What started as a way of utilizing washed-up buoys in Yarmouth Bar, Nova Scotia, led to Dave Bishara and his wife, Nancy, unexpectedly creating a tourist attraction that brings in visitors year-round, whether they are passing through the area, celebrating a graduation or getting in the Christmas spirit.
The Yarmouth buoy wall began three years ago when Bishara, a marine broker with TriNav Marine Brokerage, bought a piece of property in Yarmouth Bar. Included in the purchase of this property, which lies a short distance from the Cape Forchu lighthouse, was a substantial number of buoys, along with a wall of lobster traps. Alongside the ones already on his property, more and more were washing ashore all the time.
“My wife said, ‘Why don’t you hang some on those traps?’ and I said, ‘Oh, that looks trashy. It’s tacky.’ She said to just try it and see what happens.”
Bishara was willing to give it a shot and got to work cleaning, painting and hanging buoys along the lobster trap wall. What he didn’t expect was the attention his do-it-yourself project would bring.
“Even when there was like five feet of buoys, people were stopping and taking pictures of it,” said Bishara.
“As the months went by and as I started to fill up the wall, all of a sudden there’s cars lined up for weddings to take pictures of the wedding party. The next thing I know, there’s senior’s busses stopping, then there’s kids all lined up for graduation pictures. My wife and I are looking at each other and I said, ‘You know what? You have never been wrong.’”
Since the wall’s inception, it has garnered a reputation Bishara could never have predicted. The Yarmouth Buoy Wall has been featured in provincial brochures and tourist websites, and according to him, the wall has attracted travellers from all over the world. For these globetrotting visitors, the buoy wall isn’t just a sightseeing opportunity, it is an opportunity to learn about the long-lived and lucrative lobster fishery and the culture of Nova Scotia.
“There’s not a day that goes by that people with campers travelling from the United States, travelling from Ontario, Québec, B.C. — Everybody stops there, then I invite them to stop if they want to put their camper there… It just turned out to be a spot that people of all ages seem to just love,” said Bishara. “The buoy wall is what is on the brochure, that’s what brought them down, but when they come down they can also see how beautiful the harbour is and how beautiful the Bay of Fundy is behind the buoy wall… People from Indonesia, people from India are just taken by the atmosphere of that little stretch. My wife and I are often explaining the lobster fishery. We’re explaining the buoys, explaining the lobster cars that fishermen tow out because they’re right alongside the buoy wall.”
Aside from the buoy wall acting as a photo backdrop for wedding parties, graduations and tourists of all walks of life, the Bisharas help to ring in the holiday season by adorning the buoy wall with Christmas lights.
“My wife and I put Christmas lights all over the buoys. It’s almost like a sign for the fishermen. People across the harbour can see the lights,” said Bishara. “Then they go there at night, and they take pictures with the Christmas lights. We’re just having pure fun and enjoyment watching people just enjoy a simple thing — a bunch of buoys hanging on a pile of lobster traps.”
