PORT GREVILLE, N.S. – Between 1812 and 1927, more than 700 ships were built around the shores of Port Greville.
In 1994, the Age of Sail Heritage Museum began to exhibit that rich shipbuilding history, and on Aug. 1, 2019, the museum celebrated its 25th anniversary.
“A lot of tourists are very surprised, and very happy, to see we have a museum here because they drive through all these little villages along the shore and there’s no shipping industry here anymore and they wonder why all the villages are here,” Oralee O’Byrne, curator at the Age of Sail Heritage Museum, said. “So, when they come into the museum they know why the villages are here and how busy it used to be and what the history of the area is.”
O’Byrne’s parents, Ross and Ohra Collins, were instrumental in getting the museum built.
“Our family history itself has shipbuilders and lumber workers and sea captains, and when my dad came back from Alberta he thought it was a shame that none of that history was here anymore and that nobody has done anything to preserve any of it.”
The Collins’ worked with local volunteers to change that oversight, and by 1992 the Port Greville Bay Ship Building Museum Society was incorporated.
“When we started, we raised money through bake sales and other fundraisers, and we had $894 in the bank,” Ohra Collins, who was on hand for the 25th-anniversary celebration, said.
Robert Parker Associates, the Halifax-based architecture firm that designed the museum, was commissioned to use an 1854 Methodist Church as an anchor for the museum.
Parker is currently in Arizona and was not able to attend the ceremony but sent a note expressing his surprise upon his first encounter with the church.
“When I was approached by the community to consider the possibilities of moving, restoring, and repurposing and early church into an eco-tourism museum, little did I realize the museum was to born out of the remains of a historic Methodist church which was nothing more than a pile of dismantled timbers, windows, and a partially intact steeple lying helter-skelter in a field two kilometres away,” Parker said. “I can still see the pile of wood that Norman Rafuse, president of Rafes Construction, took me to see. My thoughts were ‘Oh my God what have we gotten into’ but the inspiration expressed by the founders of the Port Greville Bay Ship Building Museum Society carried the day.”
Parker said he was continually inspired by the people of the community.
“I remember the dedication of the volunteers, the community dinners, the wisdom, the fortitude of the builder, the challenges we faced, and the people we became friends with over the years, including Ross and Ohra.”
Ross passed away in 2011.
“Although a humble person I know he would be proud of his daughter Oralee,” Parker added.
Robert Parker Associates received the Nova Scotia Lieutenant Governor’s medal for architecture for their design of the museum, and Parker said it was one of the most rewarding projects of his career.
“In reading of the museum’s accomplishments over the past quarter of a century, I know it is in solid hands and will continue to enrich the history of the Port Greville community for years to come. My congratulations to all the dedicated people who made this happen,” Parker said in closing.
Bill Casey, MP for Cumberland-Colchester, helped secure federal funding for the museum in the early 90s, and Ohra introduced him by saying he was instrumental helping bring Port Greville’s history to life.
“If I played a part in this I’m really proud to have played a part, but I take my hat off to Ross and Ohra and everybody else who played a part in this incredible part of our history,” Casey said, adding that he is ‘blown away’ every time he visits the museum because they continually add new artifacts to their collection.
“Imagine 100 years from now when people come here and see the things you captured. It would all be gone if you hadn’t collected it,” said Casey. “We have so much history here in Cumberland County and we really don’t talk about it enough.”