Tall Ships' Exhibits Now Online

If you're planning to visit the tall ships this weekend in Halifax, you'll also want to check out two new virtual exhibits on tall ships featured on the Nova Scotia Archives website.

The first exhibit, Bluenose: A Canadian Icon, is a tribute to the greatest Nova Scotia schooner of them all. The second exhibit, Brigs and Barques: Images and Artworks from the Golden Age of Sail, celebrates the tall ships once so common in Nova Scotia waters.

Tourism, Culture and Heritage Minister Rodney MacDonald says these online products demonstrate the power of the Internet in promoting Nova Scotia. "People everywhere will be able to experience first-hand Nova Scotia's unique maritime heritage. This is what tourism promotion is all about -- advertising the province as Canada's seacoast destination, and using new ways to do it."

Bluenose: A Canadian Icon tells the story of the Bluenose and Bluenose II, featuring over 350 heritage photographs, original documents, charts and miscellaneous items.

The exhibit, located at www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/bluenose , is a collaboration of the Nova Scotia Archives, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. The exhibit brings together the best of three separate collections to tell the stories of the two schooners, the people who sailed them and the times in which those people lived.

Bluenose: A Canadian Icon covers the period from 1920 to 1995. Many of the featured images have not been seen before outside of the archives or the museums. One of the highlights is a series of photographs taken in the early 1940s by Nova Scotia photographer Wallace MacAskill, as part of a marine survey undertaken before the Bluenose was sold. Another section of the exhibit features a scrapbook of newspaper clippings and photographs kept by a crew member during the schooner's official visit to the Chicago World's Fair in 1933.

"This is the story of a small, intrepid Grand Banks fishing schooner and how it has sailed into our collective memory," said provincial archivist Brian Speirs. "It's not just the image on the dime, it's a living part of our larger Canadian identity."

Brigs and Barques: Images and Artworks from the Golden Age of Sail, located at www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/brigsbarqs , features striking black and white MacAskill photographs from the 1920s and 1930s. It also features oil paintings by the late William deGarthe, the world-famous marine artist from Peggy's Cove.

Both virtual exhibits were developed with assistance from Canadian Heritage. For more information, visit the archives website at www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm .