{"id":675277,"date":"2026-05-17T10:01:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T10:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/675277\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T10:01:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T10:01:26","slug":"brier-island-museum-to-honour-renowned-n-s-sailors-roots-and-spirit-of-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/675277\/","title":{"rendered":"Brier Island museum to honour renowned N.S. sailor’s roots and ‘spirit of adventure’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

The legacy of a Nova Scotia seaman who became the first person to sail alone around the world is being revitalized by a group of residents on the tiny island where he grew up, more than a century after his historic feat.<\/p>\n

Joshua Slocum’s formative years were spent on Brier Island off Digby Neck, N.S., where his father worked as a cobbler. In the late 1800s, Slocum circumnavigated the world on an 11-metre gaff-rigged oyster sloop named Spray, a three-year experience he recounted in his book, Sailing Alone Around the World.<\/p>\n

Kristina Inrig, a founding board member of the Joshua Slocum Society, recently told CBC Radio’s Information Morning Nova Scotia<\/a> that she and her family were inspired by Slocum’s tale to move to Brier Island from Ontario.<\/p>\n

“His spirit of adventure is what really captivates me,” said Inrig, whose family embarked on a 10-month sailing trip in 2017.<\/p>\n

“I’m a traveller, I’m an adventurer myself. And so this story of someone setting out on a 36-foot boat, which is about the same size as our sailboat, and then travelling around the world solo … was just a captivating story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AThe Inrig family set out in 2017 on a 10-month sailing voyage. (Kristina Inrig)<\/p>\n

In February, the Joshua Slocum Society acquired the building that once housed the Slocum boot shop in the village of Westport on Brier Island.<\/p>\n

The building, which served as a fish house for decades on Water Street, will be restored and turned into a museum modelled after a 19th-century cobbler shop, just like it would have been when Slocum was a boy.<\/p>\n

\"AJoshua Slocum aboard the sailboat Spray. (New Bedford Whaling Museum)<\/p>\n

To complete the transformation, Inrig has been collecting antiques to fill the museum from all over Canada and the United States.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just figured, well, why do this halfway? Let’s collect all these amazing things, let’s make the boot shop exciting,” she said. “So I’ve been trying to collect a bit of a story of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

These items include a cobbler’s bench from Ottawa, a model of Slocum’s boat Spray from South Carolina, and an original letter written by Slocum from Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a journey to go solo and travel with a U-Haul across Canada. Not quite Joshua Slocum standards, but that was fun,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\"PictureInrig holds up an original letter written by Joshua Slocum that will be on display on Brier Island. (Kristina Inrig)<\/p>\n

The Slocum Boot Shop is set to open on June 27 \u2014 exactly 128 years after Slocum completed his world voyage on June 27, 1898, in Newport, R.I.<\/p>\n

Slocum was declared dead in 1924, having gone missing after setting out from Massachusetts on Spray some 15 years earlier. Spray was never recovered.<\/p>\n

MORE TOP STORIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-675277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}