Lunenburg - UNESCO World Heritage Site

I've already written about Lunenburg, and some information will be repeated, as the history explains why Lunenburg received UNESCO World Heritage status. Since 1995, UNESCO has considered Lunenburg (old town) "the best example of planned British colonial settlement in North America, as it retains its original layout and appearance from the 1800s, including local wooden vernacular architecture" [1]. The town had approximately 2,400 inhabitants in 2021. The toponym Lunenburg could be an Anglicized version of Lüneburg, a city in northern Germany, about 40 km from Hamburg. The name of the Mi'kmaq First Nation, which is unknown, had been frenchified into "Mirliguèche", but then has been changed to the current name, when almost exclusively Germans came to Lunenburg. Who actually gave the town its name remains unclear; possibly in honor of King George II of Great Britain, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg (called Hanover) and nominally Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg [2].

Let's take a closer look at the history. In 1753, Germans from the Black Forest region and Swiss people arrived there, having been recruited. Approximately 400 families, totaling about 1600 people, arrived in the promised land. Previously, the French had already cultivated the land there, but the British in Halifax couldn't find enough people willing to move there, or rather, they refrained from doing so because they were considered too lazy. However, it turned out that the hired farmers couldn't practice agriculture there at all, or at least not sufficiently, as the soil wasn't suitable. The new inhabitants quickly adapted, and the farmers became fishermen and boat builders... and they became very good boat builders, which is why the houses were also built of wood. "The first houses were log cabins, but later a form of wooden construction developed, so that later the Castle on the Hill and churches were also built this way."

Bosa, Sardinia, Italy

The oldest surviving building is located at 57 York Street, not far from the Castle on the Hill. The house was originally much smaller and had been later extended. According to the description on site: about half to two-fifths on the right side of the house. Previously, the paintwork wasn't colored, but a little color simply looks better. The gray houses of London in the 19th century [3] certainly looked less appealing than the colorful houses of the Amalfi Coast or like the ones in the picture I took in Sardinia and show here. In any case, the place invites you to stroll through it slowly. Enjoy your visit too!

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunenburg,_Nova_Scotia
[2] Lunenburg - Castle on the Hill (Nova Scotia, Canada)
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2025/09/lunenburg-castle-on-hill-nova-scotia.html
[3] www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/the-rookery-a-notorious-slum-in-st-giles-london-circa-nachrichtenfoto/52982396?adppopup=true 


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The Bluenose in Lunenburg (Nova Scotia, Canada)

 

I can't even remember anymore whether my fascination with sailing ships came before or after I read the books about Horatio Hornblower [1] and Richard Bolitho [2] in my youth. Both protagonists belonged to the British Royal Navy, and the books were set around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. I saw the Bluenose II returning to the pier when we arrived in Lunenburg, and when we came back from our city tour, it was just set to sail out again. It now offers tourist trips, but it was originally designed for fishing and also competed in certain regattas, often winning. It's a beautiful ship, and it's a shame that it had to be sold prematurely, only to run aground on a reef off Haiti. The Bluenose I is depicted on the Canadian dime. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

The Bluenose I [3] was built in Lunenburg in 1921 by the company Smith and Rhuland. It was a fishing and racing gaff-rigged schooner. The ship was used for fishing for as long as technological progress allowed, as motorized fishing trawlers soon became the norm, if you downsize the term trawler. It also competed in races, and it's quite interesting just to read the Wikipedia entry about it. During World War II, the Bluenose I remained docked in Lunenburg. In 1942, the ship was sold to the West Indies Trading Company because it was no longer profitable to operate. In 1946, the Bluenose I, loaded with bananas, ran aground on a coral reef near Île à Vache (Haiti). The ship was beyond salvage and eventually broke apart.

In addition to the depiction of the "Queen of the North Atlantic" on the dime, there are also various postage stamps featuring the Bluenose. I just checked my father's collection, but unfortunately, none of the Canadian stamps he had collected include the Bluenose. What a pity! 

“In 1963, a replica of Bluenose was built in Lunenburg using the original Bluenose plans and named Bluenose II” [4]. Sidney Culverwell Oland commissioned this as a promotional yacht for Oland Brewery, but donated the schooner to Nova Scotia in 1971. “In the summer of 2016, Bluenose II renovations were completed, two years behind schedule with the final cost reaching $24 million.” It was similar with the Gorch Fock. Gorch Fock is a tall ship of the German Navy. Initially, €10 million were budgeted for the repair work in 2012, but it was returned to the Navy at the end of September 2021, and the renovation had cost a total of €135 million. [5]

If you visit Nova Scotia in the height of summer, you will be offered whale watching tours, but the whales are usually somewhere else entirely. Consider instead taking a trip on the Bluenose II. I missed that opportunity this summer!

Links and Annotations:
[1] “Horatio Hornblower [1a] is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester [1b].”
[1a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Hornblower
[1b] C.S. (Cecil Scott) Forester is the pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (1899-1966). 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Forester
[2] "The Bolitho novels [2a] are a series of nautical war novels by Alexander Kent, the pseudonym of British author Douglas Reeman.[2b]
[2a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bolitho_novels
[2b] Douglas Edward Reeman (1924-2017)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Reeman
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluenose
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluenose_II
[5] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorch_Fock_(Schiff,_1958)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_training_ship_Gorch_Fock_(1958)

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St. John's Church in Lunenburg (Nova Scotia, Canada)

 

At first, I didn't intend to write about St. John's Church in Lunenburg at all, because the church is very new, but then I heard the sad story, and on top of that, I happened to be able to visit the interior because an event had just ended. That immediately changed my mind. The sad story could be "St. John's Tears", and we'll come back to that in a moment. Stephen King [2] could have written a horror story about the "Castle on the Hill" [1]; perhaps "Charred Promises." A story like "The Scarlet Letter" [3] could have been set in the town itself, which used to be black and white and not as beautifully colorful as it is now. But let's get to the sad story. The church burned down in 2001, but I've already told you too much.

St. John's Anglican Church (correct name) has been established in 1753 and is “the second Church of England built in Nova Scotia, and is the second oldest continuous Protestant church in present-day Canada” [4]. The church building has been completed in 1754. The parish is part of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in the Anglican Church of Canada.

On 1 November 2001, St. John's church suffered significant damage by fire and hasn't been completely destroyed as I had been told on the spot; though about 50% is significant. There's a remarkable article about the reconstruction by Joe O'Connor [5], who interviewed Terry Conrad, the former chief of the fire department. They couldn't get into the burning church via doors or roof and had to break windows – brokenhearted, though. All in all it took 147 volunteer firefighters from nearby towns and 15 hours to put out the fire. There hadn't been enough fresh water, so sea water had to be used. The tears of St. John's refer to the salt water saturated with ashes flowing downhill Lunenburg.

I'm very interested in stained-glass windows and have written intensely about church windows around where I live. The stained-glass artisans (Helga and Norbert Sattler), who helped to restore the windows, were originally from Germany. “Using photographs of the original windows as a guide, the couple spent 18 months piecing 27 jigsaw puzzles back together again.”

There is a remarkable star scene above the apse, which has been reconstructed with the help of a computer and software to picture the night sky on the first Christmas (some 2 millennia ago) as seen from Lunenburg. I remember how impressed I've been as a boy seeing this done in a planetarium. A mystery still remains -: how did the original artist do so without the help of a computer.

If you visit Lunenburg, be sure to try to come to St. John's Anglican Church, it's worth it.

 

Links and Annotations:
[1] Lunenburg - Castle on the Hill (Nova Scotia, Canada) / More on Lunenburg!
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2025/09/lunenburg-castle-on-hill-nova-scotia.html
[2] Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, in 1947, and Maine borders Nova Scotia, apart from the sea. I particularly like his commitment against Donald Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King
[3] The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a historical novel by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Anglican_Church_(Lunenburg)
[5] By Joe O'Connor: Holy jigsaw puzzle: After a fire gutted a historic church, N.S. town began an incredible reconstruction. 
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/holy-jigsaw-puzzle-after-a-fire-gutted-a-historic-church-n-s-town-began-an-incredible-reconstruction

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Lunenburg - Castle on the Hill (Nova Scotia, Canada)

The school on the hill is called Castle on the Hill and isn't from a horror movie, but was built in the 1890s. The style is called Capenter Gothic, because Lunenburg was built of wood, not stone. This has something to do with the town's history. May I digress?

Lunenburg was founded in 1753, and the name certainly goes back to King George II of Great Britain, as he was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Previously, the town was called Mirliguèche by the French-speaking Acadian inhabitants, which was a French spelling of a Mi'kmaq name whose meaning is no longer known. The town was settled by Protestants, mostly from the Palatinate, Württemberg, and Switzerland; according to the English article, 1,400 people, and according to the French article, 2,700 people. The original plan was to farm there, but even though the surrounding area had already been cleared by the Acadians for this purpose, success was lacking. The population, consisting of entire families, adapted and became fishermen and boatbuilders. Boatbuilding has survived to this day, but fishing is more of a part of tourism. The first houses were log cabins, but later a form of wooden construction developed, so that later the Castle on the Hill and churches were also built this way.

I mentioned horror movies above ... hmm, former students swore the school was haunted. I don't think that's surprising, since the building is surrounded by a cemetery on three sides. Here, I'm referring to Feng Shui (風水), which normally bores me with the energies that are supposed to flow there, but on the other hand, Feng Shui always ensures that buildings, for example, blend aesthetically into the landscape. This leads to a feeling of well-being in the landscape and the house. Therefore, according to Feng Shui, it would be completely unacceptable to integrate a house into the cemetery like this. The idea of hauntings in the Castle on the Hill probably has something to do with psychology on the one hand. I always find it frightening when the windows of a retirement home overlook a cemetery, although one could argue that this would fulfill a memento mori. On the other hand, we also know that sick people recover better if they look out into a park than if they look out onto a parking lot, a highway, or a cemetery. I don't have any current evidence for this, but I've read that once. Back to hauntings: a wooden house creaks. This has something to do with the fact that temperatures change very quickly, for example, when the sun is shining; and the wind has a completely different effect on a wooden house than on a stone house. It's also important that the boards be able to move against each other because of the temperature differences from summer to winter. In the past, Japanese wooden buildings were even artificially bonded with metal to reinforce this effect, so that one couldn't be attacked unexpectedly because of the alarming squeak. Today, the school has been converted into a conservatory, and I was just thinking about once hearing a beautiful recording from a historic room. The audience was completely silent, but you could hear wood cracking, and I imagine that sunlight shone in somewhere, causing the noise.

Whether haunted or not, the visit is worth it. You do have to climb the hill, though.

Links and Annotations:
I have thoroughly read and evaluated the German, English, and French Wikipedia articles.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunenburg_(Nova_Scotia) 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunenburg,_Nova_Scotia 
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunenburg_(Nouvelle-%C3%89cosse) 

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