THURSDAY

Today we drove along the “Bluenose Coast”.  In about the 1920’s, someone started a race of fishing boats.  The United States won the first official race, and it really seemed to burn the Canadians.  So, they put together a “hot rod” and named it the Bluenose.  They won the next 18 years with that ship, and it sort of became a national pride thing.  In fact, the ship is depicted on the Nova Scotia license plate and on the Canadian dime.

Our first stop was Peggy’s Cove.  It is a quaint little spot, almost unrealistically quaint, with cute little houses in little circles around tiny inlets of water, with a postcard looking lighthouse.  Therefore, it is a tourist stop for lots of buses, and has lots and lots of shops.  Nearly all of them were closed, but one was open.  But, we’ll come back to that.

 

 

 

 

We stopped at the memorial for the crash of Swiss Air 111, an MD11 that crashed off the coast of Peggy’s Cove in 1998, killing all 229 people on board.  This accident resulted in many new rules in aviation concerning the flammability of insulation.  Since, I do a lot with insulation and those new rules affect my work quite a lot, it is a significant event for me, so I really wanted to see the spot. 

Note the "111" in the top of one of the memorial stones.

 

It was a very nice memorial, simple but meaningful.  It commemorated the people who died on the flight and the people who participated in the recovery and investigated the accident afterwards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lighthouse at Peggy's Cove

Then we went to the lighthouse and the stuff around it.  Fred and I climbed around on the rocks, and had fun.  Then we did our souvenir shopping at the only store we found open the whole week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Peggy’s Cove, we went down the coast to Chester and found nothing of interest whatsoever!  We continued to Mahone Bay.  This was a nice looking town, with three little churches on the edge of the water.  The British wanted to settle the area, but could not find enough good British subjects to move there.  So, they advertised in Germany, Switzerland, and a few other places to “good Protestants” willing to move there for 30 acres of land.  In a copy of the German ad, I could make out where it said “Neu Schottland” .

Finally, we went to Lunenburg.  This is the area where they built the Bluenose, and where it is supposed to have been docked.  We couldn’t find it.  We walked along the streets and looked at the buildings and stores and wondered how the heck they can make a living being open only 4-5 months of the year. 

We also suspected getting a driver's license was ridiculously easy here!!