Shipbuilding as a harmonizing community activity, akin to barn raising bees in agricultural communities, was a persistent myth. However, as long as ship building entrepreneurs remained convinced that any able bodied farmer's son, under the supervision of a few master builders, could perform most jobs around a shipyard, there was little chance of the men who built ships organizing themselves into unions anywhere but in the largest centres. In reality, fully rigged vessels had become so complex by mid-century that their construction was beyond the capacity of most small communities. Such large vessels required materials, capital and entrepreneurial skills sufficient for continuous production and specialized work crews of sail riggers, ship's carpenters, caulkers, and sail makers. While these craftsmen occasionally sought to bargain collectively, there was little sustained organization across this industry, which by its very nature tended to be fragmented.
Here, at Maitland, Nova Scotia, in 1889, the decking of the ship White Wings has just been finished. The extent of communal interest in ship construction was reflected in the tradition of taking time to celebrate the completion of important stages in a ship's construction. With the decline of the industry during the closing decades of the century there was a tremendous out-migration of these wood workers, many of whom found their way to the "Boston States," where they came to dominate the construction trades during that city's building booms. (Regarding shipbuilding see Canada's Visual History, volume 9, Shipping and Shipbuilding in the Maritime Provinces in the Nineteenth Century.)
