Master’s Thesis
From the first instances of human inhabitation on the island of Newfoundland,
wooden boats have been crucial facilitators to life in
this beautifully rugged place. Today, wooden boats have long since given way to the pressures
of the industrial age, yet a select few people continue to practice this tradition of
boat building for both personal, practical, and heritage preservation reasons. Wooden boat building represents an act
of placemaking, intertwining the identity of communities with the place they come from.
Category
Architecture, Design
12-08-2024
University of WaterlooAcademic05
The traditional wooden fishing boats of Newfoundland and Labrador are repositories of cultural memory. An extension of the architectural traditions of the island, these boats are an act of placemaking, connecting the identity of boat builders and their communities to the landscape they come from. Today, these boats have been completely replaced with industrial fishing operations, and yet the craft lives on through a devoted few who continue to build boats as a way of holding on to this import piece of heritage. Through documenting individual boat types and their uniquely localized typologies,
as well as free-flowing interviews with those connected to the craft, wooden boats are revealed to be vessels for the stories and cultural memories that define Newfoundland.
Page Excerpts