Bluenose: the Queen of the North Atlantic

Built in Nova Scotia in 1920-21, Bluenose was a fishing and racing schooner named after an 18th-century nickname for Nova Scotians. Comissioned after the 1920 racing defeat of Riverport’s Delawana to Gloucester’s Esperanto, Bluenose won the International Fisherman’s Cup with ease in her first set of races. The ship defended the title with significant success in the following years.

The ship was the pride of the province until she was wrecked on a coral reef off Île-à-Vache, Haiti, on January 28, 1946. She is among the most famous and favorite Canadian vessels, celebrated on Canadian stamps, on the Nova Scotia license plate, and by the Stan Rogers song of the same name. A replica, Bluenose II, was constructed in 1963 and rebuilt in 2013.