Winter work on the lakes
As the winter cold takes over and many activities hibernate, there was a time in our community's past when lakes echoed with the noise of horses, oxen, trucks and men hard at work cutting ice. For many this was welcomed seasonal work at what could be an economical quiet time.
Lilydale Lake, Spectacle Lakes and Westhaver Lake were the three key suppliers of ice for the fresh fishery of Lunenburg. At times, these lakes were the workplace for up to 60 men and 20 horse and oxen teams, plus trucks. Ice was cut in thick blocks of 15 to 19 inches
(38 to 48 cm). At the peak of the season, 500 tonnes of ice was cut daily and trucked to Lunenburg Sea Products, now the site of the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic.
Consumer preference for fresh fish versus salt fish was dominating market demand, and the Lunenburg fishery responded. In 1926, Lunenburg Sea Products opened its first icehouse. Estimated ice use for Lunenburg's fresh fishery was 8,500 tonnes per season.
During its years of operation, the icehouse of Lunenburg Sea Products was remodelled several times. The original two-and-a-halfstorey building was a large, open, windowless space with a dirt floor and hefty posts that supported the structure.
The thick icehouse walls were insulated with wood shavings and slanted inward to prevent the ice from sticking together.
The renovations of 1933 claimed to create the best equipped and most modern fish plant in existence. During 1946-48, two floors were added to increase storage capacity.
Today, visitors of the museum can see those slanted walls in the Marine Life Gallery. The same hefty posts are still doing their job of supporting the building, and if you look closely, you can see the marks of history. Men working in the icehouse would typically stick their icepicks in the posts rather than laying them down. Those old holes of the icepicks are a visible testament to the building's icy past life.
Hilda Russell is the curator of interpretation at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic.
The Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic & Bluenose II are proudly managed by the Lunenburg Marine Museum Society. For more information on the LMMS and to become a Dory Mate visit https:// fisheriesmuseum.novascotia.ca/ about-museum/dory-mates.