McLean's Shipyard

McLean's Shipyard in Seal Cove is the last major yard operating on the North Coast. Although wooden boats haven't been built there since the 1960s, it is still an active yard where all types of vessels are taken up on the ways for repair and maintenance. McLean's has always been a family operation. Four generations of McLeans have worked in the yards.

Norman Murdock McLean, the founder, came from a large Prince Edward Island family of boat builders. He was 16 when he came to Prince Rupert in 1910. He built a number of houses in the growing town. During World War I he began a boat building shop in Cow Bay. Unlike other shipwrights who worked in the tidal part of the bay, inside the railway bridge, McLean chose a site in outer Cow Bay. Today it is the property next to Smiles Cafe.

From the beginning his yard was busy. In June, 1918, nine men were at work on the third 40' boat of the season, with many more to build that year. Expansion of the facility seemed almost constant. In December, 1921, he extended his dock to provide winter berthing space, and the following February he added to the yards. In October, 1923, new slips and a new shed were built.

There was no marine project that McLean's didn't undertake if there was a need. For instance in 1922, the shop built three rowboats for the Marine Department, precursor to the Coast Guard, as well as a pleasure boat for one of the Marine Department's skippers, Capt. Saunders. The same year McLean's constructed a new float for the nearby Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club. This on top of new fishing boats and many repairs.

They talked for years about the time in 1927 when McLeans built four boats all in a row. They finished three seiners, the first Qitonsta, the Sidney W. and the Canadian Girl. A fellow came along and liked the looks of them and ordered one along the same lines. The only trouble was, fishing opened in two weeks, and McLean didn't have any wood on hand. Never mind, said the fellow, use what you've got. Two weeks later the Florence G. was launched, built from left-over lumber.

McLean's principal competition during the 1920s was the Prince Rupert Drydock. In 1927, he underbid the drydock on a rebuilding job that had many along the waterfront wondering if he had made a big mistake, as Waterfront Whiffs reported:

'The McLean yard has been awarded, in competition with the drydock, the only other tenderer, the contract for the rebuilding of the forestry patrol boat, Alpine Fir, recently damaged by an explosion on board at Butedale. Judging by the look of the Alpine Fir, which had her upper works almost completely blown off and which will also have to have her hull gone over pretty carefully, it may be estimated that, if Mac bid below a couple of thousand iron men, he stands to lose a few quid on the job. The vessel was towed from the drydock to the Cow Bay floats by Capt. Jack Cook, with the Joy Bird, on Wednesday, and will be taken into the shop as soon as one of the new seine boats for the Gosse Packing Co., nearing completion there, gets out of the way.' (Prince Rupert Daily News, April 16, 1927.)

The seine boat mentioned above was one of two that McLean's built that year for Gosse Packing, in addition to a 48' seiner for Langara Fishing Company out of Masset. But the company had outgrown the Cow Bay facility and needed more room. They also needed air, as Charlie Currie pointed out:

'McLean's was between Smile's and Love Electric. McLean had a grid there; you could put a boat in, but there was no air or nothin'. The air didn't dry good in there. You could repair something, but you couldn't get any painting done. It must have been hard on McLean, too, because he built some big boats there. Built a lot of boats there.' (Charlie's Tugboat Tales, p. 22)

In 1927 Norman McLean won two battles against the CNR. Not only did he win the bid for the Alpine Fir contract, but he broke the railway company's stranglehold on the waterfront. It had been no secret that he had been planning on investing in a new venture for some time. 'Mac is raising all the money he can lay his hands on these days,' reported Waterfront Whiffs on July 17, 1926, 'and next week an interesting announcement regarding his future activities may be expected.' However, it would be another nine months before McLean was able to announce that he had successfully negotiated a waterfront lease for a new shipyard to be located at Seal Cove. Finally, there would be room for a large shed, a machine shop and dock, a new home for his family. Ground was broken on the new site in July, and the Cow Bay shop was closed and dismantled, its lumber used in the new construction.

'By the time that N. M. McLean has complete plans for his new boatbuilding establishment at Seal Cove, an investment of something approaching $35,000 will have been sunk in the project - a splendid tribute to the builder's enterprise and indication of his faith in the future of the industry at Prince Rupert.

'With the big 126 by 152 foot shed rapidly being reared into the air, an imposing spectacle on that section of the local waterfront, and a handsome residence built and occupied nearby, Mac is now planning the installation of a commodious and modern machine shop as an adjunct thereto. The plant as it now stands, with its appendages, is costing him some $25,000 and the machine shop will involve another $8,000 or so.'

'The big shed will be completed in about two weeks' time and there will be immediately started therein a full program of winter work with many repair jobs lined up. It is also probably that Mac may close before long on some substantial new boatbuilding jobs.' (Prince Rupert Daily News, October 22, 1927)

The yard managed to hold its own during the 1930s. Although the spring was busy as boats got ready for fishing, summers were usually quiet. There was only one ways, and competition with the drydock took away much of the quick repair business. However, during World War II things became very busy through the year. Often they hired airmen from the nearby Seal Cove Airforce base.

'When the war broke out Grandpa [Norman] McLean was running the shipyard and the navy came along and they were going to take over part of his land. No way he was going to. And he stood outside that shipyard for two days with a gun and he wouldn't let them touch his soil. And then they got a court order and in the name of the Queen he had to ... They were just going to walk in and take over.' (Thelma McLean interview, North Pacific Archives, ca. 1981)

When Norman died in 1944, his son Wilfred took over until his death in 1966. Another son, Bill ran it for only two years until he, too died. Since 1969, Wilfred's son, Ken, has run the shipyard.

McLeans has always been what Thelma McLean called a family shop. 'Workers are part of the family, she recalled. 'If anybody was sick every body was concerned not just one person. When Wilfred was alive, it was his family.' (Thelma McLean interview.) The crew usually ate lunch at the McLean home beside the yards.

Many skilled people have worked at McLeans, and most stayed for many years. Before World War II, Norman hired many local Seal Cove men, and also several Japanese shipwrights, including Mr. Matsumoto Sr. One well-known employee was Albert Dalzell, who started at McLean's in the fall of 1938 and retired in May, 1981. He recalled how he started out working there in an interview with Jean Rysstad:

'Those were tough times. Dad and I had a back east dory and we were working out in the open at Seal Cove attempting to put an engine in her. Old man (Norman) McLean used to walk by us every day to get his Prince of Wales chewing tobacco and he'd stop to talk. One day he asked how would I like to come to work. Well, I jumped at the chance... In the war, there was all kinds of work from the American Army Transport. They had camps across the bay. Some work form the Gum Boot Navy and then, of course the fish boats.' (Albert Dalzell, in Rysstad, Westcoast Fisherman, May 1990.)

Another long-time member of the shipyard crew was Ken Dopson who had come to Prince Rupert to work in the drydock during the war.

"By the time I got to McLeans, Wilf's father had passed away two years previous. Wilf was pretty good to work for. He would tell me to go to a certain job and see what I could do with it and I'd size it up and go and tell him. And Wilf would say, 'Well, that's okay, but it could be done this way too.' And that would give me an idea and that was it... In the winter time it would be pretty good. No big rush. But during the fishing season, sometimes there’d be 10, 11 boats on the weekend and you'd feel the pressure to get these boats fixed and out fishing. Kenny'd give me a couple more men on a rush job and we'd get the boat out. Some fellows were really grateful." (Ken Dopson in Rysstad, Westcoast Fisherman, May 1990)

The last new boat was launched in 1966. The fishing industry has changed remarkably in the last decade, but McLean's Shipyard is still there ready to get the boats back out on the fishing grounds.

McLean's Shipyard Gallery

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