Bluenose captain and builders had something to prove. Their sights were set on the International Fishermen's Race. For a working fishing schooner, speed was a tremendous asset. Those who made it to port first fetched the best price for their catch. The Fishermen's Race was a real race for real fishermen who made their living on the sea. Nova Scotia's pride and shipbuilding reputation sailed with Bluenose.
The Bluenose took home her first Fishermen's Trophy in 1921, and for the next 17 years, no challenger — American or Canadian — could wrest the trophy from Bluenose. She earned the title "Queen of the North Atlantic" and was well on her way to becoming a Canadian icon.
Bluenose came to symbolize Nova Scotia's prominence in the fishing and shipbuilding industries. She represented Canada around the world.
The majestic image of the Bluenose has adorned the Canadian dime since 1937 and three postage stamps, as well as the Nova Scotia license plate.
In 1946, the Bluenose struck a reef off Isle aux Vache, Haiti. Despite the loss, the legacy and admiration for the once mighty schooner lived on in the hearts and minds of Canadians — especially Nova Scotians.
In 1963, Bluenose II was launched. It was built by many of the same people who had worked on the original vessel at the same shipyard in Lunenburg. Bluenose II was gifted to the Government of Nova Scotia in 1971. It continues to serve as Nova Scotia's sailing ambassador — an enduring symbol of the province — living history under sail.
Bluenose II sails out of Lunenburg and visits ports throughout Nova Scotia and North America. It is regularly open to the public, but unfortunately when we visited, she was out for a cruise in the beautiful bay.
It is only a short drive from Lunenburg to Peggy’s Cove, but there was a very emotional stop along the way; but first a little background.
We had sent out our first posts about our trip to the Maritimes earlier that week and I got an email from a good friend, Rabbi Raphy Butler, who wrote that it was exactly 20 years earlier that he had been to Halifax. When I asked him what he was doing in Halifax, he wrote that 20 years ago, almost to the day was the tragic crash of Swissair 111 into the ocean just about 5 kms. off Peggy’s Cove, with all 229 passengers and crew perishing at sea. The crash was a result of a fire that broke out on board and the swift spread of the fire brought on by faulty materials used to build that Macdonnell Douglas plane. Rabbi Butler’s connection was that his very good friend, Mr Stanley Klein (someone that we had met at the Shabbat table years earlier at Rabbi Butler’s home) was aboard that flight, and he flew with members of the Klein family to Halifax.
Very little was recovered from that flight and the search and cataloguing of bodies, body parts and debris took over 4 years and it was the largest program of using DNA to identify those who perished in the flight. Only one body was recovered that was recognizable by sight. Apparently, only Mr. Klein’s empty tallit bag was recovered, which suggests that when realizing that the end was near, he took out his tallit in order to say his final tefilot.
A JTA article at the time spoke about the efforts of the Halifax Jewish community in housing and feeding the grieving relatives who came to Halifax seeking information about their loved ones who perished and that all 6 rabbis in the Halifax area at the time participated in counselling and support efforts.
Rabbi Butler’s email exchange with me took place on Friday morning, as we were leaving for our visit to Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove and after a quick google that informed me of a memorial to Flight 111 between Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove, I wrote to him and asked for Mr. Klein’s name so that we could recite a chapter of Tehillim and a Keil Maleh Rachamim in his memory at that site.
(While googling, we discovered that there were two other tragedies that are associated with the Halifax area and we will write a bit about them in a coming post; The Halifax Explosion and The Sinking of the Titanic).
And so, along the meandering road leading through very picturesque fishing villages and coves, we came to a sign which directed us to the memorial for Swissair 111.
You walk from the parking area to a small hilltop which looks out on the cove of very widespread huge and very smooth rocks that line the shore. There on the hill was the memorial. The memorial is a large rock with three vertical cuts at the top of the rock, which indicate the numbers 111 and which, when looking through them at the sea will line up with the very spot where the flight went down. Surprisingly there were many visitors to the site....I say “surprisingly”, because we spoke to a number of them and unlike us, we could not find anyone who had a direct connection to anyone on the flight and had no specific reason for stopping, other than caring and wishing to pay tribute to those who had died in this horrific tragedy.
It was definitely a lesson that we learned that day; the concern for all of Hashem’s creations, whether you personally know them or not.
When I emailed Rabbi Butler with pictures of the site, he informed me that the day before was the actual yartzeit observed by the family of Mr. Stanley Klein, Yisrael Mordecai ben Tzvi Hirsch, zichrono livracha.
We continued a short way up the road to Peggy’s Cove.
As we approached the Cove, we got the same feeling that we had at Hopewell Rocks a few days earlier. All of the tourists in Nova Scotia, must be here. It was swarming with people. It is a sight to behold. Brightly coloured cottages and even more brightly coloured fishing boats and Adirondack chairs surrounding the beautiful and majestic lighthouse, set among wavy sea and those huge smooth boulders, creates a unique image, likely not duplicated anywhere in the world.
And unlike so many tourist “traps”in the world, everything here is absolutely free. The site itself and the parking are all for the world to enjoy with no charge. The local residents could have easily formed an association and set a charge for visiting or for parking...but it seems that their utter pride in the place just makes them want to share it with the world.
We found a parking spot and began our trek through the area.
It is easy to see why this place is a magnet for photographers and artists. The combination of huge waves over the boulders surrounding the lighthouse and the almost glass like calm waters in the various caves that dot the fishing village coupled with the vivid colours everywhere, makes this a “Kodak moment” dream spot.
The village is likely named after Saint Margaret's Bay (Peggy being the nickname for Margaret), which Samuel de Champlain named after his mother Marguerite.
However there has been much folklore created to explain the name; the wife of an early settler; or the name of the sole survivor of a shipwreck near the Cove who was too young to remember her name; whatever the theory, it is a name associated with a place that evokes the picture that is uniquely Peggy’s Cove.
The village was founded in 1811 when the Province of Nova Scotia issued a land grant of more than 800 acres (320 ha) to six families of German descent. The population peaked in the early 1900s at 300 and today relies on fishing, lobster trapping, and tourism as the mainstays of its economy.
We did not bump into many other Jewish travelers on this trip, but while walking thru one of the gift shops, a woman came over and said hello. She identified herself as Jewish, introduced her husband and we had a wonderful conversation. It seems that their family of 6 are 6 of only 7 Jews in Welland, Ontario.
One of the benefits of wearing my kippah while travelling (that is not to suggest that I cannot just as easily identify a couple as Jewish when he is wearing a baseball cap and she has some sort of head covering with a jean skirt) is that I am very visibly Jewish and it has lead to wonderful encounters and games of Jewish Geography over the years.
We still needed to cook for Shabbat lunch (or so we thought) and we headed back to our apartment in Halifax.
The time for the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat was 6:30 at the shul and we drove there, as our apartment was a good 25 minute walk from the shul.
Fran walked over to the home of Rabbi Yakov and Lisa Kerzner to light candles and after davening, we assembled at their house. There were a couple of students, the new shlicha (emissary) of the Jewish Agency assigned to work with the Halifax community, a professor of Marine Biology (who we later discovered is a granddaughter to the late Don Schelew with whom we davened for many years at Bnai Torah), an amazing couple with their three week old baby together with the non Jewish parents of the wife of the couple. The couple were both at the end of an incredible journey to conversion to Judaism which was to occur sometime in the coming week.
As you can imagine, this wonderful mix of people led to great conversation, which coupled with Rebbetzin Lisa’s great cooking and the Kerzner’s warm and welcoming hospitality, resulted in a very long and most enjoyable Friday night dinner.
The Rabbi and Rebbetzin were of course the beloved leaders of the Mizrachi Bayit minyan in Toronto before moving to Halifax two years ago and our children Ari and Liz were very close to them when they were in Toronto. They have endeared themselves to the community in Halifax and it is easy to see why.
On Shabbat morning, there were about thirty people in shul and as is my custom, I had volunteered to lain the Torah. The gabbai, whose wife we were later to discover is related to Fran through marriage, told me that he had chosen the Torah (from the many owned by the shul) to be used for this Shabbat, because it was donated by his grandfather who was a native “Haligonian” (person from Halifax).
It took quite a while to get a minyan, so once we reached Yishtabach, we paused for a 20 minute discussion on the sedra while awaiting the completion of the minyan. The davening ended with the Rabbi’s inspiring sermon and then we were all invited to the kiddush in the downstairs hall. We had prepared lunch, not knowing that there is a weekly dairy kiddush/luncheon sponsored by the shul.
It was an assortment of salads and desserts coupled with a talk by the new shlicha who we had met the night before at the Kerzners. She, being an Israeli of Russian descent, whose parents immigrated to Israel when she was very young, spoke about the challenges facing new immigrants to a country and why it is so important to be creative in the attempts to integrate them into the community.
She was especially referring to the more than 100 Russian Jewish families who had been sponsored in recent years to immigrate to the Halifax area and the difficulty that the local community was facing in absorbing them as part of the community. It was a very professional and interesting presentation.
We ended up staying at the shul for quite a while meeting and speaking with members of the Halifax Jewish community.
After a long walk home and a brief rest, we walked back to shul again for mincha, Seudah Shlishit (where we met the local Chabad leader), maariv and Havdala.
It was a very pleasant and enjoyable Shabbat and it gave us a chance to understand and empathize with the challenges facing the future of small Jewish communities and the Halifax community in particular.
On Sunday morning we packed up and headed to Cape Breton Island and hopefully great Celtic Music and Great Ocean Drives. More to come and in the next post, we will detail the Halifax Jewish Community history as well as the other two tragedies associated with Halifax.
All the best
Fran and David
Fran and David, just found your site!! So wonderfully written! Thanks
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