A look back at things that made the news in 2023
A continued look at things that made the news in southwestern Nova Scotia in 2023.
BEACH ACCESSIBILITY CELEBRATED
Seaside accessibility was celebrated at the Stoney Island beach on Cape Sable Island on Aug. 25, 2023, with an official grand opening of the Municipality of Barrington's first accessible beach.
In 2022, the municipality installed mobility mats as part of a larger beach improvement project at the beach, which also included the addition of lifeguard services and the availability of an all-terrain wheelchair to borrow.
Additional accessibility improvements are planned for Stoney Island Beach in 2024 including extending the mobility mats and construction of a covered wheelchair-accessible platform.
‘JUST DECIMATED US’
It was shaping up to be a bumper crop for the District 33 Winery in Jordan Bay, until post-tropical storm Lee blew through Shelburne County on Sept. 16, 2023.
“The seas were rolling right in here. The wind gauge had gusts of 135 km an hour here. The fence posts started breaking,” said Duane Maclellan, who founded the District 33 winery with his wife Tami in
2019.
The storm struck just two weeks before the first harvest of the season. They lost five acres of grapes. The storm also struck just three weeks after District 33 winery celebrated the grand opening of its on-site tasting room, adjacent to their winery, where they craft red and white wines and ciders.
HOVERCRAFT PORT OF CALL
It's not every day that an 86-foot-long hovercraft makes a port of call.
The 55-tonne Penac arrived at the Lower East Pubnico wharf on June 20, 2023, for a three-day stopover to do some maintenance on the vessel and visit with friends.
The Penac was originally built in 1984 by the British
Hovercraft Corporation for use as a passenger vessel in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was sold in 1997 after a bridge eliminated the vessel's need. In 2004 the vessel was acquired by the Canadian Coast Guard and remained in service until 2017 in British Columbia.
Declared surplus, it was purchased by the Caraquet, New Brunswick-based company, North East Diving Construction. It is the only privately owned hovercraft of its size in North America.
MISS ALLY REMEMBERED
Feb. 17, 2023, marked the 10year anniversary of a tragedy that forever changed the lives of families and friends of five Shelburne County fishermen who were the crew of the Miss Ally.
Caught in a huge storm on
their way home from a halibut fishing trip, the crew ran into trouble about 120 kilometers southeast of Liverpool on Feb. 17, 2013.
Lost to the sea were captain Katlin Nickerson, 21, and crew members Joel Hopkins, 27, Steven Cole Nickerson,
28, Billy Jack Hatfield, 34, and Tyson Townsend, 25.
Since the tragedy, it has become a tradition in the Municipality of Barrington, and in particular Woods Harbour, for people to leave their porch lights on to light the way home for the lost crew of fishermen for a few days around Feb. 17. The beacon is also lit at the Seal Island Light Museum in memory of the crew.
RETURN VISIT OF GRATITUDE
Four of the 174 Sikh refugees who landed in Charlesville on July 12, 1987, were greeted by a community hall full of wellwishers when they visited Woods Harbour on Sept. 18, 2023.
Their arrival in Nova Scotia 36 years earlier made national headlines. In the dark of night, a foreign registered freighter had dumped 173 Asian men and one woman on the beach at Charlesville, Shelburne County.
Long-time community volunteer Rosalie Stoddard remembers the boat people landing. She looked after the kitchen as part of the Woods Harbour Fire Department's auxiliary to help feed the refugees before they were transported to Halifax.
Stoddard has kept in touch with the refugees. “The way they explained it to me their lives started when they landed in Charlesville.”
DIGBY SPLASH PARK PROJECT BREAKS GROUND
Construction began on a $500,000 splash park in the Vaughn VanTassell Memorial Park in Digby in November 2023.
With support from the community, local businesses, municipal governments and the provincial government, it took the Digby Splash Park Society just a little over two years to realize their vision to bring a splash pad to the Digby community.
The splash park will have a nautical theme and will open in the spring/summer of 2024.