Saturday, June 30, 2012

Fisherman's memorial

above part of an 8 foot tall bronze statue of a fisherman that looks out over the gloucester harbor. its known as the fishermans memorial, but also named "man at the wheel". here you can see it in its entirety. apparently, its often confused with another iconic image; that of the gorton's fisherman, the logo of the company that sells fish sticks (also from gloucester), present on its packages since 1964... haha.
but no, this monument was placed in 1925, to commemorate "they that go down to the sea in ships" (taken from the bible), honoring 300 years of gloucester losing fishermen (thats quite a sad way to say it...). for example, in 1879, 249 fishermen and 29 vessels were lost during a terrible storm. and in 1991 6 fishermen died in a storm that formed the basis for the book, and later movie, "the perfect storm".

4 comments:

Kate said...

This is a very impressive statue, honoring a strong group of men.

biebkriebels said...

Nice photo, love the angle from below and the blue sky, sigh....

Jack said...

This is a familiar sight. I grew up 20 minutes from here.

Kay said...

My husband was a commercial fisherman. . .I'm so glad he was done with it before we met. A friend wrote a book about her experiences at sea and my husband co-starred in one of the scariest chapters, entitled "Waves of Fear." I'm glad they lived to tell the tale.