LUNENBURG COUNTY COUPLE THINKS THEY MAY HAVE THE BEST WORKPLACE IN THE WORLD.

BY STACEY COLWELL
Married couple Arthur Gardner and Sarah Allen fish commercially together off the Atlantic coast near Lunenburg. “There are beautiful sunrises and beautiful sunsets, the scenery is always changing and you see the most amazing things,” said Arthur Gardner, who fishes with his wife, Sarah Allen, off the . coast near Lunenburg.
“It’s heavenly out there. We call it a church. It’s hard to explain, but when you get the right sunrise it will almost take your breath away,” said Gardner on a chilling April morning as he sat on his dock in picturesque Second Peninsula.
“It’s also a calming place. You’re alone with your thoughts a lot and you can contemplate a lot of things about your life.” In fact, he doesn’t even consider fishing a job. “Some people get up and say, ‘I don’t want to go to work today.’ I never, ever feel that way … I’ve found something I love to do and I’ve made it work. Life is too short.”
Their days on the ocean include scenes that could rival anything you’ll see on the Discovery channel, from watching hundreds of tuna and dolphins chase herring around the boat to having gulls sit beside them and eat from their hands. “Every now and then you see a seagull you just know is not a bird,” said Allen, adding it sometimes feels like she’s looking at someone’s lost soul.
“‘I think, ‘You’re somebody coming to visit.’ It’s a spiritual thing, you can just kind of tell.” The couple thinks more people need to spend time in nature and disconnect from the world.
“Lunenburg County is great for that,” said Allen. “Here, you could go to the beach and be the only one there.” Gardner supplements his fishing income by working in forestry, and Allen said she took over the family auto repair business after walking away from a good, well-paying professional career because it worked better for her lifestyle.
“I wasn’t 100 percent happy doing what I did anymore, and I said, ‘You know what, I live in the most beautiful place in the world, I have a wonderful life partner, so why am I not happy?” She ultimately made the shift because it allowed her to spend more time with her husband and be closer to home. “I get to meet so many awesome people, even just going to the grocery store and knowing everyone,” said Allen.
“There’s such a nice sense of community here. I think that’s pretty special.”