The Three Seaside Museums of Historic Shelburne, Nova Scotia

Shelburne, tucked away on the coast of Nova Scotia, has three museums readily available for visiting in its downtown! All within easy walking distance of each other, the Dory Shop Museum, the Shelburne County Museum, and the Ross-Thomson Store and House Museum offer different perspectives on the province’s history. Why not head down on a road trip and visit all these museums in one go?

If you’re looking to visit a small town with lots of history, get out your road trip tunes and make sure you’re stocked up with snacks. Or even if you would like to grab some snacks before continuing reading along with my adventure, don’t worry, I’ll wait here.

I hope you’re all buckled in, because after a 2 hour drive from Halifax, I arrived at Shelburne’s Museums by the Sea, which offers three museums within a stone’s throw of each other in the timeless town.

About Shelburne’s Seaside Museums

The Dory Shop Museum, the Shelburne County Museum, and the Ross-Thomson Store and House Museum are all part of the Nova Scotia Museum! As provincial museums, each site has its own history as to how it became a museum and what time period that it represents.

While the Dory Shop Museum shows what boat building at the shop between its creation in 1880 and closure in 1971, the Ross-Thomson Store and House Museum demonstrates life in the 1780s. Unlike the other two museums, the Shelburne County Museum is not set in a specific period and shows artifacts from over the decades.

Keeping these variances in mind, being able to time travel by walking doors down to a different building is something that I find rather fascinating! As you join me on my adventure today, I hope you will also find each of these museums as riveting as I do!

Before You Visit

Before you hop in your car and race off to these exciting museums, I first have to share a note on accessibility. All three of these museums each have at least one flight of stairs, and at least two out of the three museums do not offer an alternative way to access these levels. Given this, unfortunately these sites may not be accessible to all visitors.

If you do plan to bring your car along, there is plenty of free all day parking in various lots on the Shelburne waterfront.

The Dory Shop Museum

The Dory Shop Museum, located on the shore of Shelburne’s harbour, offers a look into maritime history over centuries.

What is a Dory?

When visiting a museum about dories, you might first ask your “what’s a dory?”.

A dory, in many ways, looks like a big row boat. Yet the two have some stark differences. While a rowboat might be used for activities like a romantic evening on a pond, dories are most often used for fishing and even occasionally used for racing.

If there’s anything that Maritimers can relate to each other over, it’s living by and surviving off the water.

Visiting the Dory Shop

On the side of the old boat house, you’ll enter the Dory Museum. If you’re up for it, the guide will offer you a tour of the space.

Local Legend Sidney Mahaney

The tour starts off with a short video about one of the Dory Shop’s past employees, Sidney Mahaney. Born in 1896, Sidney began working as a dory builder at the John Williams Shop in 1914. He worked in the very shop that the museum now sits in. Sidney would row his own dory across the Shelburne Harbour to work everyday. Working until the shop closed in 1971, he returned in 1983 when the Dory Shop Museum opened.

Sidney Mahaney provided much of the information known by the museum about the dory shop he worked in, showing the importance of oral history and community input.

Dory Fishing

The museum not only provides an extensive look at dory building, but dory fishing as well. Here you can see an example of what dory fishers might bring along with them while working.

Below you’ll find a compass! Fishers needed compasses to find their ways back home. Often compasses were held steady in a box filled with alcohol.

Sometimes the alcohol keeping the compass on track would… mysteriously go missing. Fishers were drinking the alcohol while at sea! This problem was remedied by replacing the alcohol with another liquid.

Fishermen often used rope on their dory boats. Rope burn would irritate the hands, so instead rope was pulled in and rolled by using the object below.

Dory Racing

But like I mentioned, dories were also used for racing! These dories were designed differently. One of the biggest differences is the enclosed top. This, along with the sleeker designer, made the dories travel quicker.

Dory Building

Once you head upstairs, you will find tools and wood used to build dories right at the museum!

Shelburne and Lunenburg have a very public rivalry in dory building. Both have different building techniques. Below you’ll see two different styles of frames. Above is the style that Lunenburg used, and below the style invented in Shelburne. This is just one example of the many differences between Shelburne and Lunenburg built dories.

When visiting the Dory Shop, you may be asked if you’d like to become a dory builder! If you say yes, the staff will offer you the chance to sign a dory being build. By adding your signature to the boat, you have now contributed to the construction!

At the time of my visit, the last dory built at the museum had more than 300 signatures!

Also did I mention that the Dory Shop offers incredible views of both the Harbour AND the town?

AND a parade?

After an informative visit at the Dory Shop Museum, I crossed the street to our next destination!

Make sure to watch for traffic!

The Shelburne County Museum

The Shelburne County Museum is right across the street from the Dory Shop Museum!

Shelburne’s central museum was once the home of British Loyalist David Nairn, built in 1784. The building now houses the two floor museum and a gift shop!

The First Part of the Exhibit

When entering the museum, you’ll notice that it is a bit different than the Dory Shop. Unlike Shelburne’s two other museums, the Shelburne County Museum is not set in a particular period. Instead, it houses many artifacts and stories from over the centuries.

Loyalist, Acadian, and Planter Roots

Though the town of Shelburne is well-known for its Loyalist past, those of other groups such as the New England Planters and Acadians also lived in the region.

Hearse History

My favourite artifact from the museum takes up nearly half of exhibit’s first floor.

It’s a hearse!

This hearse was built in 1873 and was used in the North East Harbour until the mid-twentieth century. Undertaker Colin C. King employed this hearse in his funerary business.

War Remembrance Plaque

There are also several display cases surrounding the first floor of the museum. In one you’ll find the plaque below. Gifted to family members who had lost a loved one fighting for British Empire in the First World War, it represents the values and freedoms that soldiers gave their lives to protect.

Embroidering as a Learning Tool

Another quite interesting artifact is this embroidered sampler. Samplers were used as an educational tool for girls to learn to their letters and how to sew other designs in the 18th century. They also served as examples of their skills to show potential suitors.

Dial Time Recorder

What is this odd table with a clock and dial? It’s a “Dial Time Recorder”. This machine was used to punch the “clock in” and “clock out” times of employees on their time cards. The dial was used to insert the employee number. This particular dialer was used on the HMCS Shelburne after the Second World War.

The Second Part of the Exhibit

The upstairs of the museum is almost entirely focused on maritime history. You’ll be greeted by a gallery wall of ships from throughout the ages.

Lighthouse Light

This light belonged to a lighthouse built in 1915 on Cape Negro Island Lighthouse (name change petition pending), which operated until 1963. It is almost as tall as me!

Local Ships

Below you’ll see a model of the “Johnny & Sisters II”. In 1989, the ship tragically got caught out on the water in a winter storm. All lives on the ship were lost when the 64-foot liner went down.

The model was donated by Katie Thorburn, who lost both her husband and son when the ship sank.

Another model found in the museum is of this ship, the Kingfisher. Designed by a famous Boston based naval architect, the ship became a patrol ship for the Fisheries Protective Services of Canada in the 1890’s. As the ship protected Canadian fishing territory, the crew was armed.

Buoy Tree

Never did I expect to find a tree made of small buoy! The tree was made by MLA Sterling Belliveau. The first layer of the tree represents buoy designs that his family traditionally used, whereas the other layers displays patterns from other families in local communities.

Staying goodbye to the Shelburne County Museum, I walked around the other side of the building to our next stop!

The Ross-Thomson House & Store Museum

The Ross-Thomson House and Store Museum is right being the Shelburne County Museum! You can either enter the premises from the next street over or through the garden gate. Either way, you’ll need to head to the front door to enter the space.

When I arrived at the front door, three incredibly friendly staff members greeted me! They told me stories about how Shelburne’s street layout was based off the city plan for Philadelphia, with many streets bearing the same names.

The museum is set in the 1780s, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in what life would be like in Nova Scotia at the time.

The Store

Inside the first doorway, you’ll find the general store. As with many historical general stores, a variety of products were sold. Serving communities long before groceries stores and large wholesalers, genera stores had just about everything you may need.

If you lived in Shelburne in the 1780s, you may have tobacco leaves on your grocery list.

The store also includes a fun activity of signing your name on a piece of paper with a quill pen! Make sure your pen is dipped in the inkwell before you begin.

The House

As we moved from the store to the house, the interpreters told me lots of fun facts about the building!

Does the door casing below seem oddly wide to you? This shows that the store building was expanded to add the majority of the house space, meaning that the family could live in the space directly behind their store.

The Office / Dining Room

The home also has an incredible view of the waterfront! To the left of the window you’ll also see a toy sheep, which was made with real sheep wool. Isn’t it cute?

On the other side of the room you’ll see a standing desk by a smaller, higher window. Originally this desk would face the window. Though standing desks are popular now, they are not a new concept. Sitting was often seen as “lazy” at the time. This meant that standing desks often made it appear as the person using it was being more productive. There is a stool with the desk for occasional sitting.

If you take a peak at the baskets on the table across the room, you will find all kinds of original artifacts from the property!

Here you’ll see an illustration of a man from the time. It is the British Prime Minister. He was the the Lord of Shelburne and the namesake of the town. According to interpreters, calves were all the rage with the ladies in the 1780s.

The floral patterned wallpaper in the background was also popular. Fancy wallpaper was often seen as a sign of wealth.

Entryway

As we moved throughout the house, we made our way to the entryway. Here there is the front door. A bell is attached to the door for two reasons. First, as Shelburne is a seaside town, the bell served as a warning against intruders such as pirates. Secondly, the bell made it easy for the owners of the home to keep track of the domestic servants….

The Parlor / Sitting Room

To the right of the doorway is the parlor. From the furniture and decorations in the room, it is clear that the family had some wealth.

The elephant statue, for example, is from the Chinese Chen Dynasty. By putting it on display in a room that often housed guests, it was used as a sign of status in the community (AKA to brag to your neighbours).

The Basement / Kitchen

Below the parlor is the basement. The basement was used for food storage and cooking. This is where the household servant would spend most of their time. This included sleeping. Unfortunately the servant of the house was forced to sleep on the floor of this kitchen.

There was a separate entrance to the house from the basement, beside the fireplace. An apron hangs off the mantle, which was used in the filming of “The Book of Negros” in this very room.

In front of the fire there is a closed metal contraption. Turns out this is the equivalent of a modern slow cooker or crockpot. The cook could leave their food in this container all day to cook slowly as they preform other chores throughout the day.

By the wall of the kitchen, some well known kitchen tools stand. A waffle iron is on the left and a butter churn on the right.

I found this fake cheese wheel an excellent addition to the kitchen. The prop cheese is made out of wood.

The Master Bedroom

The Master Bedroom includes a canopy bed, fire place, and a few other fancy furniture pieces.

Did you know that canopy beds had a practical use? They would prevent things falling on its resident while sleeping, from slivers of the ceiling to bugs. That’s right – bugs.

Quarantine Room

You’ll notice that this room has normal features such as a window to the exterior and a door, however the interior window is a strange architectural detail. This room was used for quarantine. The sick individual would be kept in this room to avoid the spread of the disease (sadly a concept we are all familiar with since 2020).

In this home, a child with Tuberculous (commonly known as TB), was quarantined in this room.

The Guest Room

This room is small and simple. It includes a single bed with a suitcase at the foot.

Did you notice that the suitcase below is flat topped? This signifies that the suitcase likely belonged to someone of a lower class. Upper class citizens had trunks with arched tops and their baggage would be placed on top of everyone else’s.

The Outside & Historic Garden

The Ross-Thomson Museum has a historic garden outside, meaning that they grow the same types of plants which would have been found in gardens during the same period.

The gardens are gorgeous! Here we can see the raised beds and sticks used to guide plant’s growth.

This wool happens to belong to a sheep that likes to roll around in the dirt (it’s name is Weirdo).

Washing wool often takes multiple washes and then has to be dried out.

There is a pen out back which looks like it may be home to some chickens.

The garden beds often have mussel shells. When the shells break down, they provide nutrients for the soil.

As my time at the Ross-Thomson House & Store Museum came to an end, I left through the gates to head back to the Shelburne County Museum.

Gift Shop

Why was I headed back to the Shelburne County Museum?

This museum is home to the gift shop for all three museums, meaning that it has lots of goodies!

Locally made jewelry, décor, knickknacks, and food can be found on the shelves! Clothing items, books, and beeswax wrap also appear to be popular items.

The gift shop has loads of products to choose from, making it an excellent spot to shop for gifts!

It is also very reasonably priced (there is no sales tax)!

I picked myself up this ship hook with two cute little buoy ornaments for about $15!

Conclusion

Shelburne is a beautiful town that I wish I had booked a whole weekend getaway to explore instead of a day trip. Still, I was able to explore so much history in the few hours I was there.

I would certainly recommend a trip to Shelburne to anyone looking to transport themselves back in time and to learn about very specific aspects of the province’s history.

I do wish there was more in the Shelburne County Museum’s displayed collection and I look forward to seeing new artifacts displayed and stories told from many perspectives! As with all museums, space is limited and often only small percentages of a collection are put on display. I am curious to see if the Shelburne County Museum, not tied to a specific time or theme like the other two museums, rotates their collection or has temporary exhibits which tell further stories about different people from Shelburne.

I’m looking forward to exploring more local museums throughout the rest of the tourist season. Though I certainly already have museums and towns I love to visit, exposing yourself to new locations in the province means that you can learn more about this province’s past and the people who currently live here!

So, what do you think?

What museum are you visiting next?

Comment below!

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