Stories:

• Avon Spirit wins CED Award
• Avon Spirit boosts community
• Back to Hants

Avon Spirit Co-operative & Avon Heritage Society
Winner
Nova Scotia Community Economic Development Award for
Best New CED Project

Halifax...November 26, 1998

A group of history buffs and marine enthusiasts in Avondale, Hants County, are building the local economy as they build a ship.

The Avon Spirit is a 54-foot replica of a 19th century top-sail schooner and the dream of George Mounce, Hugh MacNeil, Judith Tamsett, and a dozen investors. They formed Avon Spirit Incorporated in 1995. Their goal was to build a wooden ship in the tradition of the Golden Age of Sail that made the area a prosperous ship building community in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Together with the Avon River Heritage Society which had already created a Museum dedicated to the area's shipbuilding history, they started the Avon Spirit Co-operative, a community economic development fund, in late 1996. By selling 2807 shares to 204 people, most of whom are local residents, the Co-operative raised $30,000 to invest in the ship building project. Hugh MacNeil, President of the Avon Spirit Cooperative explains: "The past, our history, is significant to Nova Scotians. A lot of good can happen when you remember and preserve."

The Avon Spirit shipyard is part of a complex which includes the Museum , a 18th century style restaurant and a gift shop. Visitors can watch the vessel's progress and converse with shipbuilders as they work, and then go next door to shop, eat and learn about the area's maritime heritage.

Approximately 8,000 visitors toured the site in the summer of 1998. Once the ship is completed, plans are to sell it and use the profits to build another ship, thus securing employment for local people, tourist revenue for the area, and ensuring that the tradition of wooden ship building continues on the Avon River.