Women in "Non-traditional" Occupations: Shipbuilding and Logging.
The few women that moved into "non-traditional" occupations during the Second World War tended as we have seen, to be relegated to "delicate" work. Labour shortages did, however, result in a temporary and limited suspension of reservations against hiring women in shipbuilding and lumber production. The Pictou, Nova Scotia, shipyard was the first shipyard in North America to employ women in construction. Canadian shipbuilding employed over 4,000 women in 1943, some in semi-skilled yard jobs as welders, riveters, electricians, drillers, painters, boilermakers, polishers, cleaners, rope slicers, tractor drivers, and occasionally even as crane drivers; but most women in ship-building were employed as office workers.
Only a very small number of women took over heavy, outdoor jobs in lumber camps. This April 1943 photo shows two "lumber-jills" spruce logging in the Queen Charlotte Islands. An indication of just how tiny a minority these women represented is revealed by the statement of British Columbia's Deputy Minister of Labour to the National Selective Service Director in charge of the Women's Division during the same month this and similar photos were taken that the "nature of the logging industry in B.C. with the heavy timbers.and the rough terrain over which logging operations are carried out, as well as the very strenuous type of work, constitute a field of endeavour that provides little opportunity for female employment" and therefore "it is extremely unlikely that women will ever be employed in the actual logging operation."
Courtesy: National Film Board Second World War Still Photograph Collection, National Photography Collection, Public Archives of Canada (PA-116932)
