4.14 Canadian History Through Poetry and Lyrics - Part Two
A Short History Lesson
Whether you know it or not, you’ve seen the Bluenose! The Bluenose appears on the dime and many different Canadian postage stamps, but do you even know why the Bluenose is important?
The Bluenose was built in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, famous for its early days of shipbuilding and fishing. Here is a picture of the Lunenburg harbour:
Learning the Bluenose story will help you to understand the poem.
The Bluenose is a schooner that was used for one season fishing. The next year, Bluenose won the International Fisherman’s Trophy, a race held each year for the fastest fishing vessels in the world. It won the next 17 years in a row, helping to make Lunenburg's ship building industry famous!
When no longer racing, the Bluenose was used for trade. The Bluenose struck a coral reef off of Haiti on January 28, 1946, and was abandoned on the reef. Since then, a Bluneose II has been built that is modeled after the first Bluenose.