After writing 26 hour long episodes of a TV documentary series on shipwrecks, I still get seasick. My wife does too. So you can imagine the look on our faces on Saturday August 27th when my wife’s cousin, visiting Nova Scotia from Massachusetts, invited us for a sailing tour of Lunenburg Harbour.
We met cousin Tom and his wife Betsy in Lunenburg, as well as their traveling companions Al and Joyce from Minnesota. They fell in love with Lunenburg, a UNESCO designated heritage site. But who wouldn’t? Narrow streets with quaint shops, historic homes, and a waterfront that is chock-a-block with a seafaring history that fires the imagination. Lunenberg was once the fishing capital of Nova Scotia, and for most of its history a sanctuary for smugglers and rumrunners. It is still the home port of the famous Grand Banks fishing schooner and racing vessel - Bluenose.
Maybe it was all the seafaring talk that had Karen and I reluctantly agreeing to board that sailboat. And maybe we just didn’t want to disappoint vacationing guests. However it was, we descended from the wharf to the unsteady deck, and settled ourselves in the stern. The queasiness started almost immediately. I decided to take my mind away from the pitch and toss on the water by telling stories. Here’s one of them.

The ship Zero was under full sail when Nova Scotia fishermen boarded her. They found no crew, the beams hacked and sawed, and the bottom bored with auger holes.
A few weeks later in September 1865 there was drunken talk along the Halifax waterfront that linked the ship Zero with the word - piracy. Fingers pointed at the first mate, an ugly, chicken-breasted man named Douglas. Gossip soon chased rumour like a dog in heat. The authorities heard what was being said and with no further ado hauled Douglas into jail along with a black man named Henry Doucey. Doucey broke under questioning.
He told the authorities that from the moment they weighed anchor, Douglas had it in for Captain Benson. Douglas had included Henry Doucey, the cook, into his plot to take the ship. Together they entered the captain’s quarters when he was asleep, hit him with a belaying pin; then carried him on deck, sewed him into a piece of canvas, and threw him overboard.
As luck would have it, neither was a competent sailor. After failing to sail the ship, they tried to scuttle her.
Doucey’s confession got them convicted. They were both sentenced to hang, but at the last minute, Douglas received a conditional pardon. Some say the pardon was because Douglas was Protestant and Doucey a Catholic, but more than likely it was because Douglas was white and Doucey black.
Henry Doucey hanged on 24 January 1866. He had the unenviable distinction of being the last man hanged for piracy in Canada.
Eleven years later, Douglas died in the penitentiary on Halifax’s Northwest Arm. His body was turned over to the town surgeons for dissection. And until 1896, his vital organs were reserved at the Halifax Medical College, catalogued under the name – “Douglas the Bad”.
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After telling that story, I was feeling pretty good, no rolling stomach and swimming head. Then I looked up and realized - we were still tied at the wharf.