Canada's Oldest Saltbank Schooner

Hello Everyone,

The flagship of the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic is the retired fishing schooner Theresa E. Connor. Launched on 14 December 1938, from the Smith and Rhuland Shipyard in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the vessel fished until the mid-1960s. In 1967, as Lunenburg’s Centennial of Confederation project, Theresa E. Connor was unveiled as the Lunenburg Fisheries Museum.

The schooner is important because it is representative of thousands of two-masted fishing schooners that plied their trade all along the Atlantic coast of Canada and the United States. In turn, crew life aboard Theresa E. Connor also speaks of the lives of hundreds of thousands of fishermen.

As a saltbank schooner, Theresa E. Connor fished on the fishing banks near Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as those nearer Nova Scotia. The men fished from dories and brought their catch back to the mother schooner. The fish, mostly cod, were cleaned and then preserved in salt, in the hold of the vessel.

Theresa E. Connor was launched into a time that included steel trawlers. The last of the schooners fished virtually side-by-side with side trawlers that hauled their catch aboard their vessels with huge nets.

The fishing history of Theresa E. Connor ended on a bitter-sweet note. In May 1963, Captain Harry Oxner prepared the schooner for one final trip to the Banks. With a few Lunenburg-area fishermen, he set sail for Fortune Bay, Newfoundland, to get the remainder of his crew.

Unfortunately, the steady march of progress and technology made it impossible for him to get additional crew members for the last salt fishing trip. No one was willing to undertake the danger and hard work of dory fishing, when they had the chance to go on trawlers. Although the work was still hard and dangerous, they did not risk the danger of being lost in a dory.

The schooner spent the remainder of 1963 fishing with cod traps, in the Labrador fishery. Theresa E. Connor continued to fish, in a reduced capacity, for Zwicker and Company (Lunenburg) until 1966. The vessel was then sold to the Lunenburg Marine Museum Society.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of visitors have been welcomed aboard the schooner. The retired fishing captains who now work aboard the vessel share their experiences with people from around the world, keeping the memories alive for new generations.

Wishing you Smooth Sailing,

Heather