Where Down is Never Up

Hello Everyone,

Planning a visit to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia? You’ll find that the folks are generally very friendly, the food is incredible, the tours of the town are fun and the museums are fabulous. We’re also one of Atlantic Canada’s leading cultural communities, with 19 art galleries. Old Town Lunenburg maintains its charm as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This all takes place within a community of 2,300 people!

Superstitions have had a way of creeping into the lives of Lunenburgers for as long as memory can recall. Although some of the habits seem comical, it’s important to realize that the superstitions originated as a way for people to feel that they had control over uncontrollable aspects of their lives. In the age of sail, when loved ones were away from home for months at a time, families would do anything that they could, to protect those who were on the North Atlantic.

In my childhood, I watched my mother carefully follow the same ritual, each time she baked bread. The hot loaves would be carefully tipped, partly to one side, and eased out of their pans. They were then put upright, on cooling racks.

This didn’t seem odd to me. It was only after I began working at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic that I discovered that it is an age-old tradition. Whenever there were friends or family at sea, the women would never turn a pan upside down ... nor would they turn a loaf of bread upside down. The fear was that if they did, the schooner on which their loved ones were sailing would be caught in a storm and would capsize.

As I said, this was a way of dealing with daily fears. A strong belief in the superstitions gave a sense of control in lives that were forever fraught with uncontrollable elements of nature.

Wishing you Smooth Sailing,
Heather