The classic Banks Dory evolved in and around Lowell's Boat Shop in Massachusetts in the mid 1800s. The dory answered the need for the perfect cod fishing boat for the Grand Banks fisheries: stable, stackable, quick and cheap to build. Form followed function and this simple, elegant boat spread from New England to Newfoundland, being produced by the tens of thousands. Each boatbuilding locale evolved its own variation of the dory with unique building methods and features.

Modern mechanized fishing methods eventually eclipsed the dory's utility and by the early 1900s  most dory shops had closed or turned to other boat designs. The traditions, by and large, were lost. By the year 2000 only one unbroken chain of dory builders remained. On the second floor of the Dory Shop in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Milford Buchanan was still building the classic Shelburne Dory, using the designs, patterns, and methods that had been passed down to him from the 1800s. Milford learned to build the dory, as had the men who trained him, "how the old fella done it."

In 2023 the Dory Heritage Project formed to document the remaining dory building traditions, beginning with Shelburne's unbroken string of dory builders. This is the story of Milford Buchanan and the Shelburne Dory.

How the Old Fella Done It

Building the Shelburne Dory with Milford Buchanan

Dory Heritage Project

978-1892327-23-9

8-1/2 x 11"   62 pages

Diagrams, tables

80 photographs

Trade paperback

$24.95

Brad Dimock

Milford with Douglas Brooks

Graham McKay

Cricket Rust