Sailing-vessels in themselves, are _genre_ crowding the Nova Scotia stage. Her earliest discoverer came hither, over the sea, in the picturesque craft of a Norse Dragon-ship. And the immediate chapters of her history, after these half-shadowy voyages of the Norsemen, were written by Basque and Breton fishboats a-sail, drawn across the Atlantic Ocean in the wake of Cod.
Cod is still, more than ever, King in Bluenoseland and beyond. Over all the vast stretch of the Canadian “Maritime” his huge fleet holds sway. And what is so romantic as a fleet-winged schooner speeding away under full sail on her voyage to the Banks? Unless it be the one coming in, her decks almost awash, with the full load? Oars and sails, and the tripping bows of the Dragon-ships and Breton bateaux founded this long line of “Bankers” and Dories--laid the foundation of Nova Scotia’s talent for ship-building. The “gift” which turned out the big square-riggers from the Hantsport and Parrsboro “ways” was a natural sequence of the maritime beginning of this land, where thought turns so naturally to the sea, and to sea-power. It was those wooden wind-jammers, wind-jammers with mere boat-beginnings, which paved the way to the ocean-greyhounds which now home true to Halifax and Saint John. Oh, the “Maritime” is the life-blood of Nova Scotian and Newfoundlander.
Halifax is the heart of the Marine circulatory system. And serving Halifax with fish for re-shipment, are innumerable little Havens and Outports, all up and down Saint Margaret’s Bay, Spry Bay, the Gut of Canso, and along the vast stretch reaching to Souris, P.E.I., and Havre Aubert in Les Madeleines. And in each of these little Outports there is, of course, a family behind every little “dory”. The morning greeting among all these people is not, “Good Day!” but, “How’s Fish?” To these coastal families, Halifax is not a mere cold city of business, but a “mother” to whom they can turn with the catch, be it great or small, and ask bread.
And so, in a morning spent on the Halifax waterfront, the lifting fog reveals schooner after schooner snugly riding against the old wet piers that artists love, or idly floating into dock amid harbour reflections, weathered spars and mildewed sails a-drip. Sometimes there is a clump of these schooners hitched together, all discharging at the same time. So in a single morning at a fish-receiving wharf here, we have chatted with skipper from Newfoundland, skipper from the Madeleine Islands in the Gulf, and skipper from Prince Edward Island, and not moved from the one dock.