To the editor:
The November leading story in your excellent newspaper (For Sale: A Way of Life) describes what’s sadly happening in Maine, but the same thing is true in Nova Scotia – so far to a lesser degree. However, I’m pleased to report I have recently sold my old Bluenose Boatyard to a young boatbuilder who is presently stabilizing the decrepit main building, so he can carry on.
I was advised by a real estate agent that he could sell the waterfront lot for ten times when I considered my fair selling price. If I had gone for the “top dollar,” the razed yard would have been replaced by another “monster” house, the last thing I wanted to see there.
Along with the Island Institute, I’m not only concerned with preserving working waterfronts, but also in preserving wild land. In 1954 I founded Friends of Nature to keep McGlathery Island from being “pulped,” and it became the first of our several wilderness sanctuaries. In 1967 our family moved to Nova Scotia so our teenaged sons could avoid the Vietnam war, and our land in Brooksville is protected with a “forever wild” easement with the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. It was rewarding to be able to buy a wooden boatbuilding yard here and to carry on this craft industry for several decades.
Martin Rudy Haase
Chester, Nova Scotia