Lunenburg Architecture

The advantages of electronic publication: sheer verbosity, all kinds of photographs. An open ended project.

Trouble is, I also have to make a living! "Lunenburg Architecture" is my on-line hobby. It is at http://rodneymackay.com/ Lunenburg/Architecture/architecture1.html

If you have trouble with the above address try rodneymackay.com and access from my homepage.

Have not had the time to spell check or look at spacing. I am an amateur seeking to learn more about this subject, so corrections of fact are in order and would be appreciated.

A Wordsmith at work in Lunenburg

Final shot from the tall ships era. A local raconteur explains how U.S. privateers ravaged early Lunenburg in 1812.

While Lunenburg was invaded in 1812

...it should not be thought that the United States was the only nation to license privateers, and south shore Nova Scotia was firmly engaged in this "business." Here are three of their descendants at dock-side.

Stern of the "Providence."

These early ships did not have a wheel but operated with a tiller and pulleys, like these seen at left.

Cannon Port on the "Providence."

It was with some interest that we noted at least two cannons marked with the Imperial Crown and "GR" (George King); obviously spoils of war. Lunenburg did not suffer greatly in the Revolutionary War but was plundered, ransomed and partially burned by American privateers sailing similar ships during the War of 1812.

Crowds at dockside...

the indifferent tide and the crowded berth made it difficult to get a good dockside photo. This, at least, indicates her rakish lines.

Here is the replica of the "Providence"

This how she looked passing my studio window on Tuesday last. She is of course traveling under auxiliary power.

The Sloop "Providence"

This was one of the ships visiting here for a couple of days. She departed to the sound of cannon fire but was unseen as she moved off in heavy fog.

This traditionally rigged replica of John Paul Jones' first command is 110 feet in length and carries 12 small cannons. She was responsible for the destruction or capture of 40 British vessels during the American Revolutionary War

Ruth paid greater attention to the landlubbers

And there were some interesting ones, decked out to honour the pirate theme.

Also in port were the "Virginia" and a replica of an American Revolutionary War naval ship. More about this anon. Didn't get any decent shots of the latter vessel yesterday. Will eventually post regular pages treating the evolution of the schooner into today's craft.

Pilot House of the "Sherman Zwicker"

This ocean-going vessel has a main mast which is 84 feet as compared with 125 feet for "Bluenose II." She can cruise at 9.5 knots which is a little better than the more famous schooner under full sail.

The "Sherman Zwicker" is back in Lunenburg

Here's a photo of the bow edged in at a berth of the Fisheries Museum Wharf. She is, of course, a visitor, and now carries an American flag. The flag seen here in at the stern of the tall ship "Unicorn" This is, of course, one of two days when five masted ships are in port at the same time. The crowds are festive.

The Smith Rhulanmd Yard is still in business

And one of their windows features relics from three of the fishing vessels they have launched. There are also models of several ships they have built, including the "Sherman Zwicker," named for a favourite son of this financially sound family.

This craft could be mistaken for the "Bluenose" except for the lack of topsail masts and a main boom in her sail rig. She had no usual need for sails except to hold position on the fishing banks or as auxiliary power when her 320 horsepower engines were out of action.

"The Sherman Zwicker," also 1942

This "auxiliary fishing schooner" was built by the Smith and Rhuland Shipyard at Lunenburg and is 142 feet in length as compared with 85 feet for the ship shown below. There similarity is their descent from Grand Bank schooners which were totally dependent on sails. THe piloot house on both craft was a decided convenience over the open wheel on older vessels. My great grandfather, Judson Guptill II, brought the "Grace Darling" to Grand Manan as a true schooner but as soon as engine technology appeared she was stripped of her bowsprit and most of her sails, and looked quite like this. The Sherman Zwicker fished for 20 years under a Lunenburg skipper and made her last trip to the Grand Banks in the early 1960s. THe ZWicker is exactly like similar vessels which fishewd out of New England and this is why she was saved from beaching and decay to become a floating museum. She remains as the largest wooden ship based in the waters of Maine. Her home port is Boothbay, Maine.

The Year 1942, The fishing vessel "bernadine"

Built as a sardine seiner, this 85 foot vessel is the equivalent of two vessels I knew as a child summering on Grand Manan Island. Built in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick and renovated at Meteghen, Nova Scotia as a good will ambassador in Upper Canada, she has been modified with the addition of additional quarters at the rear of the pilot house.

The "Lois and Isabel II" sailed out of Grand Harbour on similar missions to the Victoria weir on the south coast of the island. I never "sailed" on her but did play cabin boy to the "Lois and Isabel 1" in the days when she fished off Castalia. She was named for my mother, Lois Guptill (Mackay) and her sister Isabel Guptill (Bosein). This craft is entered here for comparison with a very similar offshore vessel of exactly the same age.

Terror on Main Street

I know better than to offer the offbeat to a paint on site market but couldn't resist the drift wood pterodactyl hanging from a tree in front of this property. It is one of a tableau. Below it are three very large marine creatures created from the driftwood thrown ashore in Nova Scotia by the infamous Hurricane Juan. This painting was the first completed on site and suffered somewhat from the fact that I had left burnt sienna at home in Lunenburg. That's not beyond remedy, so I'll play with this one a bit more and then re-offer it. There are some obvious corrections I need to make. This was the only painting which gave me fun in the execution. I did sell one at silent auction: a back-lit sailing ship with a dramatic breakthrough of sun through fog as a backdrop.

Sunday's False Start

This unfinished canvas might have worked except for an unseen difficulty. While I had left Lunenburg for Mahone Bay without burnt sienna on Saturday, I came on site without cadmium yellow on Sunday. In addition, I had an insufficient amount of water at this location and faced a glaring sun. Things got muddier and muddier as the water I had filled up with pigments. Then it promised rain, and I retreated to the shelter of the church hall. It never did rain but this posed a problem for Ruth when she failed to find me at the place where I should have been. At this juncture, I decided the foreground flower gardens in this scene were too complex to complete within the time limit, and hastily switched to the bandstand seen below. I will also complete this painting but probably in the studio.

Saturday's Child

This one did not get beyond the preliminary sketch as I had second thoughts about its reception in a market which is more in tune with panoramas of the harbour, individual homes, the three churches and the like. I will finish it from a photograph taken at the time. Here again, I realized, after the fact, that I had no burnt sienna and this scene had to have sunlight and deep shadow, the latter being an impossibility without this colour.

The Bandstand

This was my final on site painting completed on Sunday afternoon. The weather was very changeable and this scene moved from fog into bright sunlight. I had no burnt sienna to mix with ultramarine as a shadow wash and was forced to use Mars Black which I generally reserve for painting the edges of canvases on the few occasions when I offer a painting unframed. The subject matter is pedestrian, but in self-defense I have to say I had been, by this time, too many hours on public display in an environment that started cold and ended a bit too hot. I had intended to paint in the sailboats which were a part of this scene and may yet do that, although I am ambivalent about this canvas.

Mahone Bay

I very much like Mahone Bay and envy those who live there, but it is inferior to Lunenburg as a painter's resource. Lunenburg was awash with on site painters last week most congregated at the Dory Shop, which unfortunately is not quite as picturesque as it used to be. This is part of the problem with organized paint-on-site events. Individual painters can do a bit better publicizing themselves by appearing in a less formal, less crowded situation.

Rod at Mahone Bay

On the waterfront working on a painting of the local bandstand. The weather was largely co-operative but the event did conflict with a major craft show in Lunenburg and the number of artists on the ground was down to 21. I can't speak for the accompanying art show (I did sell a framed painting there) but I think paint-on-sites have had their day. The raffle of a Tom Ward painting was a huge success by contrast. There are simply too many of these plein aire events, and unfortunately they bring full-time painters into competition with themselves since paintings usually sell as less than their full value. The cause is just, but I have not seen much feed back in terms of public exposure from paint-on-sites I have attended over these past five years. Break even "holidays" of this sort will soon have to be relegated to my personal history of art