Today the fishing boats troll slowly with the low rumbling sounds of the diesel engine. In the time of Wallace MacAskill, at the turn of the nineteenth century, the fishing boats would have been large two and three masted schooners. Theses boats would have stood tall in the water and moved quietly with only the whip of the sails in the winds and the shouts of the sailors aboard casting and drawing their nets. Wallace loved these tall ships from the time he was a child, had bought himself a small boat by the time he was eleven and taught himself to sail.
It was during this time that Wallace met a stranger. The man, with a curious accent and a large host of equipment including a large wooden box, draped in a black sheet. He immediately, took notice and befriended the man, who was a visiting New Yorker. The man explained to Wallace he was a photographer and soon recruited him as his assistant. Surely it was strange to see the early camera and the resulting images on the glass as even in the late 1800's cameras were not commonplace out on Cape Breton. Wallace assisted until the man returned to New York, and a short while later a package arrived, a gift to Wallace from the stranger. Inside laid his very first camera.
From that point forward MacAskill had two great passions, sailing and photographing. He photographed much of what he knew and eventually left for New York at the age of 17 to study. He returned from New York with a keen knowledge of photography and a strong influence from the photo secessionist movement. His images became some of the best known naval images of his time and he was recognized as one of Canada's finest. Still today his influence can be seen on the back of the dime, where his Bluenose image is still reproduced.
Here is a link to more about him: http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/macaskill/essay.asp?Language=English
Enjoy.
