The Age of Sail Heritage Centre (also known as the Age of Sail Heritage Museum) is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

and

heritage centre A heritage centre, center, or museum is a public facility – typically a museum, monument, visitor centre, or park – that is primarily dedicated to the presentation of historical and cultural information about a place and its people, and often ...

Port Greville, Nova Scotia Port Greville is a rural community in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Sc ...

, Canada. It focuses on the history of

Parrsboro Shore The Parrsboro Shore is an area of Cumberland County, Nova Scotia consisting of the shoreline communities west of the town of Parrsboro. The Parrsboro Shore is generally defined as stretching along the Bay of Fundy from the town of Parrsboro westwa ...

communities along the Minas Channel of the Bay of Fundy with an emphasis on the area's shipbuilding and lumbering heritage.

The Site

The Museum consists of a number of historic buildings moved to a central site on the banks of a scenic ravine beside the tidal Greville River. The main building is a former 1854 Methodist Church. In addition to the original building the site is home to a cafe/gift shop, the Port Greville Lighthouse, a boat shed, a blacksmith shop and a band saw shed. Several walking trails lead from the museum to historic and natural features along the river.

History

The heritage centre began with the Greville Bay Recreation and Development Group formed in 1981 to develop the Port Greville area. The group at first developed a picnic park on the old Red House Landing Site and worked on building and maintaining washrooms and a picnic area. In 1988 the chair of the group Ross Colins put forward the idea of a museum. In 1991, the Greville Bay Shipbuilding Museum Society was incorporated with the goal of protecting and preserving working heritage" with a "hands-on shipbuilding museum" focusing on the

's extensive lumbering and shipbuilding history. Age of Sail expansion

Later that same year the committee took on the task of clearing and cleaning the site and erected an information building. In 1992 the McLeod family donated a building, formerly the Cochrane Hall and originally a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

church built in 1854. It was dismantled and moved 2 kilometres to the site where it sat for a year as funding was raised. In 1993, reconstruction began. In 1994, the Age of Sail Heritage Centre Museum was opened to the public. After its first year the centre won a provincial architecture award for innovative design. An expansion is underway for 2011 to provide public events, research and conservation space. The museum is staffed chiefly by volunteers with community support. A curator as well as 2 or 3 students are hired per season. Items in the collections number over 2,000 with everything from period fashion, to hand tool, models and equipment as well as numerous photographs and archives. The museum is one of the attractions of the

Fundy Shore Ecotour The Fundy Shore Ecotour is a former scenic drive and network of tourist destinations in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia and encircles several sub-basins of the Bay of Fundy, which contains the highest tidal range on the planet. The Fundy Sh ...

."Age of Sail Heritage Centre", ''Fundy Shore Ecotour''

References

External links

*
"Age of Sails Heritage Centre" Museum Profile ''Virtual Museum of Canada''
{{authority control Museums established in 1994 Maritime museums in Nova Scotia Museums in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia 1994 establishments in Nova Scotia