One day in the early summer of 1988, a crowd formed on the Lund dock to see the 11’6” 300+lb six- gilled mud shark that had been recently caught. Among the gawkers were Bill Smith and Claire Heffernan, who took a photo of it. Bill said, “we should have a newspaper here where we could put stuff like this”. Claire agreed, and the Lund News soon hit the stands. It was on 12 pages of 11”x14” newsprint, hand typed with headings in calligraphy. Besides the photo of the shark, there were articles from the Lund School, the Waterworks, and the Regional Board, to name just a few. There was an interview with Claire and her passionate exposé on fish farming, and there was a contest to name the paper. Bill was the editor. It was free.

 

The next issue came out in the Fall of 1988, sold for fifty cents, and had a name, “The Lund Barnacle”, with the assurance “(will grow on you)” written below. Dan Mooney had come up with over fifty names and Bill chose that one. Claire says she may still have that list somewhere. Dan won a $50 gift certificate from Percy’s fish plant which they redeemed in prawns.

 

For the next ten years, to the summer of 1998, twenty issues in all, Bill was the editor or a contributor, along with many others: Jo Suche, Donna Huber, the entire Keays family, Anne Cameron, Siobhan James, Gordon Ellison, and more. The Barnacle in those years was full of interesting controversy, fun, news and reviews. It had some great covers and artwork by Keith Matheson, good photos of locals and local scenes, and lots of consciousness-raising articles on our threatened environment. In the winter of 1991 it went to $1.00, and from that point on, it was 28 pages fat and rich with community.

 

In April 1999, Valerie Durnin took over the editorial reins. The paper stayed newsprint, but increased in size to 11”x17” and came out with twelve pages close to once a month up to the winter of 2000/01, fourteen issues in all. That time period led up to the millenium, and Val researched museum archives and did an historical chronology and excellent interviews with some of Lund’s elders, accompanied by great old photos. There were interviews with younger folks too, asking for a look into the future of Lund. Len Ryan, Cor Landman, and Val contributed great photos of our beautiful surroundings and of our villagers enjoying the many events of the day. This was also the period during which the Hotel was sold, completely renovated, and grandly reopened. The Lund School closed and reopened in another form. Lots of things to write about! Regular contributors included Camille Davidson, Ted Durnin, Suzan Roos, Donna Huber, Margaret Ducharme, and Saundra Olsen, with three dozen others too many to name here.

 

Valerie now says the challenges of her job : “...were greatly overshadowed by the wonderful stories about the endlessly interesting people of Lund, and the incredible things the small and lively community gets done.”

 

From time to time there were no Barnacles published because there were no volunteers willing to take it on.

 

In the spring of 2002, Suzan Roos and Rianne Matz became editors and the Barnacle came out in a new size, 81⁄2” x11”, photocopied at the Lund Community Centre on regular paper, sixteen pages, and sold for $2.00. Suzan and Rianne put out a year’s worth of issues, joined by Katrin Harry for the last issue. They had nice artwork (Rianne) and photos and contributions by three dozen Lundies during that time.

 

The next editor was Ann Snow, who began in July 2004 and published four issues a year, sixteen pages each, for the next six years, up to April 2010. Ann’s photography was particularly sharp and clear, and she added colour starting in 2008. The number of contributors during that time is about fifty. Ann also added quite a bit of filler from the internet in the form of spoofs, jokes, and cartoons.

 

Eve Stegenga took over in July of 2010 for the next eight issues to summer 2013. There were about twenty contributors over that time. This brings us up to 2014, when in January, Sandy Dunlop became editor with a dedicated staff of Martha Allen and Wendy Drummond. Others soon volunteered to join the staff, and a quarterly of considerable size has been published ever since. In order to research this article, we had to track down and read nearly all of these Barnacles. It was fascinating and truly humbling to see the community spirit alive and flourishing.

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In the words of Bill Smith, “Go Barnacle!”