In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the age of wood and sail reached its zenith, the unceasing pounding of Mahone Bay's heart was constantly audible in the thumping and grinding of hammers, mallets, saws and scrapers busily working away at the latest projects of the town's numerous shipyards.

 The two most noteworthy shipyards, of the more than a dozen working in Mahone Bay during this period, were the Zwicker and McLean shipbuilding companies.

 The Zwicker yard was located along Main Street, where the Government Wharf - the focal point of Mahone Bay's annual celebration of the wooden boat - now stands.

 Originally opened in 1862, the company was founded by John H. Zwicker, grandson of Peter Zwicker, one of the founding German settlers of Mahone Bay.

 The first vessel to come off the Zwicker slip was the 50-ton Delight, which was indeed of a stout, impressive size for being the company's premier vessel, but that ship paled in comparison to the 12,000-ton pride of the company, the Kinburn, constructed in the years that followed.

 The Kinburn ruled the waves off Lunenburg County for many years, and was widely regarded as the largest ship east of Shelburne for much of the latter half of the 19th century.

 Size, however, did not guarantee immortality, as she succumbed to the sea before the end of the century, sinking in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1899.

 While the Kinburn was the biggest of the Zwicker ships, the Maggie Belle, constructed in 1903, was one of the most recognizable vessels built by the company.

 But even at the turn of the century, solid construction and memorable ships guaranteed nothing, and in 1917 the Zwicker yards were purchased by the neighbouring McLean yards.

 John McLean, the founder of the McLean and Sons Shipbuilding Company, was originally from Shelburne. Even early in his adulthood, McLean demonstrated a keen aptitude for ship design and construction, acquiring the credentials to be a master shipbuilder by the age of 21.

 Having proven himself, McLean set up a small vessel construction company in Mahone Bay in 1865, which would form the basis for his future endeavours.

 After years of success, McLean died in 1910, and his sons William and Charles took over the company, with Charles doing the design work and William managing the business end of things.

 Over the course of its existence, the McLean shipyard was far and away the most prolific vessel construction company in Mahone Bay, especially in the years after the Great War.

 Among its most significant technological accomplishments, the McLean yard built the Cote Nord in 1919, which was the first schooner in Nova Scotia to be equipped with a gas engine.

 During the Second World War, with rapidly evolving technologies changing the nature of sea travel, the McLean firm adapted to the wartime needs of the Allied navies.

 Rather than constructing traditional shipping vessels, however, the company, having been taken over by the Halifax-based Brookfield Construction Company, began filling industrial shipping contracts for British tugs, freight barges and minesweepers for the Canadian Navy, including the Mahone.

 As part of the wartime atmosphere, many of the McLean's sites were covered with special large sheds, designed to shelter newly constructed craft from the camera lens of any curious Nazi spy planes.

 But, with the war's end in 1945, the activity along the McLean properties in Mahone Bay slowly stalled to a crawl. The very technologies developed, and even employed, in Mahone Bay's waterfront shipbuilding companies during the Second World War helped to ensure that in the post-war era, the days of the schooner, sloop and other wooden crafts as the mainstay of ocean transport had come to an end.

 By the 1960s, the emergence of fibreglass as an inexpensive construction alternative in boat building had scuttled any hopes that the industry might rekindle its faded might.

 But the Zwicker and McLean yards were just two among a veritable hull full of successful shipbuilding ventures, small and large, to appear along the Mahone Bay waterfront during the golden age of sail.

 The very talented Obed Ham, for one, opened his own shipbuilding yard, Obed Ham's Yacht Works, after something of an apprenticeship with the Zwicker company.

 Ham, a well-known musician in late-19th-century Lunenburg County, had completed his education degree at Acadia University after being schooled in the United States during his youth.

 Returning to Nova Scotia, Ham expressed an interest in ship design and by 1896, at the tender age of 30, he had completed a set of vessel plans for the Zwicker yard.

 Having found success in this first professional attempt at craft design, Ham decided it would be an intriguing venture to open his own yard, focusing on the production and design of unique, personalized pleasure craft.

 By 1901, Ham's Yacht Works was open for business, not only doing work in his own yard, but also designing ships for the nearby Schnare's and Burgoyne's shipyards in Oakland as well.

 Among Ham's most famous vessels was the Cosy, which claimed the Allison Fischer Cup held off Miami, Florida, in March of 1922.

 Mahone Bay was not only Ham's professional base, it was also his home, as for many years he resided in a sizable abode on Main Street, where the Sou'Wester Inn is now located.

 Another company, the Ernst yards, which were located at the modern-day corner of Main Street and Fauxburg Road, were founded by Abraham Ernst around 1890.

 A family-run company, the Ernst yards were ultimately managed by brothers Harvey, Selvin and William, following Abraham's death in 1911.

 Constructing more than 100 ships over the course of its existence, the Ernst's biggest project was a vessel that was in excess of 365 tons.

 The Ernst yards operated in Mahone Bay until the mid-century, primarily building fishing crafts, but they also were contributors to the Allied efforts during the Second World War. Today, portions of one slipway from the Ernst operation into the waters of Mahone Bay harbour are still visible to the curious pedestrian, even though the grounds upon which the Ernst vessels were built have long since been taken over by other hands.

 The Langille Shipyard was located centrally along the harbour side of Main Street, near the mouth of the Maggie Maggie River, which is today overlooked by the community's bandstand.

 Originally, the yards at the site had been founded by Elkanah Zwicker, but were taken over by Titus Langille - and renamed accordingly - in 1870.

 Following the change in ownership, the Langille yards took off at an impressive rate of production. Even as one of Mahone Bay's smaller shipyards, Langille and his crew oversaw the construction and launching of 18 vessels between 1870 and 1891.

 The Schnare yard was another relatively small operation, in comparison to the McLean and Zwicker giants, on Mahone Bay's waterfront.

 Located on the harbour side of Edgewater Street, between the United and Lutheran churches, the Schnare yard frequently worked in combination on projects with the Burgoyne shipyards across the bay in Oakland.

 While the location of the business would be considered beautiful and virtually priceless by today's standards, in the practical terms of turn-of-the-century Mahone Bay, it wasn't the best location in the area to be launching ships from.

 Even at high tide, the water at that end of the harbour was so shallow that it made launching newly completed vessels, especially larger ones, fairly difficult. An innovative alternative was developed, however, as the Schnares began hauling vessels by ropes tied to the mastpost out into deeper waters, ensuring they were free of the perils of the shallows.

 During its existence, the Schnare yard was responsible for building more than 24 vessels, ranging from 22.4 to just under 100 tons of capacity.

 As is clear, much of Mahone Bay's storied shipbuilding history can be traced to the initiative and creative ingenuity of individual talents.

 Another fine example was Leaman Hirtle. Born on July 29, 1910, Hirtle's life, which began on the LaHave Islands at the mouth of the LaHave River, was to revolve around shipbuilding - and it showed at an early age.

 By the time he was 14 years old, young Hirtle had already built his first boat, and he continued to hone and perfect his design and construction skills through his youth by repairing buildings. By 1942, Hirtle, now in his 30s, decided to establish a business in Mahone Bay, where he manufactured lifeboats and repaired rafts for the Canadian war effort.

 Following the Allied victory, however, Hirtle had to find a new market, and decided that the best course of action was to enter the pleasure craft industry.

 Setting up shop on Main Street, where the Save Easy is now located, Hirtle's business, Nova Scotia Yacht and Boatbuilders Limited, manufactured yachts and specialized crafts for local consumers and for interests as far removed as Ontario, Quebec, the United States, and even Dakar, Senegal, in Africa. At its height, Nova Scotia Yacht and Boatbuilders Limited employed more than 25 men.

 One of the more interesting aspects of Hirtle's business was that not all of his vessels were completed locally. Many, instead, were transported to a shipyard in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where they were completed for nearby purchasers.

 Hirtle continued to work in the vessel design and construction field that he loved so much in his youth until 1959.

 The last major shipyard operating in Mahone Bay during the height of the wooden boat age was the Heisler company, located on Gifford Island.

 The Heisler yard is remarkable in and of itself, as the company has been passed through three generations of the Heisler family since its founding.

 Initially, the patriarch of the family, William, began the odyssey when he moved from Tancook Island to Gifford Island to build dories in 1921. In 1938, Clarence joined his father in the family business, which still employed a small staff, but began expanding from the construction of dories to custom-designed pleasure craft.

 During the following years, the Heisler firm constructed many vessels, and was even given the privilege of building the first long-liner financed through Nova Scotia's Fishermen's Loan Board.

 Finally, in 1976, Clarence's son, Cecil, joined his father, marking the beginning of the third generation of the Heisler family boat-building business.

 While the age of the wooden boat as the tried and tested method of travelling the seas had truly passed into the sunset by the 1950s, some of the company names that once thrived on the shores of Mahone Bay harbour still live on today. The Heisler company, for example, which is today known as Clarence R. Heisler and Son Limited, still manufactures specialized pleasure craft out of an operation on Gifford Island, located in the heart of Mahone Bay.

 And even now, in the 21st century, in an era in which we are surrounded by plastics, polymers and an array of artificial materials engineered by human minds, Mahone Bay remains a cultural symbol for the wooden boat and the care taken in constructing the ocean-going craft of yesteryear.

 In addition to the traditional shipyard names that still grace the greater Mahone Bay area, each summer the town plays host to the Classic Boat Festival, an event that celebrates the community's heritage by exemplifying the old crafting techniques. With a beautiful, lively parade, an array of demonstrations and exhibits, and the always intriguing "Fast and Furious" boat-building competition, the spirit and energy that defined the wooden boat era will remain a vibrant, important part of Mahone Bay's visage for decades to come.

 Source: Mahone Bay Settlers Museum.

Written and researched by Patrick Hirtle.