© 2002 Jodi DeLong. All rights reserved

The Tall Ships Festival of 2000 saw huge crowds thronging the waterfront of Halifax, Nova Scotia, as thousands came to see the magnificent sailing vessels on display. Maritimers in particular have a deep and abiding love for sailing ships. Much of our history is rooted in the days of graceful wooden vessels which caught the wind and plied the seas in trade, exploration or military pursuits. Over 26,000 sailing ships were launched in the Maritimes from 1820 to the turn of the century. Now this aspect of our history has been brought to illumination by author Stanley T. Spicer, in The Age of Sail: Master Shipbuilders of the Maritimes.
Ships brought explorers, settlers and supplies to this New World; ships carried cargoes for trade in other lands, and helped to build (and ruin) many a fortune. Spice's approach in considering the Maritimes' Age of Sail is to devote each chapter to particular builders and shipowners of the region, from Joseph Cunard1s rise and fall in the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, to the Peakes and Yeos of Prince Edward Island, to the successes of the Killam family, whose fleet sailed from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. The numbers of vessels built during the Maritimes' Age of Sail are particularly impressive considering the manual labour involved in construction, from hewing of trees into planks, spars and masts, to the miles and miles of canvas sewn for sails. A full-rigged ship required some 10,000 yards of canvas for its sails; these could be made by a crew of twenty sailmakers, working twelve hour days, six days a week for four weeks.

All too often, due in part to the rose-coloured cameras of moviemakers, the days of sailing ships are perceived as romantic, swashbuckling and adventurous. The real story is less glamourous: we know from letters and records that life at sea was difficult, frequently uncomfortable and oftentimes dangerous. Imagine going over the rail of a sailing vessel, stripped of clothing and attached to your vessel only by a double bowline, while you attempt to reconnect the ship's tackle to her rudder so that
steering control can be regained. Aaron Flint Churchill, ship's mate on the Research, repeated this action eight times during a particularly nasty crossing of the Atlantic during a November storm in 1866. Spicer writes that not only did Churchill continue to sail on ships for many years after his ordeal in the November storm, he established the Churchill line of steamships in Savannah, Georgia. (His summer home at Darling Lake, Yarmouth County, exists today as the Churchill Mansion Country Inn.) Churchill was one of the fortunate sailors, as was the Research a lucky, if limping, vessel which made it to port. Countless vessels and lives from ports in the Maritimes have been lost to the brooding and tempestuous seas of our world.
Spicer, who lives at Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia, on the upper Bay of Fundy, has authored a dozen books of Maritime history and lore. His fascination with sailing vessels and their role in Maritime development stretches back over many years. In 1997 he completed the cataloging of those schooners, barques and other ships built at ports around the Bay of Fundy, an inventory of some 8000 vessels. Spicer's meticulous research and fine storytelling are augmented by the bounty of illustrations which accompany the text. More than 150 paintings and photographs, many of them archival, create a visual witness to the craft which was so essential to Maritimers of the 19th century.

Despite the hardships and dangers, the lure of the sea was a heady temptation to many. Today that love of sailing vessels, and the craft of creating them is captured in part by the enthusiastic construction of replica vessels. At Pictou, Nova Scotia, a replica of the ship the Hector, which brought Scottish settlers to Nova Scotia in the mid eighteenth century, was launched in September 2000. The Avon Spirit, built at Avondale, Nova Scotia and launched in July of 1997, is a replica of the F.B.G., the
last commercial sailing vessel built (in 1929) on the Minas Basin of the Bay of Fundy. Bluenose II, a replica of the racing schooner Bluenose which graces our Canadian dime, is Nova Scotia's ambassador to the world, and crew members learn traditional sailing techniques, helping to preserve skills once vital to our Maritime ancestors.