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Once Upon a Schooner: An Offshore Voyage in Bluenose II
Noted author and sailor Silver Donald Cameron offers an intimate and affection portrait of the most famous Nova Scotian ships ever built.
The Bluenose was the fastest working schooner ever built--pride of Nova Scotia's great fishing captains and shipbuilders. Launched in 1921, that same year she captured the International Fishermen's Trophy from the Americans. She never lost it. Between races, Bluenose was a working schooner, fishing for cod off Sable Island and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Bluenose II is a replica of the famed schooner from Lunenburg, and has had her share of adventures as well.
From his own encounter with Bluenose II , from the memories of men who knew Angus Walters, and from the trials and tribulations of Bluenose and Bluenose II , Silver Donald Cameron has crafted a fine adventure story that does full justice to Nova Scotia's two legendary schooners.
The Bluenose was the fastest working schooner ever built--pride of Nova Scotia's great fishing captains and shipbuilders. Launched in 1921, that same year she captured the International Fishermen's Trophy from the Americans. She never lost it. Between races, Bluenose was a working schooner, fishing for cod off Sable Island and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Bluenose II is a replica of the famed schooner from Lunenburg, and has had her share of adventures as well.
From his own encounter with Bluenose II , from the memories of men who knew Angus Walters, and from the trials and tribulations of Bluenose and Bluenose II , Silver Donald Cameron has crafted a fine adventure story that does full justice to Nova Scotia's two legendary schooners.
148 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1984
About the author
Silver Donald Cameron
22 books25 followersOne of Canada's most accomplished authors, Silver Donald Cameron currently devotes most of his time to his work as host and executive producer of TheGreenInterview.com, an environmental website devoted to intense, in-depth conversations with the brilliant thinkers and activists who are leading the way to a green, sustainable future. He is the author of Warrior Lawyers: From Manila to Manhattan, Attorneys for the Earth, the first Green Interview Book. Dr. Cameron also wrote and narrated The Green Interview's five documentary films: Bhutan: The Pursuit of Gross National Happiness (2010), The Celtic Mass for the Sea (2012), Salmon Wars: Salmon Farms, Wild Fish and the Future of Communities (2012), Defenders of the Dawn: Green Rights in the Maritimes (broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2015) and Green Rights: The Human Right to a Healthy World (2016).
“Since TheGreenInterview.com was launched in 2010, we've amassed more than 100 interviews with green giants from 18 countries,” he says. “I've climbed to the Tiger's Nest, a Buddhist monastery that clings to a Himalayan cliff-side in Bhutan, and with my buddy Chris Beckett – our master videographer – I've lived on a houseboat in an Amsterdam canal and stayed in a mediaeval inn in Sussex and at the ultra-posh University Club in New York. We've bounced around in an inflatable speedboat in a Pacific gale off Tofino, BC, to welcome the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. We've travelled a filthy urban river in Buenos Aires on a garbage barge, crossed the Andes in a taxi from Quito to reach the Ecuadorian oil town of Lago Agrio, and interviewed a wounded Andean aboriginal leader in a rectory in Lima, Peru. We've had a wonderful time. It's been an education, a privilege and an inspiration.”
Silver Donald's literary work includes plays, films, radio and TV scripts, an extensive body of corporate and governmental writing, hundreds of magazine articles and 18 books, including two novels. He has won awards in all these forms of writing. His non-fiction subjects include history, travel, literature, politics, nature and the environment, ships and the sea, and community development as well as education and public affairs. He has been a columnist for The Globe and Mail, and from 1998 to 2011 he wrote an influential weekly column for the Halifax Sunday Herald. His classic book on shorelines, The Living Beach (1998), was re-released in 2014, and Warrior Lawyers appeared in 2016. The Education of Everett Richardson, his 1977 book on the 1970-71 Nova Scotia fishermen's strike, was re-issued in 2019, and his true crime book, Blood in the Water, will be published in August, 2020.
Silver Donald Cameron has built his own cruising sailboat, cruised extensively on the east coast of Canada and as far south as the Bahamas, and restored four heritage homes in rural Nova Scotia. He has also been a professor or writer-in-residence at seven universities and Dean of Community Studies at Cape Breton University. He holds two honorary doctorates as well as a Ph.D., and in 2012 he was appointed to both the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia.
Dr. Cameron is married to Marjorie Simmins, also an award-winning writer. They divide their time between Nova Scotia and British Columbia.
“Since TheGreenInterview.com was launched in 2010, we've amassed more than 100 interviews with green giants from 18 countries,” he says. “I've climbed to the Tiger's Nest, a Buddhist monastery that clings to a Himalayan cliff-side in Bhutan, and with my buddy Chris Beckett – our master videographer – I've lived on a houseboat in an Amsterdam canal and stayed in a mediaeval inn in Sussex and at the ultra-posh University Club in New York. We've bounced around in an inflatable speedboat in a Pacific gale off Tofino, BC, to welcome the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. We've travelled a filthy urban river in Buenos Aires on a garbage barge, crossed the Andes in a taxi from Quito to reach the Ecuadorian oil town of Lago Agrio, and interviewed a wounded Andean aboriginal leader in a rectory in Lima, Peru. We've had a wonderful time. It's been an education, a privilege and an inspiration.”
Silver Donald's literary work includes plays, films, radio and TV scripts, an extensive body of corporate and governmental writing, hundreds of magazine articles and 18 books, including two novels. He has won awards in all these forms of writing. His non-fiction subjects include history, travel, literature, politics, nature and the environment, ships and the sea, and community development as well as education and public affairs. He has been a columnist for The Globe and Mail, and from 1998 to 2011 he wrote an influential weekly column for the Halifax Sunday Herald. His classic book on shorelines, The Living Beach (1998), was re-released in 2014, and Warrior Lawyers appeared in 2016. The Education of Everett Richardson, his 1977 book on the 1970-71 Nova Scotia fishermen's strike, was re-issued in 2019, and his true crime book, Blood in the Water, will be published in August, 2020.
Silver Donald Cameron has built his own cruising sailboat, cruised extensively on the east coast of Canada and as far south as the Bahamas, and restored four heritage homes in rural Nova Scotia. He has also been a professor or writer-in-residence at seven universities and Dean of Community Studies at Cape Breton University. He holds two honorary doctorates as well as a Ph.D., and in 2012 he was appointed to both the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia.
Dr. Cameron is married to Marjorie Simmins, also an award-winning writer. They divide their time between Nova Scotia and British Columbia.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 21, 2021
I really enjoyed this book. It was as much fun as Wind, Whales and Whiskey. The only detraction for me (hence the 4 stars, not 5) was all the ship terminology, especially the sails and rigging. The author has an entertaining way of describing his adventures, and includes a lot of history and stories about the politics and characters involved with Bluenose and Bluenose II. Note that the book is titled "Schooner: Bluenose and Bluenose II, The Dramatic Story of Canada's Two Great Sailing Ships." (Sadly Silver Donald Cameron died in June 2020.)
Displaying 1 of 1 review