Police are investigating after a lobster pound in southwestern Nova Scotia burned to the ground late last night.
RCMP spokesman Cpl. Chris Marshall said Friday there were no injuries reported and no one was in the plant on Riverside Road in New Edinburgh, N.S., when it caught fire.
The lobster pound was the scene of protests on Oct. 15, 2020, involving people upset at the launch of an Indigenous self-regulated lobster fishery that had opened outside the federally regulated fishing season.
Marshall says it’s too early to say whether the fire is suspicious.
During the protests last year, about 200 commercial fishers and community supporters damaged the New Edinburgh facility, where Mi’kmaq fishers had stored their catches.
Chief Mike Sack of the Sipekne’katik First Nation says in a news release that his band’s fishery isn’t associated with the New Edinburgh plant and says he was relieved to hear nobody was harmed.
A lobster pound in Middle West Pubnico, N.S., was destroyed in an overnight fire on Oct. 16, 2020, with one person being charged nine months later.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 26, 2021.