightings we saw a hump back whale. It stayed fairly close in the area and we saw it from many different angles. Pictures don't do it justice as it popped up in different places and different sides of the boat. They eat 3-4 thousand pounds of fish a day! Very interesting to see and a big tour of the bay on the boat. We also saw a number of sea birds and a seal on the way back.