Lunenburg: Canada's most colourful town
21.07.2023 - 08:46
/ roughguides.com
/ Nova Scotia
Twenty years ago the facades of the wood-built buildings in Lunenburg, a UNESCO-listed fishing town in Nova Scotia, were white with black trimming. The only exceptions were the red buildings down by the wharf.
But in 2007 the new owners of the Mariner King Inn kickstarted a trend. They decided to repaint their multi-building property, which dates from 1830, in bright hues, reflecting how it would have appeared during Victorian times.
In the 1800s the captains of fishing vessels painted their homes the same bright colours as their boats. It was both a practical means of using surplus paint, and the unique colour scheme allowed boats to be rapidly identified as they sailed into harbour.
The colourful façade on King Street was soon nicknamed ‘the UNESCO fresco’ and other property owners soon followed suit, quite literally painting the town red, among other colours.
Image © Stuart Forster
Lunenburg isn’t a big place. If you don’t stop, you can stroll from one side of the town to the other in under fifteen minutes. That said, the historic architecture of the Old Town provides plenty of reason to pause. It was inscribed as North America’s second urban UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
This coastal town is laid out on a grid pattern and is home to around 2300 permanent residents. Some are descendants of the German, Swiss and Huguenot French settlers brought here to colonise the area on behalf of the British in 1753. They named their town in honour of King George II, who was also the Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburg.
Locals joke the cheapest souvenir from the fishing town of Lunenburg, in Nova Scotia, is a dime. The reverse of the Canadian ten cent coin depicts the schooner Bluenose, a fishing and racing boat launched into Lunenburg Harbour during 1921.
Image © Stuart Forster
The wives of captains are said to have looked out for the return of their men’s boats from dormers protruding over the doorways of their houses. This architectural feature is known as ‘the Lunenburg bump’.
Fishing was, and still is, a dangerous profession. The compass-shaped Fishermen’s Memorial, on the waterfront, is inscribed with the names of local mariners lost at sea since 1890.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many people in Lunenburg turned to religion and superstitions. Babies, for example, aren’t given thirteen-letter names and people never rock empty rocking chairs. Houses are built to look identical from the front and rear, to confuse the devil, who is believed to sneak in only through the back door.
Lunenburg, you could say, offers a front door to gaining an understanding of Nova Scotia’s fishing folk.
Image © Stuart Forster
The town itself is the chief reason why most people head to Lunenburg. Shelah Allen, a seventh generation descendent of a