The Bay of Islands Dory, recognized by its bright orange hull and green trim, is a regionally unique boat that has been adapted by generations of boat builders for use in the local…

“We use mostly plywood for the sides, and we use local plank from the building supplies. We used to cut years ago, go in the woods and get it ourselves, but we used to have a problem getting someone to saw it. Most all the mills were…

“When we was young, there was no outboard motors. everywhere you went, you rowed. I think the first outboard motor… Uncle Ben had one there, a five [horsepower]. And he used to tell ya to slow down, you’re going too fast.” Gordon’s father…

Aus fished for lobster with his brother Ben and Gordon Wheeler in an area on the west coast known as the Wild Shore. For the duration of the lobster season, they stay in camp and fished from Eel Hole, south of the Port-au-Port Peninsula…

Jack Lane was born in Englee, on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula, in 1934. As a boy, he remembered spending time with Gideon Lane as he built boats next door to their family home. “Most everybody in Englee built their own boats…”

Mike Sheehan was born in Benoit's Cove in the Bay of Islands in 1937. “I lived just up past where the church is at,” he explained, “Everyone had their houses close to the water in them time, eh? I spent all my evenings down here, there used to a store over there. There’s still a store there now…”

Sherwin Saunders was born in Main Brook, on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula, in 1950. Around the age of nine, he moved to St. Lunaire with his parents, Fred and Olive. “Dad used to fish summertime and he used to…”

Roy Dennis was born in 1932 in the community of John’s Beach, in the Bay of Islands on Newfoundland's west coast. Like his father Joseph, Roy grew up fishing for lobster, herring and cod. He built his first boat at age fourteen, using the skills he had learned from his grandfather…

Weather lore in coastal Newfoundland, has always been a valuable part of everyday life for fishermen eking out a living on the ocean. A determining factor for safe voyages, understanding the various indicators of weather was…

Born on Woods Island, Michael McCarthy, better known as Mick, is a carpenter, boat builder and fisherman. He was nearly a teenager when his family resettled to Benoit’s Cove in the 1960s, as part of the Government’s…

“I’ve been at it for... what? I’d say fifty years... longer than that… fifty-five years.” Born in 1947, Sam Sheppard was fifteen when he started fishing in the Bay of Islands and has spent his life on the water harvesting cod, lobster and other groundfish. Lobster has…

In the 1800s, many people visited both East Bay and North Bay to hunt, fish and cut timber. Beginning in the late 1800s, people started to settle in the area permanently, moving primarily from the community of West Point…

Each spring, Jack Casey of Conche would set out in his rodney and row twelve to fourteen miles to the Grey Islands in search of seals. "It was a long row,” he remembered. “The worst part was…”

When building boats, Jack Casey uses a set of moulds that once belonged to his grandfather, Michael Casey. When Michael Casey arrived in Conche in 1850, he made a set of moulds which he…

As is common practice in Newfoundland and Labrador, Jack Casey of Conche cut all his timber in the fall of the year. “We had a camp in there, about 8 miles… We’d walk in there and cut our timber and pile it up on…

Jack Casey built his last boat, a sixteen foot row punt, in 2009 at eighty-eight years old.  Used by Wally Skinner of Pasadena, she is twenty-seven inches deep and sixty inches wide at midships. “Boats used to be more narrow.” Jack notes, “When I started…”

John (Jack) Thomas Casey was born on July 2, 1922 in Conche, a small fishing community on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula. One of eight children born to Michael and Nora Casey, Jack started working in the lumber woods at only seven years old and…

Built in Pasadena in 2008, Max Pollard constructed this punt for his daughter with timber cut in his own backyard. Used at Old Man's Pond, Max made repairs in 2012 which included replacing a number…

"My father had a motor boat that we'd use for fishing, about 23' long," says Max. "We were using hand and line then - baited hooks," he adds. Max left school at the age of 12 to work with his father, fishing in the summer and logging in the winter…