«Bluenose»: The Ocean Knows Her Name

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

The most famous of all Canadian ships is undoubtedly the Lunenburg-built
schooner Bluenose, even though 60 years have passed since she went
aground and sank off Haiti. She was built specifically as a working
vessel to fish the offshore waters of Atlantic Canada and Newfoundland,
but her greatest fame arose from her racing career against the best New
England schooners in the 1920s and early 1930s, when she reigned
supreme. In those days her feats earned her a reputation that ran far
beyond Nova Scotia; her skipper, Captain Angus Walters, acquired almost
equal distinction. These topics form the basis of the book, which
consists of about one-third text and two-thirds photographs. Nearly all
of the pictures are by Wallace R. MacAskill, a gifted photographer whose
camera successfully captured the lines of this supremely beautiful
vessel in weather fair and foul. Unfortunately, many of them run across
two pages, and details are lost where pages join in the centre. The
author has done considerable research and has told her story capably in
this handsomely designed book.