Lunenburg

Lunenburg, town, seat of Lunenburg county, southeastern Nova Scotia, Canada, lying on Lunenburg Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, 57 mi (92 km) west-southwest of Halifax. The town site was once occupied by the Indian village of Malliggeak or Merliguesche (Milky Bay) and later by a French fishing community. In 1656 it was granted to Charles de Saint-Étienne de La Tour, governor of Acadia, by Oliver Cromwell, the lord protector of England, but there was no permanent settlement until Hanoverians from Lüneburg, Germany, and Swiss immigrants arrived in the early 1750s. During the American Revolution, Lunenburg was sacked by an American fleet from Boston.

Now an important fishing port, it was the home of the Bluenose, undefeated North Atlantic Fishing Fleet champion and winner of several international schooner races (1921–46); the Bluenose, which was lost on a reef off Haiti in 1946, is pictured on the obverse of the Canadian dime, and its trophies are displayed in the Lunenburg Fisheries Museum. Apart from fishing and fish processing, economic activities focus on shipbuilding (wooden trawlers, small boats, marine engines, sails) and market gardening. The Nova Scotia Fisheries Exhibition and Fishermen’s Reunion is held at Lunenburg each September.

Historic buildings include St. John’s Anglican Church (1754) and Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church (1776), with a bell that was taken from Fort Louisburg on Cape Breton Island in 1758. Old Town Lunenburg was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995. Inc. 1888. Pop. (2006) 2,317; (2011) 2,313.