The Mi’kmaq artisan who had a hand in building Lunenburg’s famous Bluenose
Mi’kmaq Elder Todd Labrador s great-grandfather constructed the schooner s mast hoops, an effort only now being recognized
May 14, 2021 Mi’kmaq Elder Labrador (right) and his daughter, Melissa, repair a traditional birchbark canoe at his home in Conquerall Bank, N.S.(Photograph by Darren Calabrese)
In 2017, Mi’kmaq Elder Todd Labrador came to Lunenburg to give a class on drum making at the invitation of Wilfred Moore, a retired Liberal senator who established the Bluenose II Preservation Trust.
Moore did not know then that one of Labrador’s ancestors had a hand in the construction of the pride of Lunenburg, the Bluenose, the Grand Banks schooner that brought enduring fame and pride to this fishing town on Nova Scotia’s south shore. He merely enjoyed watching the drum come together, marvelling as Labrador stretched wet skins over yellow cedar hoops he’d harvested and tied them with sinew