By Darlene Rennehan, Contributor
The town of Shelburne, situated on the southwest tip of Nova Scotia, has seen many claims to fame since 1783 when the town was founded by the United Empire Loyalists.
Not only was it the fourth largest centre in North America at that time, next only to Boston, Philadelphia and New York, but it boasted the largest dory production centre of the world in the early 1900s. There was a total of seven dory shops spaced out along the historic waterfront.
Today, just one of these shops remains standing. It is the J. C. Williams Dory Shop, which closed its doors in 1971.
In 1983, Prince Charles and Lady Diana visited Shelburne and officially re-opened the building, now as a museum. It was the largest of all the dory shops, Lewis Robertson stated in his book, Shelburne and the Gloucestermen. Today, it remains as the only one of its kind in Nova Scotia.
The definition of a dory is simply a seaworthy rowboat with a flat bottom and flared sides. Dories are stackable like paper cups. During the salt banks fishing era, these boats, also called banks dories, were hoisted onto the schooner or mothership. The banks dories were taken to the Grand Banks and lowered over the side for the fishermen.
According to Robertson, Shelburne dories quickly became a favourite for Gloucester fishermen who would anchor in Shelburne for a couple days, replenish their dories and supplies before heading out to the Grand Banks.
Otto Kelland, in his book Dories and Dorymen, said news travelled quickly about the Shelburne dory. A true story spread of a man who owned two dories, one of them being a Shelburne dory. He had both dories filled with a thousand pounds of coal. The dories’ owner accused the man who filled the boats with coal of cheating him. You see, the Shelburne dory didn’t sink into the water like the other dory. The reply was that no one was cheated, but the fact spoke for itself that the Shelburne dory was better equipped to handle weight. Word spread like wildfire and the Shelburne dory became all the rage at that time.
According to Shelburne’s Museums by the Sea, the Shelburne dory was known for its strength, light weight and stability.
Unfortunately, as durable as they were, the dory was not invincible. Sure, they were reputed as a boat that saved lives and took on waves 20-feet high (as long as you headed into the wave bow first), but they soon gained the reputation of being disposable or throw away boats. This was largely due to the fact that the dory often smashed into the sides of the mothership when lifted from and lowered into the water.
If it was badly damaged and irreparable, Robertson said that the fishermen simply set the boat adrift. However, if it was reparable, the schooner sold it to the locals. They fixed it up and, in turn, sold it back to the schooner. That being said, the dory was in constant demand as a fishing boat. As well, it was used as a lifeboat on larger vessels until 1971, at which time the government banned dories as lifeboats in favour of inflatable ones.
There were two dory production centres in Nova Scotia. Along with Shelburne, the other was found in Lunenburg.
Lunenburg constructed its boat knees from a solid piece of oak tree, the trunk and the root. Very laboursome and time consuming. Shelburne made its knees from basically two straight pieces of oak wood which were fastened together with a metal clip, known as the dory clip. Two knees formed a frame for the boat and generally, five frames constituted the ribs of the boat.
Shelburne was able to manufacture two dories a day with Isaac Coffin Crowell’s dory clip invention in 1887. Because it simplified dory building, they were able to, as a result, sell the boats more cheaply. At $18 for a 12-foot handline dory, a fisherman would be content if it lasted two fishing seasons.
The J. C. Williams Dory Shop outlasted the other six dory shops, staying in business for 91 years, almost a century. It all began when this 22-year-old entrepreneur bought a 15-year-old building, initially a fishing warehouse and in 1880 opened his dory business. He hired seven men to build the dories and each man had a job to do, whether it was working on the knees, the stem, the transom, the bottom, or planking up the sides. It was basically an assembly line back then.
All the dory shops worked together as a team on at least one occasion. After World War I, Britain ordered 1,000 14-foot dories from the John Etherington shop just down the road. They needed to replenish the dories that were lost during the conflict. John Etherington felt unable to fill the order and so, all the dory shops chipped in and got the job done.
Today, the art of making the Shelburne dory is a dying profession. Despite that, the museum has a passionate dory builder named Ann Porier who built her first dory last year under the supervision of Milford Buchanan, who is a master dory builder. The apprenticeship was the way dory building was handed down through the years.
At the present time, the dory shop museum still stands and the visitors enjoy the feel and smell of this old building, letting their imaginations wander back to the salt bank fishing era and all the danger it entailed.
The original jig still exists upstairs, having shaped 50,000 dories since 1880. What a living testament this is to the history of just one shop’s dory making capabilities in this historic and well reputable town of Shelburne.
Darlene Rennehan is a second-year Heritage Interpreter at the Dory Shop Museum in Shelburne, Nova Scotia.
