Nova Scotia Lobster Fishing Dispute: My Day 3

On October 24, 2020 by jmweb

The first thing you hear is sirens. Is it the fire department? Ambulance? Police? You are a bit drowsy since you are waking up in the middle of the night. It is the fire department driving by with their sirens on. You hear one, two, three go by.

At this point, I was kinda awake. I said time to get up and follow the fire department. After all, it was only 2 nights prior that the West Pubnico lobster facility burnt down.

Outta bed I crawled, eyes still half closed but awake. Put my shoes on and jump into the SUV. Off I went, chasing the fire department for what felt like a while. Twists and turns coming up on the road, fire department just barely in sight. Eventually, they turn and slow down. Bingo, you are no longer just barely seeing them. Trying to stay back a distance, I pull into a parking lot, well out of the way.

I bring up Google Maps to have a better understanding of my surroundings. Turns out, they are at a river pumping water. The real fire as it turns out, was down the street a couple kilometres. I slowly make my way down the street, parking about a kilometre away on a side street. I make my way up closer to the fire on foot, bringing myself to within 400 meters of the firetrucks on the opposite side near the ditch. There was little movement except for a couple walking in my direction.

The couple walking informs me it was just a small fire and that it was not uncommon for fires from this family. Alrighty I thought.

The Barrington Volunteer Fire Department attend to a fire on the River Road in Barrington, Nova Scotia October 19, 2020.

I snap a few more photos, return to my motel room and quickly edit them and send them off. Any relevant fires & the army (there were rumours) were the highlights I was to capture. Not knowing if this fire was related, I wanted to make sure I had it, just in case.

Back to sleep I went.

I wake up in the morning, thinking, today is the day I am heading home. Before I was to go, I wanted some photos of the fisherman’s protest which was to take place at 630am. I figured it might be helpful at a later date if the photos are needed and since I was in Barrington Passage (after some changing in direction), I figured I may as well get some. So I did. I posted them to Twitter. Shortly thereafter I was sending them off to The Canadian Press, as they wanted the full-res pictures. As I was doing this, Global TV called asking about usage. I informed them The CP just requested them and since they subscribe to The CP, they could get them that way.

Just as I hit “send” to The CP, I got a text message from Reuters asking if I could cover the dispute. There was a press conference planned in Ottawa on the fishing dispute so some more content from would be useful. Off I went, back to Saulnierville.

At Saulnierville Harbour, a press conference was set to take place in the afternoon. After waiting an hour at the gate the EMO officer came up. CTV & CBC were there alongside me. The EMO officer asked who I was with and I informed him Reuters. His response was, who is Reuters? I delayed in answering since I knew the other 2 would be able to vouch for who Reuters is. One of them chimed in explaining who Reuters is. This was no longer just a local story and thanks to CBC NS, he explained exactly who Reuters is.

Charlottetown City Police officer speaks with a motorist. Notice the plates of the RCMP vehicle on right: PEI. All police officers here were from the Island.

On this day, it became more clear that some folks from Prince Edward Island were having a direct impact on the front lines of this. There were Island plates on multiple RCMP vehicles along with some familiar Island patches for the Charlottetown City Police & Summerside Police.