Lunenburg Winter 2015

We didn’t have a white Christmas here at Lunenburg, but we’ve seen nothing but the white stuff since the New Year.

The Back Harbour is usually frozen over in the winter, but it seems even more so this year, with the covering of snow on top of the ice.

It’s difficult to see what is land and what is sea, although you can clearly see the ocean in the background.

The Polar Prince icebreaker, sits in the ice.

I have never seen the front harbour frozen like this, since we came here in 2007!

It doesn’t look as if the lobster boats are going to get to their traps any time soon.

The snow around the town is loaded onto lorries and cleared away, but there are still some big heaps.

Even more snow is heaped at the roadside at St. John’s Church.

Hanging icicles look very pretty.

Today is another snowy, stormy day, with several more snow days forecast for this week. I really love winter and snow, but it’s so cold that there’s not much we can do outside. It’s even too cold to go skiing!

A New School for Lunenburg

We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us..

This was what Winston Churchill said after the House of Commons was demolished in one of the last raids of the London blitz.

In March 2011, I wrote a Post about the Lunenburg Academy and mentioned that a new school was to be built in Lunenburg.

The new Bluenose Academy will take the pupils from Lunenburg Academy, Lunenburg High School, Centre Consolidated School and Riverport Elementary School.

Last Fall work began on the demolition of Lunenburg High School to clear the new site for the Academy. Everything was taken away from the site by truck, apart from heaps of rubble which were used in the new foundations.

During the winter work began on the new steel structure.  The old Academy watched the progress as the building began to take shape.

It wasn’t too long before the insulation and cladding were  being added to the exterior

and new windows filled the gaping holes.

A large part of the exterior shell is metal sheeting.

Black, white and red are used, just as in the old Academy.

Solar panels generate heat for hot water and the school will be heated by a wood pellet boiler

This building will have its critics. There will be those who attended the Academy, who feel that no new building can replace it. There will be those who were pupils at the High School, Centre School and Riverport School, who feel that these should have been kept.

I hope that this new building with a price tag of $18,000,000 will prove itself a worthy new establishment for the 21st Century and will shape the lives of its pupils.

Lunenburg Academy

The Lunenburg Academy was built between 1894-1895, after the old Academy building was destroyed by fire in 1893. It is two storeys high, with a third storey in the mansard roof. Its architecture was obviously influenced by the German settlers to Lunenburg.

The building was constructed of wood and the black and white paintwork, as well as its position on a hill overlooking the town, makes it visible from all around.

The building has many decorative features. Both the front and rear have large projecting sections, flanked by towers. There are large dormer windows in the roof on each side of the towers.

The  building has 4 towers, one of them being a bell tower.

The ‘gingerbread’ decoration above doors and windows is very typical of the Victorian buildings in the town and the red shingle on the roof, help to make this a very recognisable and unique building.

At night this building is even more visible from afar. In 1984, Lunenburg Academy was designated a Provincial Heritage property.

The future of this building is unknown at the moment. The construction of a new Academy, to take the place of both Lunenburg Academy and Lunenburg High school has just begun. All the pupils from the old Academy will move to the new, modern, designed-for-the future school.