The Pearl Mist, owned by the cruise line Pearl Seas, was carrying 200 passengers from the United States and Canada who were doing a Maritime and New England tour.
This is this company’s first visit to Pictou County. The area’s charm won them over at the last minute at a trade show and they decided to give the area a try.
“I went down to Miami and met face to face with cruise executives. This visit was built onto an itinerary that had already been built here a year and a half ago,” said Geralyn MacDonald of the Pictou County Cruise Committee. “They were supposed to stay two days in Charlottetown, but they saw Pictou and what we had to offer. They saw our promotional materials, they loved the area and the culture and we got a call a week after we returned from Miami that Pictou was added to the itinerary.”
These guests toured the Town of Pictou in the morning and about 150 people took part in scheduled tours at the Hector Heritage Quay and the Museum of Industry in Stellarton for the afternoon.
They returned to their ship at 4 p.m. with a special escort by a local pipe band.
“We have information we are handing out,” said Michelle Young, also a cruise ship committee member. “There is a passport booklet they can use to explore downtown area and have it stamped by businesses. At end of the day, they will drop it off and we do a draw before they set sail.”
A small crowd of people waited on the wharf in Pictou for the ship to dock and watched as passengers exited the boat for their day-long visit.
“It’s a good day,” said Pictou resident Pat Roach who videotaped the ship docking. He added he enjoyed the fiddle music that was welcoming the visitors as much as anyone else.
“This is a good day for the county and a good day for Pictou,” said Dewey MacDonald of Caribou.
This is the second time in two years a cruise ship has docked in Pictou. The Quest docked here in September 2012, carrying the same number of people who visited the area for a day.
MacDonald said the committee has gotten some positive feedback from both the visitors and the people in the county about that visit. She said it’s great to have 200 people visit the count at one time, but it also brings local people out to see the ship and maybe act as tourists themselves.
“This is a great day,” she said. “Business owners benefit from the people coming to watch. It's a beautiful scene.”
Brent Minshull of Carvers Coffeehouse echoed MacDonald’s comments by saying that he was busy in 2012 when the last cruise ship made a visit, but only about 30 per cent of the business came from the ship’s passengers.
He is expecting the same type of activity today and planned to take full advantage of it by having musicians and crafters set up at this café in order to attract some attention to his business.
“I am pumped for it,” he said. “It’s exposure for us because you get people that come from away to see the ship and they stay and start milling around.”
Minshull said the summer tourist season has been a strong one overall for his business with many tourists from the eastern United States visiting his coffee house.
Now that fall has arrived, he said, there are tourists from British Columbia and Europe coming through his doors.
He said he tries to give all his customers, including Friday’s visitors, a true Nova Scotia welcome so they will remember the place with fondness and hopefully return another day.
Cindy MacKinnon, executive director of Destination Eastern and Northumberland Shores, said such an event can have lasting effects on an area.
“From the residence perspective, it is that Pictou County is a place that people want to come to and that small ships are here because we are a stop,” she said. “It’s Pictou County, a place that we want to be. It shows the residents we do have a lot to offer in our own background that we do take for granted.”
A second cruise ship from Pearl Seas will visit the county on Oct. 25 with stops visits planned for the Farmers Market in New Glasgow and Museum of Industry.
MacDonald said two more visits have already been confirmed for May 2015.