Wooden Boat Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador

For generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians whose lives depended on the water, a boat was a veritable vessel – to security, to safety, and to survival. Being resourceful, resilient people, our forebearers fashioned their floating survival kits from the materials their unique environments provided. In the process, they became architects of not only the magnificent structures they built, but of an entire legacy – one whose existence was all but extinguished before 1997.

Recognizing the immense importance of wooden boat building in the construction of our cultural landscape, the organization sought to preserve the precious skills, knowledge and tools that today provide a pristine portrait of our collective past.

Expanding to become the Wooden Boat Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador (WBMNL) in 2008, the organization made its headquarters in Winterton, one of the many communities with a rich history of wooden boat building. It is here, through ongoing exhibits and workshops with descendants of wooden boat building masters, that a unique local legacy lives on – one that, like its authors, has persevered, despite the odds. Some of our Exhibits include:

Learning about Evolving Traditions: People, Place and Wooden Boats
Learning Why They Came for the Fish and Stayed for the Stages
Boat Building Room, visitors will learn how boat builders designed and constructed their wooden vessels.
Boat Shed, traditional and contemporary boat building methods are used to craft the small wooden boats of Newfoundland.
Learning About Twillingate, offers rich wooden boat heritage.

From the Trans Canada Highway take exit 31 towards Route 75. Travel approximately 70 kilometres to Winterton.