Age of Sail Heritage Centre

**Age of Sail Heritage Centre**
Established	1994
Location	8334 Route 209 ; Port Greville, Nova Scotia Canada
Type	Community and Marine Museum
Curator	Oralee O'Byrne
Website	www.ageofsailmuseum.ca

Last updated March 06, 2019

The Age of Sail Heritage Centre (also known as the Age of Sail Heritage Museum) is a museum and heritage centre at Port Greville, Nova Scotia, Canada. It focuses on the history of Parrsboro Shore communities along the Minas Channel of the Bay of Fundy with an emphasis on the area's shipbuilding and lumbering heritage.

A museum is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these items available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. The largest museums are located in major cities throughout the world, while thousands of local museums exist in smaller cities, towns and rural areas. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public. The goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public.

A heritage centre is a museum facility primarily dedicated to the presentation of historical and cultural information about a place and its people, including, to some degree, natural features. Heritage centres typically differ from most traditional museums in usually featuring a high proportion of "hands-on" exhibits and live or lifelike specimens and practical artifacts.

The Parrsboro Shore is an area of Cumberland County, Nova Scotia consisting of the shoreline communities west of the town of Parrsboro. The Parrsboro Shore is generally defined as stretching along the Bay of Fundy from the town of Parrsboro westward around Cape Chignecto as far as Apple River. It includes the communities of Diligent River, Fox River, Port Greville, Ward's Brook, Fraserville, Spencer's Island, Advocate, the ghost town of Eatonville. Linked by Nova Scotia's Route 209, the communities form part of the Fundy Shore Ecotour.

The Site

The Museum consists of a number of historic buildings moved to a central site on the banks of a scenic ravine beside the tidal Greville River. The main building is a former 1854 Methodist Church. In addition to the original building the site is home to a cafe/gift shop, the Port Greville Lighthouse,^[1] a boat shed, a blacksmith shop and a band saw shed. Several walking trails lead from the museum to historic and natural features along the river.

History

The heritage centre began with the Greville Bay Recreation and Development Group formed in 1981 to develop the Port Greville area. The group at first developed a picnic park on the old Red House Landing Site and worked on building and maintaining washrooms and a picnic area. In 1988 the chair of the group Ross Colins put forward the idea of a museum. In 1991, the Greville Bay Shipbuilding Museum Society was incorporated with the goal of protecting and preserving working heritage" with a "hands-on shipbuilding museum" focusing on the Parrsboro Shore's extensive lumbering and shipbuilding history.

Greville Bay is situated in northern Nova Scotia, Canada. It is attached to the Bay of Fundy and is often associated with Port Greville.

Later that same year the committee took on the task of clearing and cleaning the site and erected an information building. In 1992 the McLeod family donated a building, formerly the Cochrane Hall and originally a Methodist church built in 1854. It was dismantled and moved 2 kilometres to the site where it sat for a year as funding was raised. In 1993, reconstruction began.

In 1994, the Age of Sail Heritage Centre Museum was opened to the public. After its first year the centre won a provincial architecture award for innovative design.^[2] An expansion is underway for 2011 to provide public events, research and conservation space.

The museum is staffed chiefly by volunteers with community support. A curator as well as 2 or 3 students are hired per season. Items in the collections number over 2,000 with everything from period fashion, to hand tool, models and equipment as well as numerous photographs and archives.^[3] The museum is one of the attractions of the Fundy Shore Ecotour.^[4]

The Fundy Shore Ecotour is a scenic drive in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia and encircles several sub-basins of the Bay of Fundy, which contains the highest tidal range on the planet.

Related Research Articles

Bay of Fundy A bay on the east coast of North America between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

The Bay of Fundy is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the US state of Maine. It has an extremely high tidal range.

The Minas Basin is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy and a sub-basin of the Fundy Basin located in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known for its extremely high tides.

Spencers Island Village in Nova Scotia, Canada

Spencer's Island is a rural community in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, located at the western end of Greville Bay on the Bay of Fundy. The community is named after a small island 45°19′50″N64°41′30″W of the same name located offshore from nearby Cape Spencer. According to local oral history, the island, cape and community trace their name to a man named Spencer who is buried on the island. However the name more likely comes from Lord Spencer, a British statesman at the time the community was settled.

Advocate Harbour is a Canadian rural community located in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia

Joggins Community in Nova Scotia, Canada

Joggins is a Canadian rural community located in western Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. On July 7, 2008 a 15-km length of the coast constituting the Joggins Fossil Cliffs was officially inscribed on the World Heritage List.

Route 209 is a collector road in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

MV Kipawo is a historic Canadian passenger and freight ferry built to operate in the Bay of Fundy and which later served in Newfoundland and inspired the creation of a theater company.

Cape Chignecto Provincial Park Canadian provincial park located in Nova Scotia

Cape Chignecto Provincial Park is a Canadian provincial park located in Nova Scotia. A wilderness park, it derives its name from Cape Chignecto, a prominent headland which divides the Bay of Fundy with Chignecto Bay to the north and the Minas Channel leading to the Minas Basin to the east. The park, which opened in 1998, is the largest provincial park in Nova Scotia.

Parrsboro Harbour is a Canadian harbour located in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.

Partridge Island is a significant historical, cultural and geological site located near the mouth of Parrsboro Harbour and the town of Parrsboro on the Minas Basin, in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. It attracts many visitors including sightseers, swimmers, photographers, hikers and amateur geologists. Partridge Island is actually a peninsula that is connected to the mainland by a sandbar isthmus. According to local legend, the isthmus was created during the Saxby Gale of 1869. The hiking trail to the top of the island affords scenic views of key landforms on the Minas Basin including Cape Blomidon, Cape Split and Cape Sharp. The nearby Ottawa House By-the-Sea Museum contains artifacts and exhibits illustrating the history of the former village at Partridge Island, which dates from the 1770s. Partridge Island is a favourite hunting ground for rockhounds because its ancient sandstone and basalt cliffs are steadily eroded by the fast-moving currents of the world's highest tides. Rocks and debris worn away from its cliffs are dragged down the beach making it possible to find gemstones, exotic-looking zeolite minerals and fossils. Fossil hunters are warned, however, that although one or two loose specimens may be collected, Nova Scotia law requires that they be sent or taken to a museum for further study, and no fossils may be excavated from bedrock without a permit.

Eatonville, Nova Scotia Ghost town in Nova Scotia, Canada

Eatonville is a former lumber and shipbuilding village in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. It includes a large tidal harbour at the mouth of the Eatonville Brook beside several dramatic sea stacks known as the "Three Sisters". It was founded in 1826 and abandoned in the 1940s. The site of the village is now part of Cape Chignecto Provincial Park.

Hamburg was a three masted barque built in 1886 at Hantsport, Nova Scotia. She was the largest three masted barque ever built in Canada.

Hall's Harbour is a fishing community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Kings County on the North Mountain along the shore of the Bay of Fundy.

Apple River is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Cumberland County.

Glooscap was a full-rigged sailing ship built in 1891 at Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia in the Minas Basin of the Bay of Fundy. The ship was named after Glooscap, the spiritual hero figure of the Mi'kmaq people. Glooscap was the culmination of several decades of large-scale ship building in the small village of Spencers Island. She was the last square rigger built along the Parrsboro Shore and the largest ship ever built in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. She circled the world in her first year of operation, carrying freight to Liverpool, Cape Town, Australia, and New York City. She made frequent subsequent voyages to the Pacific. Although built in the twilight period of the Age of Sail, Glooscap earned good profits for her owners shipping freight around the world for two decades under the command of two noted captains, the brothers George T. Spicer and Dewis Spicer of Spencers Island. Glooscap was converted to a gypsum barge in 1914. The ship is featured in exhibits at the lighthouse museum in Spencer's Island and at the Age of Sail Heritage Centre in Port Greville.

St. George's Anglican Church is an historic Carpenter Gothic style Anglican church building located at 216 Main Street in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, Canada.

References

↑ "Port Greville Lighthouse", Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society
↑ "Age of Sail Heritage Centre architect receives award", The Citizen, March 11, 1995, p.3 Archived March 16, 2010, at the Wayback Machine .
↑ Age of Sail Heritage Centre.
↑ "Age of Sail Heritage Centre", Fundy Shore Ecotour Archived June 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine .

External links

Coordinates: 45°24′54.5″N64°33′07.5″W / 45.415139°N 64.552083°W / 45.415139; -64.552083

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[1] "Port Greville Lighthouse", Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society

[2] "Age of Sail Heritage Centre architect receives award", The Citizen, March 11, 1995, p.3 Archived March 16, 2010, at the Wayback Machine .

[3] Age of Sail Heritage Centre.

[4] "Age of Sail Heritage Centre", Fundy Shore Ecotour Archived June 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine .