"Bluenose" (used book)

Bluenose

by Brian and Phil Backman

About the book

Used book. Hardcover. Dust jacket included. Like new.

In a land where heroes are few, an unlikely one emerged to assume nearly mythic status: a two-masted, 143-foot schooner named Bluenose. Born out of a desire to show the world that no one could build a ship like a Nova Scotian, Bluenose was the fastest fishing vessel on the coast during her twenty-five-year life. She gained the love and admiration no only of her home port, Lunenburg, and the Maritimes, but of Canadians everywhere. The story of Bluenose is the story of how a ship, crafted with pride, came to embody the hopes and dreams of a nation.

In 1960, Brian Backman, a newspaper reporter, and his father, Phil, helped begin the successful campaign to see the sleek lines of Bluenose again grace Lunenburg harbour. Their classic book, originally published in 1965, is the gripping tale of Bluenose’s rise, fall, and the birth of her successor, Bluenose II. Only people who knew and loved Bluenose, and the bygone age of sail, could tell a story so lovingly.

This handsome volume is resplendent with photographs of Bluenose under full sail, as well as the shops that challenged her for supremacy. Many are the work of W.R. MacAskill, one of the world’s greatest marine photographers. His thrilling studies of the last great schooners to ply Canada’s Maritime waters are a national treasure.

The special hardcover edition of Bluenose is meant not only for marine historians, but for anyone who wishes he or she could have stood on the deck of a schooner, watching the sails billow and the seas roll. Or, indeed, anyone who simply loves a good yarn.