Florida Waterways
“Fish Statues”
By Kevin McCarthy
CAPTIONS:
1. Urk in the Netherlands has a monument to fishermen and boaters.
2. A monument in Urk, Netherlands, showing a fisherman’s wife looking to the sea for her husband
3. Fish sculpture in Palatka, Florida
4. A memorial sculpture in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
5. The “Fishermen’s Monument” in Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia
6. “The Fishermen” in Russia
Kevin McCarthy, the author of Nova Scotia: An Illustrated Maritime History(available at amazon.com), can be reached at ceyhankevin@gmail.com.
Whenever I travel to places along rivers and seas, I look for any museums, statues, and sculptures devoted to fishing and fishermen. I am sometimes pleasantly surprised to see fish-related statues that show just how important fishing is to the local community. For example, the town of Urk in the Netherlands, has a long monument to the town’s fishing heritage. The impressive monument of boaters/fishermen heading out to sea, is a testament to the centuries of a reliance on fishing for the town’s economy.
A sculpture in the same town of Urk shows a fisherman’s wife looking out to sea for her husband. It represents the thousands of spouses waiting patiently for their partners to return from weeks or months at sea.
My favorite fish sculpture in Florida, is the one of a bass on the waterfront in Palatka, clearly indicating just how important fishing is to that community and others, along the St. Johns River. The sculpture shows a large bass under lily pads, which are prevalent up and down the river. The St. Johns is famous for the many fish, many of them trophy-sized, that have been caught for several thousand years by Native Americans and more modern anglers.
A memorial sculpture in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, in Canada consists of eight three-sided columns at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. Inscribed on those black granite columns are the names of mariners, mostly local fishermen, who lost their lives at sea from 1890 to the present. The central column has these words: “Dedicated to the memory of those who have gone down to the sea in ships and who have never returned and as a tribute to those who continue to occupy their business in the great waters.”
Another Nova Scotia monument to fishermen, is in Peggy’s Cove. In the 1980s, Finnish-born sculptor William de Garthe, who lived in the town, joined one of his students to carve from granite the 100-foot-long “Fishermen’s Monument.” It shows 32 fishermen with their wives and children, all protected by the wings of a guardian angel, engaging in the hard work of catching fish in the Atlantic. After the sculptor died in 1983, his funeral was held in the small town, and his ashes were placed inside the monument.
Finally, the sculpture entitled “The Fishermen” by American sculptor Rafael Consuegra, stands on the bank of Lake Onega in Petrozavodsk, Russia. The two fishermen can be seen hurling a net into the water. The metal net looks quite realistic. If any readers find other fish-related statues, let me know through the email address below.