Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada
Lunenburg is one of the most famous sites in Nova Scotia, its well-preserved buildings and harborside location often filling in for a place in New England that isn’t quite so cute anymore. It’s another place we somehow passed by on our rushed family trip in 1984 so I was sure to see it this time around.
Lunenburg is known for its architecture, mostly colorfully painted wooden commercial buildings and houses with virtually nothing modern, one of those places that time forgot because of economic stagnation only to be rediscovered in the age of mass tourism and interest in historical preservation. And its hilly streets that rise from its harbor are certainly pretty. But how does a cutesy little town get itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation? I mean, virtually any small town (except some in the USA) would love such a designation for tourism promotion purposes, and there are many good contenders around the world for the title that UNESCO is notoriously stingy in handing out.
Usually UNESCO’s designation involves being an “Outstanding example of…….
” And in Lunenburg’s case it is 18th century British colonial town planning, which means being built on a grid system with straight streets. Savannah, Georgia is given as a similar example with its regular grid pattern and numerous park squares. The process, though, seems to be highly political; a few days after I was in Lunenburg I heard on CBC radio about the 20 new sites inscribed in this year’s UNESCO meeting, one of which is in Canada, a site of aboriginal hunting grounds that the province of Manitoba spent $15 million lobbying to have designated. How do you spend $15 million lobbying to get a site designation other than with lots of bribes?
Lunenburg is also the home port for the Bluenose, Canada’s sailing tall ship that’s sometimes available for short tourist cruises. It was somewhere else the day I was there, though, so I had to content myself with the fisheries museum along the waterfront and a long stroll through town, a pretty place but not one with a huge number of attractions.
2025-05-23