I won’t pretend to understand what the fishermen in Saint Mary’s Bay are going through. I can’t. My experience on the water has always been for leisure, never for my livelihood. I grew up inland, in a province that was not surrounded by the ocean.
But this is my short message, and I keep it brief as I do not want to convey an un-even message. I’ve lived in Nova Scotia long enough now to watch tragedy grip this community. It tore at my emotions when I heard the news of Michael Doucette, a young fisherman lost out of Wedgeport in January of 2013. And one month later I was gripped to the news when the Miss Ally out of Shelburne County was lost. It gave me chills in the days following the loss to drive home and see porch lights left on as a symbol of hope. I could see and feel the sadness and loss in the face of every person in the community when the Miss Ally was found overturned with no survivors. The sense of community was never stronger than in these losses.
In the last ten years I’ve read more stories of loss at sea then I can count. And in the summer I recount them to tourists in an effort to share the story and, at times, the lesson – that the sea has it’s own code that must be respected. It’s 2020 and we’ve all had enough loss, enough stress and enough sadness. I do not want to see lives lost at sea this year. I do not want to see the evolving situation in Saint Mary’s Bay result in a loss of life. For our fishermen, there has been enough tragedy in the history of your industry. One visit to the Lost to the Sea Monument on Water Street will show you that.
Please don’t let it come to loss of life to bring your industry together. Let it come together in peace.
– Candice
