Peggy's Cove to Lunenburg!

 After being married for over 36 years you think you know everything there is to know about your spouse. Well, I learned a few things about Barb this week that I had no idea about. Nothing juicy or scandalous but interesting nonetheless. I knew where she grew up, what she likes and dislikes, I know pretty much everything about her after 1986 but when I asked her about her working career I learned a few things.

Her first job was at the ripe old age of 14 or 15 when she worked at Rafferty’s Candy in the local mall in Redding California. She was in charge of making chocolates at $0.75/hr.

Then she worked at the roller skating rink again in Redding. She had been roller dancing  for several years so this was right up her alley! Any excuse I can get to post one of her performance pictures I do it, so here goes!

I just think those pictures are awesome!

When she was 17, she was a secretary for the Redding Fire Department.

Once she turned 18 she left Redding to San Diego for a short time before landing in Minnesota where she worked as a bank teller (‘78ish). Let’s see, at that time I was probably a freshman in high school. Little did she know what was in store for her a few years later!

Over the next few years she worked at the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce, a private law office, an archaeological field services in administration and cartography and as an administrator and CAD/CAM designer in another firm before our paths were to cross.

She started working at Cub Foods in ’85. I had already been there almost 2 years. She was an administrative assistant for my boss (the president) and when I first saw her it was love at first sight. We secretly dated for a few months before we got married. I still remember both of us walking into the president’s office and telling him we got married. Not knowing what he would say or how he would react. He was happy for both of us but said one of us had to go.

Since I was making the big bucks (probably $20,000/year), I stayed and she went to work for another private law firm. Surprisingly not all attorney’s are easy to work with so she left there and went to work for the Washington County’s Attorney’s office in 1990 where she stayed 24 years until she retired in 2014. There you go grandkids, those are the working careers of your grandparents back in the old days when the dinosaurs roamed the world.  

Now, back to 2022 and Nova Scotia!

We had heard from several people that the Peggy’s Cove and Lunenburg areas were hard to beat. Well, they certainly did not lead us wrong. Probably some of the most scenic country we have seen on our trip so far. Peggy’s Cove is a cute little community of probably no more than 2 dozen brightly colored houses on a cove.

If that is not scenic enough, throw in the smooth, rocky shorelines and a lighthouse!

And if that is not enough, throw in some rollers crashing into those rocks. The scene instantly transforms you back in time and you feel like you have lost the last 50+ years. Barb and I could both see ourselves living in a community like this, living off oceanfare and watching the waves crash in.

We spent the night at the Visitors Center right there. Plenty of room for any size rig. We just left the truck there and walked anywhere we needed to go.

From there, we made our way down to Mahone Bay. There are two ways to get there. One is the busy highway and the other is the lesser traveled highway 3 along the coast. I am telling you right now you have to take 3. It might take you an extra 20-30 minutes but it is totally worth it!

While in Mahone Bay, we walked the marina docks and pictured ourselves in one of the sailboats like our blogger friend’s Shawn and Kim do. What would that life be like? If you want to get an idea, check out their blog. 

This would be our dream boat. 

For now, we will live our sailboat life vicariously through them and stay landlubbers. We did not stay in that town too long, just enough to walk the dogs on the docks, have lunch and stop by the Saltbox Brewery.

Then it was off to Lunenburg for 3 nights! What a cool town. Touristy but not overly touristy. It still has a lot of small town charm. We were there a little early to check in so we walked the town, found a distillery and Barb made a new friend! 

The Ironworks Distillery has a really awesome still! We shopped but did not end up buying anything there. 

The first night we spent as Harvest Host guests at the Lightship Brewery. The other two nights were at Lunenburg RV Campground ($43/night w/e). 

View out our window

The beer at Lightship was spendy at $10/pint with HST, but the food was reasonable and good! And you cannot beat the views. They say they can take up to a 45’ rig but I would not take anything over 30’ in there.

The next day we got up early to find a good parking spot downtown (forget about parking a big truck down there later in the day) and toured the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. Another must see if you are in the area. Great displays and informative interpreters. Fisheries would have been a tough life.

Did you know that lobsters can be either right-handed or left-handed? Me neither but they have a dominant claw which is always bigger claw known as the crusher claw.

This guy was left-handed

This display was kind of interesting. 

I've seen these spears in different museums but this is the first that really showed how they were used.

The most interesting thing we both found there was the guy working on the Theresa E. Connor.

He was an retired fisherman who lived in the area all his life and grew up on the water fishing for cod and scallops. He worked for the museum on the Theresa explaining details about the boat and what life was like for the fisherman.

The Theresa was launched in 1938 and was a cod fishing vessel until 1962. There was a crew of about 28 on the boat, 24 of which were fisherman, the others were the Captain, cook and others. 

Where they slept, 2 to a bed

Where they ate, the kitchen was open 24 hours

Back then they fished from Dory’s. They had 12 dory’s stacked on top of each other on the deck of the ship.

A Dory

Each dory had two fisherman and they would launch their boat, via a hoist every morning with two baskets containing long lines with up to 900 hooks on them. The fisherman would row or sail their dory up to 2 miles away from the main boat and set up their lines. They would put a buoy on one end, one in the middle and one on the other end, having to bait each hook along the way. They would then row or sail back to the mothership, cut bait, eat and do other things before they went back out to their lines a few hours later. With luck they would fill their dory with up to 1,500lbs of cod before returning to the ship. Sometimes they could only pull ½ their line before hitting that limit, other times they would not fill the boat. Once they returned to the boat the off-loaded the cod and started cleaning them.

This went on day for 17 hours a day for day after day after day until the holds of the boat was filled to the brim with about 400,000lbs of fish. Think about that. Working in that environment all day, every day regardless of the weather. A tough life for sure!

Somehow, so far on our adventure we had not stopped by one winery yet so later that day we set out to remedy that and headed out to a winery outside of town. A very pretty drive in the country took us to the winery. As we pulled into the long drive we began wondering if we were in the right place. The trees in the driveway were overgrown rubbing the sides of the camper on both sides. We emerged at a farmhouse with a barn and shed. Two kids about 8 and 9 were playing in the front yard and a dog was barking at our tires as we pulled up. There were two men leaning on a vehicle watching us as we went by. I thought I heard banjo music…. It looked like one of those places you pull into and are never heard from again. What ever happened to Barb and Jim? I don’t know, last I heard, they were going to a winery and never returned.

We thought about just turning around and leaving but it was so tight I would have had to make like a 20 point turn so we parked and Barb got out to ask them if we were at the right place. She came back and said “Yup, this is it.”

We went into the door that said “open” and no one was in there. There was wine bottles on display so we started looking at those when a young woman came out and said “Momma’s getting herself presentable and will be right out”. I thought to myself “More likely she is sharpening her knives”.

She went behind a counter where there were a dozen ½ bottles of wine on the counter and asked us what we would like to try. That’s how they get you, they poison you then bury the bodies. We tried a few, some were better than others but none were great. Momma came out (presentable) and was actually a very nice person. We talked for about 20 minutes before we bought two bottles of wine and left. As we were driving down the driveway we were laughing asking each other “What just happened?” Barb said she should have taken some pictures but I would not have posted them as the winery shall remain nameless. If you are up for some excitement and adventure when you are in the area, visit it. If not, just skip it. 

Our last day in Lunenburg we went fishing. Finally, it had been almost two months since we’ve had a line in the water! Back in March Barb had booked a ½ day with Lunenburg Ocean Fishing Adventures. A special thank you to our daughter Jessica. She got us this charter for our birthdays. We left the dogs in the camper and walked 20 minutes to town to meet the boat.

We arrived promptly at 7:45 and boarded the boat. There was a total of 17 fisher-people on board including us. The captain and first mate were a father/daughter team of Dave and Emily. The cost was pretty reasonable at $65/person so even if it was a bust we weren’t out that much. Wait, we would not have been out anything, Jessica paid for it!

They warm up the boat by taking you on a quick harbor tour explaining all the big vessels in port, what they are used for and who owns them. That in itself was pretty interesting. Then they take you out into the open water. We stopped by The Ovens Natural Park. A series of sea caves along the coast. It was originally owned by Harry Chapin, the singers, best known for Cats in the Cradle and is still owned by the Chapin family.

Then we were off to the fishing sites! I am going to say it was a slow day as they kept moving us from spot to spot every 20 minutes or so. At our 3^rd spot we finally started catching some fish in numbers. The most sought-after fish was the cod. Of which we caught several. And yes, Barb of course caught the first and the biggest. We also caught mackerel and Pollock.

Barb and her cod

In total, we probably only fished 2 of the 4 hours with travel time taking up about 40 minutes each way but we had a blast! We kept 2 fish to eat, Emily filleted and bagged them for us. We will try them in the next few days.

As a side note, our Captain mentioned that he has worked with several film companies what filmed movies in Lunenburg so out of curiosity I looked it up. Here are the first few films that came up:

Locke & Key (2020–2022), The Covenant (2006), Simon Birch (1998), Haven (2010–2015), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Jesse Stone: Stone Cold (2005 TV Movie), The Healer (IV) (2016), Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise (2015 TV Movie), Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost (2011 TV Movie), Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt (2012 TV Movie), Two If by Sea (1996), Moby Dick (2011), Lizzie Borden Took an Ax (2014 TV Movie)

Here's a cool shot of the town as we were coming back in. 

After getting back to the docks we walked  over to The Knot Pub. But it was worth it. Reasonable and good food. We have really gotten to be connoisseurs of  mussels. We love them and they go perfect with an ice cold beer!

The rest of the day we just hung out with the dogs and worked on the blog. A nice relaxing afternoon.

For the two hour drive to Yarmouth the next day we took the main highway instead of the coast so it was pretty uneventful. Our first stop was the laundromat where I used their internet to finish up this post. I will continue the rest of our Yarmouth adventures and our remaining three days in Canada in our next post!