Lobster pound burns in New Edinburgh

A lobster pound in New Edinburgh, Digby County, burned to the ground last week.

The fire, which started on Thursday, Nov. 25, burned into the early-morning hours of Friday, Nov. 26.

No one was in the building at the time of the fire and no one was injured, said the RCMP. The cause of the fire was unknown.

According to Cpl. Chris Marshall of the RCMP, officers from the Meteghan detachment along with numerous area volunteer fire departments responded to the scene at about 10:10 p.m. and found the building engulfed in flames.

Because embers were flying across the road, nearby homes were evacuated.

Nil Doucet, the councillor responsible for the area that includes New Edinburgh in the Municipality de Clare, said that the pound had been out of operation due to an investigation by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

“The firemen did a good job getting the fire under control and not letting it spread to other houses,” said Doucet.

The scene was held by the RCMP overnight as an investigation began into the cause of the fire.

While the pound was not in operation now, it had been in the news a lot in the past year.

The pound had been the site of protests last year in October 2020 during the height of tensions over Sipekne'katik's moderate livelihood fishery in St. Mary's Bay.

The pound's owner, Eric Louis Thibault, also pleaded guilty last fall to making false statements to fisheries inspectors regarding $10,000 worth of lobster held there and was fined $20,000. Then the buyer's licence of his company, Bay of Fundy Finest, was terminated by the provincial fisheries minister.