Serendipity

I love serendipity – the word and the thing itself. It just makes you feel like something is meant to be.

The epilogue to Shattered ends with the launching of the Bluenose in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on March 26, 1921. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her, the Bluenose was a racing schooner, built to challenge the American fleet out of Gloucester for international bragging rights. Under her captain, Angus Walters, she earned a place in Canada’s history, and on our dime. I thought it fitting that Liam’s life as a shipwright begin with his taking a hand in her building, but when I came to write the epilogue, I realized I needed details. What was the weather like the day the Bluenose was launched? What kind of an occasion was it?

Last week, my husband had to spend a morning in Lunenburg for work. I gladly went along. Lunenburg is a UNESCO world heritage site due to its striking architecture, and a Mecca for a history geek like me.

While DH was working, I walked down to the waterfront and stood at the spot where Bluenose slipped into the water ninety years ago. Then I stopped by the Fisheries Museum. I walked out with the following first hand newspaper account of the launch:

Amid the cheers of the assembled multitude, blessed by a bright clear sunshine and sea upon which there was never a ruffle, Canada’s challenger for the great International Schooner Race, took the water at 10 am this morning. The launching was without a hitch. Nothing untoward marred the splendor of the occasion…

Gaily decorated and carrying her name flag, the Bluenose took to the water as her natural element, to the accompaniment of O Canada, played by the 75th regimental band and the enthusiastic demonstration of the thousands who thronged the waterfront…

So now I know. Just when I needed to. Gotta love serendipity.

Music and Musings

Last night, my friend Kathy – the gifted musician who played at my book launch in March – invited me to hear her play in an orchestral concert downtown. The evening was a double treat, as the concert took place in one of Halifax’s beautiful historic churches, Fort Massey United, where I’d never been before.

History geek that I am, whenever I attend an event in an old church, I make a point of arriving early to explore the building and read the memorial plaques on the walls. In particular, since I began Shattered I’ve been seeking out the plaques in memory of soldiers who fell in the Great War.

Every old church in the country has these memorials. Out of a total population of eight million, Canada sent over six hundred thousand young men and women to the Great War and more than one in ten didn’t return, so that’s not surprising, but I got a surprise at Fort Massey. It has three plaques in memory of five brothers who died overseas between 1914 and 1918. Four of the Stairs boys were killed in action over the course of the war, and the fifth, who had earned a Distinguished Service Order, died of influenza less than two weeks after the Armistice was signed. I stood there looking at the names on the tarnished brass and wondered how their parents were able to go on living.

Then I settled into my seat for the concert. As the orchestra sent Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ ringing into the rafters, I counted my blessings. I suppose part of the poignancy of old tragedies is that there’s nothing we can do about them but imagine.

Lest we forget.