Boatbuilders of the North Coast

This list includes many boatbuilders known to have worked in Prince Rupert and the surrounding communities of the North Coast. It isn't intended to be a complete list. The author would be interested in obtaining further information about these builders as well as any who may have been omitted.

Allaire, Bill

Prince Rupert
With Howard Walker, operated Kaien Industries in Cow Bay from the 1940s to 1960s.

Anderson, Axel

Salt Lakes
Across the harbour from Prince Rupert, Axel Anderson had a boatshed and built at least three boats. One was the troller Arne A., built in 1948 and presently owned by Norman Ostrom of Prince Rupert.

Anderson, Mike

Skiakl Bay
Mike Anderson was a fisherman who lived alone on the west coast of Stephens Island. In the 1940s or 50s, he built a boatshed and sawmill to cut his own lumber. He built a double-ender, called the Dandy (perhaps Dandee).

Clifton, Robert

Hartley Bay
Bob Clifton was a boat builder in Hartley Bay before World War II. One of the boats he built was the Violet C.

Crawley, Tony

He was a partner in the Cow Bay Boatyards with Didrickson. They had Matsumotos' old shop. Between 1944 and 1954 they built at least 15 boats in Cow Bay, including Bert Sheppard's halibut boat Primrose and Ole Rysstad's Pacific Troller, both in 1947.

Dudoward, Fred

Fred Dudoward was a Tsimshian boatbuilder from Lax Kwalaams. He had a boat shop and house on Inverness Passage, between Inverness and North Pacific canneries. He built at least one boat there.

Group, John

Oona River
In the 30 years he lived in Oona River, John Group built close to 90 wooden trollers and gillnetters. Many of those were for Skeena River salmon canneries. After emigrating to Canada from Sweden, he came to the north coast to fish. Though he wasn't a trained shipwright, he decided he could build himself a better boat. His first boathouse was upriver. There he built 30 boats. Nine were 24 foot sailing gillnetters for Inverness Cannery. Six were 30' cannery boats, probably for Nelson Brothers Fisheries. Others were individual gillnetters and trollers built of red and yellow cedar from Hadland's mill. Around 1940, he had his own saw mill, and a larger boathouse beside it. There he built 9 sailing gillnetters and 30 power gillnetters, again for Inverness cannery, and probably a dozen individual boats. After more than 30 years in Oona River, he returned to Sweden in 1959.

Hankawa Brothers

North Pacific Cannery
The two brothers had a boat shed at the east end of North Pacific Cannery where they built cannery boats in the late 1930s and early 1940s. When they were interned in 1942, their shed was sold.

Hanson Brothers (Axel Hanson, Ivar Hanson)

Oona River
Axel Hanson and his brother Ivar built their shed in 1947. The first boat to be launched was the Blaze, a 47.5 foot troller. In 1955, the longliner and packer Oona R (later renamed Ocean Blue) was built for Red Pierce. Axel launched the Jan Michele for his own use in 1965. He used the same frames for his next boat, the Equinox, but modified the planked stern of the Jan Michelle to a stave type, planked with yellow cedar.

Huramatsu, I.

Haysport
Listed as a boatbuilder at Haysport in the 1936 British Columbia directory.

Iverson, Krist

Oona River
Soon after his arrival in Oona River in 1925, Krist Iverson built the King in a small shed with hand-sawn lumber that he and Erik Enrew had whipsawed from behind the house. Later he built a larger boathouse where in 1936 he built the Silverado for himself. He also built the Frolic for his son Norman, Rehab (1944) and Spar (1948), as well as a number of rowboats.

Iverson, Norman

Oona River, Dodge Cove
Norman Iverson has worked all his life in the fishing industry. He learned boatbuilding in Oona River from his father Krist Iverson and from John Group. He has his own boatshed in Dodge Cove where he built the Alpha Bay in 1979. See the interview with Norman Iverson.

Johnson, Ed

Oona River
More commonly known as 'Oona River Johnson', he was one of the founding settlers of that community. He built a 37 foot fishing boat called Moose, probably because at that time this was considered a large fishing boat.

Johnson, Hugo

Prince Rupert
Originally from Sweden, He began in Hays Creek and moved to Cow Bay in 1911. Built the Lakanian, a survey boat, and the Kit-exchen, a tunnel boat for Wiggs O'Neill.

Kadowaki, K.

Port Essington

Listed as a boatbuilder at Port Essington in the 1936 British Columbia directory.

Kohrt, Harry K.

Prince Rupert
b. ca 1875, d 1932
Originally from Germany, Harry Kohrt came to Prince Rupert about 1909. He lived and worked in the part of Cow Bay known as the Bone Yard. He fished with a series of six different trollers that he built himself. The first five were all named Just It and the last was Bonita. Other boats he built included the Shawatlans. He took ill on the trolling grounds around Langara Island, went into hospital in Prince Rupert where he died ten months later.

Laurusson, Johannes (Joe)

Osland
By 1920 the newspapers were calling him a well-known boatbuilder. He built the Iceland, the first gasoline powered boat to be built at Osland, in 1920 and completed in April, 1920.

Leask, Alvin

Sunnyside Cannery, Port Edward Cannery
Alvin was a much-respected Tsimshian shipwright from Metlakatla. He trained with John Leighton and built his first rowboat when he was 13. Through his career he worked at most of the boatshops around the Skeena and Prince Rupert. He was appointed manager of boat repair and building yards at Sunnyside when he was only 26 and became a certified marine architect.

Leighton, Ed

Metlakatla
One of a number of boatbuilders in the Leighton family, was a well-known troller and boatbuilder in the early twentieth century.

Leighton, Peter

Metlakatla
He had a large boat shed on the beach. Boats built there include Verna L in the 1920s, and a 38' seine boat, Dicky Boy, in 1926. Both of these he fished with. He also was well known for building rowboats and skiff as early as 1914.

Leighton, John

He was Peter Leighton's brother. He built row boats in a small shed in his yard. It took him a week to build using patterns. He built them all by hand power. Charlie Currie had one of his rowboats for more than fifty years.

Letts, Fred

Oona River
George Letts and his family, originally from England, homesteaded on Porcher Island before moving to Oona River in the 1920s. Fred began boatbuilding in 1940 when he built the Hevenor with Julius Hadland and went on to build the Petrel C, his own fishing boat. In 1964 he and his son Freddie built the Oona Maid for Fred to fish salmon. Other boats were a logging and workboat, the Fearless for Harold Mackay and the Equinox, a west coast troller.

Letts, Freddie

Oona River
A third generation Oona River resident, Freddie worked with his father building and repairing wooden boats. His grandfather was Emil Rosang. He has worked all his life fishing, logging and boatbuilding. See the interview with Freddie Letts.

McLean Family (Norman, Wilfrid, William, Ken)

Prince Rupert
McLean's Shipyard in Seal Cove is the last major yard operating on the North Coast. 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 arrived in Prince Rupert in 1910, setting up a shop in Cow Bay. In 1927 he moved to a larger site in Seal Cove, where the shop still repairs boats today. 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. The last new boat was launched in 1966. See McLean's Shipyards.

Matsumoto Family (Ichijuro Philip Matsumoto, Isamu (Sam) Matsumoto)

Prince Rupert
The Matsumotos came to Prince Rupert in the early 1920s. I.P. Matsumoto is said to have come to work with the Sugas. The first boat he built was the Rota in 1927. His son Sam helped his father at an early age and after finishing grade 8, went to work full time. This was about the time that the Matsumotos had taken over Suga's boatyards. They were interned in Slocan City during WW II. After the war, Sam started boatbuilding in North Vancouver, where Matsumoto Shipyards became one of British Columbia's best known shipyards. Sam pioneered the building of aluminum boats in the 1960s. Research has identified 26 boats built by the Matsumotos in Prince Rupert. Their last boat, a 60-foot seiner called the Universe, was the largest boat to be built in Cow Bay.

Nelson, Jimmy

Kitkatla
Jimmy Nelson was a Kitkatla boatbuilder and fisherman who built speedboats, rowboats, gillnetters and the seiner Gail Delores, which was launched in 1962.

Okabe, Teo

North Pacific Cannery
Teo Okabe was a fisherman who became a shipwright at North Pacific Cannery in the 1950s. With his sons, he purchased Prince Rupert Boatyards in 1976. It became Okabe Shipyards which operated into the 1980s. See Okabe Shipyards.

Orwig, Torsten Matheas

Port Essington and Seal Cove
Torsten Orwig is probably the first person on the North Coast whose full-time occupation could be said to be boatbuilder. In his native Norway he had built vessels for the Norwegian government. He first came with his family to Port Essington in the late 1890s. By 1918 he had moved to Prince Rupert, establishing himself at Seal Cove. He died in 1924 at the age of 75. The only boat he is known to have built in Port Essington is the Jupiter, mention in the book Spokeshute by Ernest Harris. Boats in Prince Rupert included the Selma H. and Elida.

Quist, Emil

Oona River
An early settler of Oona River who built boats for his own use. After fishing a boat for a few years, he would decide to build a new improved model and sell the old one. His first was the double-ender Anna built in 1916. He cut the planks with a 3 h.p. Wee-McGregor drag saw equipped with a rip-saw blade. This was a small portable gasoline-powered saw that was a pre-cursor to the chain saw. Later he bought red and yellow cedar from the Hadland sawmill. The other boats he built were Alp, Brant, Brant II, Eider and Naied. All were 30 to 32 feet long red cedar planked double enders.

Reinholdt, Charles

Port Essington
Originally from Germany, Reinhold built and repaired boats in Port Essington during the 1920s. The only boat of his that has been identified is the Attela, built in 1928.

Rosang, Emil
Lawson Harbour, Lewis Island.
Emil Rosang built at least 10 trollers and halibut boats from the early 1920s until his sudden death in 1939. After coming to Canada in 1912, he moved to Lewis Island with his wife, Tekla, around 1920.
The last boat he built was the Oldfield, a 48' halibut boat for his son Paul. Others include: Emerald, Gem, Jenny, Linnea, P & C , Pratt, Seal, T & V, Tekla O., Terken (later Mae West), Thelma H.

Rosang, Ole

Oona River
Son of well-known Lewis Island boat builder Emil Rosang, Ole began building boats in Oona River in 1958. He learned his craft, like so many others, by helping out other shipwrights. First he built the gillnetter Newfield for his own use. He used the same models to build the Genn Isle. The Nalle was a stave-sterned logging and work boat. Later he completed the Lobo and built the hull for the Gurd Island.

Sakamoto Brothers (Minoru, Toshio, Toshiyuki, Katsushige, Koichi)

Osland
The Sakamoto family moved from North Pacific Cannery to Osland in 1931. Risaburo and his wife Hatsue had six children, five boys and one girl. The sons formed the Sakamoto Brothers boatbuilding shop. Around 1933 they purchased a floating hangar from Prince Rupert's first locally-based, but unsuccessful, seaplane outfit. The Sakamotos had the hanger towed to Osland and transformed it into their boat shop. They built a number of gillnetters every spring. One year, according to the youngest brother Koichi, they launched as many as thirty boats. One of the brothers, Toshio, designed some of the boats, including the Dorcas, a gillnetter which was on display near the Museum of Northern BC in Prince Rupert for many years. Koichi also remembered that he designed the Bee, the first 'speed boat style' fishing boat. A departure from the fishing boats was the Hazel Point, built on the lines of a pleasure boat as a dispatch boat for Oceanic Cannery. In later years it was used as pleasure cruiser and was docked at the Prince Rupert Yacht Club. Unfortunately, the names of the other boats they built are not known.

Spiller, Alex

Dodge Cove, Port Edward
Alex Spiller learned boatbuilding when he worked at the Wahl's shops. In the early 1970s he purchased the Dodge Cove shop from them, naming it Dodge Cove Boatyards. He also worked in Port Edward at Port Edward Marine. In the mid-1980s he moved to Vancouver Island. His sons maintain the wooden boatbuilding tradition, operating Commodore's Crafted Boats, a traditional wooden boat building and restoration company in Vancouver.

Suehiro, Y.

Prince Rupert
Suehiro began building boats in Cow Bay during the mid-1920s and continued until he was forced to leave during World War Two. Most of his boats were fishing boats, including seine, troller, gillnetter and halibut. Twenty nine Suehiro-built boats have been identified, including the Viking I (1927), Teeny Milly (1930) and Anker A. (1940). His last boat was the Strafen, a halibut boat built in 1941.

Suida

Port Essington, Humpback Bay
Suida first built a boatshed at the Khyex river, at Skeena City where a short-lived sawmill community had been established. However, the shed burned down and he moved moved to Port Essington, and put up a shed near the old British American cannery. There, in 1926, he built the Two River for Jimmy Donaldson, owner of Brown's Mill on the Ecstall river. According to Donaldson, Suida built 50 boats for Humpback Bay Cannery, apparently in 50 days, with 14 men working. (Donaldson Interview)

Suga, U. and S. Suga

Cow Bay, Prince Rupert
U. Suga appears to have started his boatbuilding career on the North Coast in Port Essington. He moved to Prince Rupert by 1915. He and his wife ran a boarding house on First Avenue, and he may have built some boats on that property. By 1922 he and his son ran the Suga Yards in Cow Bay. One of the first boats they built there was the halibut schooner Osum I for their own use. Some time in the early 1930s the Sugas stopped building boats. In 1935, their old yards were being used by another father and son team, the Matsumotos. While we will never know how many boats they built, research has so far identified 24 Suga-built vessels: 7 seiners, 7 trollers, 3 halibut boats, 3 gillnetters and 1 pleasure boat. Of these, only a handful of names have been identified:
Alberta G. 1927 seiner built for J.H. Todd & Co., to fish for Klemtu Cannery
Antoinette 1928 halibut boat, built on spec.
Josephine II 1927 seiner built for Henry Edenshaw of Masset, 1962.
J. R. 1919
Osum I. 1923 halibut boat
Tillie L. 1925 seine boat built for Claxton cannery.

Tasaka, Judo Jack

Port Edward
Jack Tasaka was one of the best fishermen on the North Coast, and also one of the top boatbuilders. He came to Port Edward Cannery in 1949, and over the next thirty years he he built more than 200 wooden fishing boats. One of his boats was chosen to represent the west coast fishing industry in the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec. Read more about Jack Tasaka here.

Tsumura, Kume

Prince Rupert
Tsumura was one of several Japanese boatbuilders in Cow Bay. His business was Kiy Boat Works. He was running by 1925, and continued until 1942. Research has identified at least 12 boats, including the Victory F. in 1933 and Torbjorg A. in 1935.

Tysse, Rasmus

Oona River
Settled in Oona River during the Great Depression and built a boatshed across the slough from Emil Quist. He rebuilt Emil Rosang's Linnea, renaming her Freelance. Later, assisted by Seth Frederickson, he built the Old Chum, a 43 foot troller with a seine-styled stern. He later bought and finished a gillnet hull from Ole Rosang, which he outfitted as a troller named Gurd Island.

Walker, Howard

Prince Rupert
With Bill Allaire, operated Kaien Industries in Cow Bay from the 1940s to 1960s.

Wahl Family (Edward, Ernest, Henry, Iver, Roald, Robert, Reidar)

Port Essington, Dodge Cove, Prince Rupert
The best-known boatbuilders on the North Coast were the Wahls. Ed Wahl came from Norway at the end of World War One, moving to Port Essington in 1923, then around 1928 to Dodge Cove on Prince Rupert harbour. There he and his sons established Wahl's Boatyards which built some of the finest wooden boats on the coast until the early 1970s. In 1959 they built a second shop at Fairview, on the Prince Rupert side of the harbour, called Prince Rupert Boatyards. That operated until 1976 when it was sold to Okabe Boatyards. It is estimated that the Wahls build about 1100 boats on the North Coast. See Wahl's Shipyards.

Wick, Ole

Oona River, Prince Rupert
Ole Wick began his boatbuilding career in Oona River. There he built the La Paloma and Lancing, Lancing II, Linnea. He moved to Prince Rupert during WW II, where he bought Suehiro's boatyards in Cow Bay. Boats he built there included B.C. Eagle, Ramsefjord, Rendal, Stalin (renamed Pride) and Tell.

Wick Brothers (John Wick and Ralph Wick)

The Wick Brothers continued their father's boatbuilding work in Cow Bay, building a number of boats in the 1960s and early 1970s. Their boats include Gladiator, Jolly Roger, Nymph, Rupertite, and Smaller One.

Wylie, Alex

Alex Wylie worked at the Prince Rupert Drydock and also had his own boatshop in Seal Cove during the 1920s and early 1930s. Charlie Currie called him 'a real Old Country tradesman'. In the late 1930s or early 1940s he and his family moved to Masset, where he built a number of boats including Radar (1947) Diamond B. (1948) and Homeward Bound (1966). He died in Prince Rupert hospital in 1977 at the age of 89.

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