Participants in our spring dory course have been working so hard, we figured it was time they got out of The Dory Shop and visited a few of our neighbours in the greater Lunenburg marine trades community. First, it was off to the beehive that is the Michele Stevens Sailloft in Second Peninsula.

Participants in The Dory Shop’s spring dory building course took a little field trip yesterday, down to Second Peninsula to visit another historic (but considerably less dusty) workplace – the Michele Stevens Sailloft. Located on the second storey of an unassuming little building at the very end of the road, this sailloft is filled with history – you can almost feel it as you walk across the workworn but always clean wooden floor – and so much skill. Michele is a fourth generation sailmaker whose business occupies the very loft established by her great grandfather Randolph when he moved across the bay from Tancook Island. Literally thousands of sails have been built here – from the largest working mainsail in the world today, for Nova Scotia’s own Bluenose II, to sails for our little dories.