The winners of the shard contest: Elaine Furda, Alta Walker, Danielle Tobin, Sherry MacKenzie, Mark Debaie and Maureen Kennedy.
-by Beverley Phillips
Sea glass of all shapes and sizes were on display at the 2nd annual Sea Glass Festival in Inverness on Saturday, June 13th.
Twenty-one vendors and 400 people came through the doors of the Inverness County Centre for the Arts, sharing their love of sea glass.
Two guest speakers talked about their specialty work with their beach treasures. Meghan Landry, of Sea Glass Serenity, is a sea glass photographer who takes beautiful, creative photos of the colourful glass she finds. She shared her tips and tricks with festival attendees so they could capture images of their own pieces.
Michael Baran is a sea glass archaeologist. He grew up in Montreal, but now lives in Sydney, and he has countless stories to tell about what he has discovered in his 18 years combing beaches. He has an archaeology background, and when he moved to Cape Breton, he discovered he could use that background when he began finding all kinds of treasures on the beach and in the ground. Some of it he makes into art and jewellery that he sells at his shop near the Big Fiddle in Sydney.
But not all things he finds on a beach are, needless to say, good for making into jewellery. “One October, a sea lion washed up on the beach,” he said. “It got eaten by a shark. I find this a lot as a professional beachcomber. Sharks take one bite out of something, and then they decide that they don’t want to eat it. One year, I found an entire horse on the beach. One year, I found an alligator’s skeletal remains. And then the next day it was gone. One year, I found a station wagon on the beach, and then it was gone the next day, as well. So you always got to keep looking.”
As the day wrapped up, the winners of the shard contest were revealed. Best blue went to Elaine Furda from New Jersey with her one-inch blue cube. She came up to Inverness just to attend the festival. The Ravishing Red award went to Alanna Campbell, a lifelong sea glass hunter. Her red piece was likely once part of a lighthouse. Best Marble award went to Alta Walker from Alder Point, who found a King Kong marble, which is just a reference to its large size, on Indian Beach in North Sydney.
Best Ceramic went to Danielle Tobin of Sydney Mines and a frozen Charlotte doll head she found on Indian Beach. The Awesome tiny find award went to Sherry MacKenzie and a red button that she found on Dominion Beach. The most unique find went to Mark Debaie, who found a flint rock on Inverness Beach. The Best in Show award went to Maureen Kennedy of Glace Bay with a purple iridescent piece of carnival glass, which likely came from the 1930s.
Festival organizer Beth Ryan said that even though it was a bad day weather-wise, it was a successful event, and there will be a third festival next year – lots of time to find that prize-winning piece for next year.