My Nova Scotia Family Connection

Long post alert: This trip to Nova Scotia has an unexpected discovery that made a hazy thing my mom used to tell me about our family history become clear.

Built in 1921, the Bluenose is a fishing schooner that is revered in Canada for its 18 year undefeated status in the International Fisherman’s Trophy Cup. It is on a Canadian 10 cent coin, the Nova Scotia license plate and there are pictures and models of it all over. It was a racing schooner that won a big international races and must have raised Canada’s profile in the world.

The hazy part was that some male in my mom’s family was once associated with the sailboat and my mom was proud of it. I thought it was my great grandfather, who was a ship doctor for the explorer Admunson, and I figured it was the boat that was used to discover the North Pole. 

Then I decided to go to Nova Scotia and I looked at the top things to do and low and behold the Bluenose II is docked in Lunenberg and the top thing to see and I read the history and the dates just didn’t fit.

What I discovered is that my grandfather, who owned a freighter company and transported things like those beautiful cars that still drive on Cuban streets and sugar back to the Domino Sugar port in Brooklyn, among many other places, was actually the one who purchased the Bluenose after it’s racing days were done, to bring it to the West Indies to use for trade. 4 years late Canada’s great ship crashed into a reef in Haiti and was no more and my grandfather was responsible for a sad moment into Canada’s history. He diminished the purpose of The Bluenose, a racing schooner, down to transporting sugar, a much less prestigious role.

Well, luckily, Canadiens still wanted to believe in the greatness of the Bluenose’s past, so they built a second one that can be visited and sailed on and goes around coastal Canadian cities. And the short version of the story is I got to visit her and think about my grandfather and the adventures in his life. I wish my mom was around to talk to about it, but I’m glad I could learn a little more about my family history. Travel always opens my eyes.

Thanks for reading if you made it to the end.