Lunenburg by the Sea

The sale of National Sea Products’ High Liner Foods fleet to Clearwater Seafoods (Halifax) was announced on 29 April 2003. In a background newspaper article (The Chronicle Herald 1 May 2003), Ralph Getson outlined the history of National Sea in Lunenburg. W.C. Smith and Co. began in 1889, when fishermen were still drying their catches on the hills overlooking Lunenburg Harbour. W.C. Smith and Co. became Lunenburg Sea Products in the 1920s; National Sea Products took over the company in the 1940s and opened a state-of-the-art processing plant at Battery Point in the 1960s. While the plant remains operational, the fleet has now gone - and with it, salaries worth $4 million in the community. Mayor Laurence Mawhinney commented that the sale of the fleet will have “a big ripple effect on a small community like Lunenburg...It is the end of an era...”

Date: 1964

Reference: Nova Scotia Archives Photo Collection: Places: Lunenburg: Industries: Lunenburg Sea Products