Lunenburg — Planned Town & Atlantic Fishery
Bluenose and the Fishermen's Trophy
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
The original Bluenose was launched in Lunenburg in 1921 as a working fishing schooner.
It became famous by winning races for the International Fishermen's Trophy under Captain Angus Walters, defeating leading American schooners.
The vessel's speed turned a commercial fishing boat into a national symbol. Its image eventually appeared on the Canadian dime.
Legend can easily overtake the workboat. Bluenose was not built as a museum piece or patriotic mascot. It had to fish successfully.
The original vessel was wrecked on a reef near Haiti in 1946.
Bluenose II, launched in 1963, carries the image and sailing tradition forward but is not the original ship.
That distinction should be explicit. Replicas can preserve knowledge and identity without becoming the object they reproduce.
Canada's most famous schooner became mythology because it was first very good at a practical job.