Traveling with the Stampers: Le Village Historique Acadien

This afternoon we drove to West Pubnico and Lower West Pubnico. This is the Saint Pierre Cathedral where they were having a quilt show.

This is the entrance to the Visitor Reception and Administration Center with the statue of Sieur Philippe Mius d’Entremont who was the founder of Pubnico.

This is the chicken coop on the left and Archande d’Entremont Shed built in the late 1800s on the right. The shed was originally used to prepare fish and then was later moved and used as a workshop. The outhouse was added later.

This is the Amphitheatre that was added in 2004 as a place to share the colorful history of the Acadians and their unique dances, music and stories. There were some gentlemen playing music while we were there.

This is the Charles Duon House that was built in 1832. It was later separated into two dwellings and the slope of the roof was raised and a gable added. If I recall accurately, there were 7-9 children in one family and 12 in the other. There was basically two bedrooms down stairs on each side and a huge loft upstairs. This house was lived in until 1998.

This is the Ruben Trefry Blacksmith Shop that was built in the late 1800s. The blacksmith was not in today.

This is the Maximin d’Etremont House that was built in 1856. Note that there is little or no overhang, an architectural trait common to many Acadian houses in Southwestern Nova Scotia.

This is one of the small bedrooms.

This was the dining room/kitchen.

This was the hearth and stove.

This is the water pump in the pantry.

The fireplace on the right in the bedroom shared a chimney with the hearth in the kitchen.

This is the interior of the boat shop that is a reproduction of an early 20th century boat shop. It was built in 2004. The boat builders just recently completed the blue boat and it had its maiden voyage.

The young man in the boat shop showed us how the old engines ran.

This is the fisherman’s shed.

This lobster fisherman was making bait bags using what looked like a large tatting needle.

They had some very large lobster claws on the wall. There was no history attached to this one.

But these claws belonged to a 17# lobster that died before he could be sold.

Note the white plug at the bottom of the moveable pincher. That is a wooden plug that was used to keep the lobster from pinching you prior to the use of rubber bands around the claws.

This floating dock was built of very large logs and rough hewn planks .

These are salt haystacks. The farmers would hand reap the hay in the marshes and then pile it on these elevated stands until winter when the marshes would freeze and the oxen could get down to the stacks to bring the hay up.