Victoria Street

Victoria Street is in Parrsboro, NS, but it is an archetypal New England or Canadian maritime street. Yes, there are sprawling sea-captains’ houses, but there are also the strong, square houses of craftsmen and skilled sailors. I live in one such house myself. It’s not elaborate, but it’s beautifully and solidly built. After all, the men who built these houses also built the boats that sailed out into the North Atlantic. Lives depended on their workmanship.

(The banisters and handrails in these houses seem very short to the modern resident. That’s a clue to just how much taller we are than were our ancestors. Another is that almost all such houses, even very modest ones, have more than one staircase.)

Every maritime village in Maine had at least one white clapboard church with a high steeple. The North Atlantic is cold and stormy. If you were wresting your living from this sea or sending your husband and sons out to fish, you’d have a healthy relationship with God, too.