10 - On the Way to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

July 12, 2017 - This morning we left out campsite at Church Point, NS and headed around the south coast of Nova Scotia en-route to our next campsite in Lunenburg, NS.  We didn't go very far before our first stop at the interesting looking church that we could see from our campsite.  The church was the  Église Sainte-Marie or Church of St. Mary.  As it turns out this is the largest wooden church in all of North America.  The steeple is over 185 feet high.  The Parish was founded in 1799 and has had several churches.  This one was consecrated in 1905.  It was designed by a local carpenter who could neither or write and there are no plans available.  Here are a photos of the church.

The columns you see in the photo are actually the trunks of Norwegian Red Spruce trees and are 70 feet tall.  They have been sanded smooth and covered with plaster and paint.  There are a total of 41 stained glass windows in the church.  Here is a photo of a side altar.  What is interesting about this altar is that it is from the 1820 church and was made by Fr. Jean Sigogne who founded the parish in 1799.

Our next stop was the city of Yarmouth where we picked up some maps and tourist information.  Fishing is still a major employer in this area and here is a photo of one of the fishing trawlers that was tied up at the docks at Yarmouth.

Way back when I was a graduate student at Princeton University, I was a member of Princeton's Tuna Team.  I kid you not.  For a number of years, Nova Scotia held an Intercollegiate Game Fish Seminar and Fishing Match in late August.  They invited 6 Canadian schools and 6 US schools and Princeton was one of the schools.  Since it took place during summer recess, the Princeton team was made up of graduate students and in 1967 and 1968 I was a member of the team.  It was a great deal.  All we had to do was get ourselves to Nova Scotia and the sponsors picked up the tab for everything else.  What we fished for was giant blue-fin tuna which can weigh up to 1,000 lbs.  You only could fish for tuna when the tide was running and the rest of the time you bottom fished for cod and haddock.  None of the teams caught a tuna the 2 years I participated but we did have one strike our line but he wasn't hooked.  Anyway, when we were talking to the tourist office in Yarmouth, she mentioned that there was a Tuna Museum in Wedgeport so we had to go.  Here is a photo of the building housing the museum, there is a restaurant on the right and the museum on the left.

They had displays covering the history of this sport in Wedgeport and all of the fishing tournaments that were held over the years including the intercollegiate tournaments and this photo shows the wall display for the college tournaments.

And guess what, I'm famous.  This photo shows the Princeton Tuna Team and I'm the guy on the left.

Here is the photo of the docks we went out from.

After this stop we had to hustle onto Lunenburg so we could pick up our rental car and get checked into our campsite before it got to late.  Here we are set up at our site.

The plan for tomorrow is to visit Lunenburg which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and then on Friday to visit Peggy's Cove and Halifax.