Fantasy RV Caravan - Day 13

Wednesday, 14 August - Day 13

Today was a travel day of 94 miles to Lunenburg.  While we would have planned to golf along the way, we had to be n Lunenburg in time for the 2pm guided tour at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic.  Not enough time for golf, so we went into adventuring mode.

About halfway from Annapolis Royal to Lunenburg is the Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site (https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/ns/kejimkujik).  We decided to stop and check it out.

Sprinty was on the way before 8am, earning the distinction of first RV of the caravan to leave.  We arrived at the Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site just after they opened at 8:30.  Kejimkujik is a gentle wilderness were generations of families have canoed, camped, and connected with nature.  It protects a collection of rare southern species and is home to the greatest diversity of reptiles and amphibians in Atlantic Canada.  Not only does the park protect a unique sample of the Acadian forest, it also preserves and presents a unique cultural landscape, celebrating the presence of the Mi’kmaq and sharing the stories of their ancestors and history.

Being the first visitors of the day, they started the video about the park when we arrived.  About 20% of the park is made up of lakes and waterways.  The area reminded us a little bit of the Adirondack Park in New York.

As we passed through Bridgewater enroute to Lunenburg, we stopped at the Walmart for some groceries, and wandered through the Canadian Tire store next door.  Canadian Tire is like a hardware store, Walmart auto service department, Walmart garden department, and a Harbor Freight Tools rolled into a big box format.  

As we got off the highway, we stopped at the Visitor Center and got some info on Mahone Bay (a recommended place to check out) and Lunenburg.  We learned that by deviating from the Fantasy RV prescribed route just a tad, we could drive through the village of Mahone Bay.  That there was a Tim Hortons in the town helped.

We parked Sprinty across the street from Tim Hortons, just barely able to fit him in the parking place.  After getting Kris hooked up with a caramel Iced Capp at Tim Hortons, we wandered the waterfront path for awhile.

When we arrived at the Lunenburg Board Of Trade Campground in Lunenburg, NS, at 12:15pm, Sprinty was the next to last RV to arrive out of our group.  For the first time, we actually arrived before the Tailgunner - by about 5 minutes.

Lunenburg is a UNESCO world heritage site, one of only three urban world heritage sites in North America.  Lunenburg was recognized for its fine preservation of Old Town, for having the best surviving example of a British Colonial grid-pattern street layout, and for its authenticity as a working town.  The entire 48 blocks of Old Town Lunenburg is also a National Historic District.

After getting Sprinty settled in, a group of us (Doug, Jan, Bill, Lyn and us) decided to walk the 11 minutes from the campground to the Fisheries Museum, which is located on the waterfront is n the center of town.  We did not know it at the time, but by walking, we avoided the parking challenge in downtown Lunenburg.

Along the way, we passed by the Ironworks Distillery.  One of the more intriguing products of the distillery was their Ocean Aged Rum.  The distillery took a few of their aging barrels from the quiet, static climate of their cellars and put them in a specially constructed rum boat which was then moored in the harbor exposed to the storms.  Frozen winter nights and dramatic winter storms were followed by long hot days of spring and summer sun, bringing the rum boat through every mood of the dynamic North Atlantic, and everyone of these moods affects the Rum Boat Rum.

Our tour of the Fisheries Museum (https://fisheriesmuseum.novascotia.ca) started at 2pm.  Our guide went over how wooden schooners built in Lunenburg (over 200 were built in Lunenburg) were launched.  After an orientation of the museum, we were on our own.  The museum is housed in the walls of a former fish processing plant.  We were not sure what to expect, but the museum was a lot more interesting than we expected.  

The city is quite proud of the fishing schooner Bluenose which was built there.  The Bluenose was built to race in the fishing schooner race, which required that all contestants be working fishing vessels.  The original Bluenose grounded on a reef in the Caribbean, and in the 1960s, a replica, Bluenose II, was built in Lunenburg.  

Photo of Bluenose model, one of many in the museum

The shipyard in Lunenburg also built the replica of the Bounty which was commissioned by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio for the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty.  She was the first large vessel built from scratch for a film using historical sources.  It was lost at sea in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy.

Also part of the museum are two vessels located at wharf-side, the Theresa E. Connor and Cape Sable.  The Theresa E. Connor is Canada’s oldest saltbank schooner.  Built in 1938 in Lunenburg, at the Smith and Rhuland Shipyard made famous as the birthplace of the original Bluenose, the vessel fished as a dory schooner for 25 years.  The Cape Sable is a steel-hulled side trawler, built in 1962 at the Boot-Leiden Shipyard, Leiden, Holland.  The trawler is the style of vessel that eventually replaced dory schooners like the Museum’s Theresa E. Connor. 

Photo of schooner

We enjoyed wandering on both vessels and seeing what life of a fisherman was like.  Very interesting.

We then wandered the city of Lunenburg before returning to the Lunenburg Board Of Trade Campground on top of the hill overlooking the city.