The historic port of Lunenburg has a unique way of welcoming the holiday season. Like many communities, the town hosts a Santa Claus parade, but there’s something that makes ours just a little bit different. The parade here has a boat theme; specifically, parade organizers seek to place as many of the entrees as possible in dories and other wooden boats. As you can imagine, we tend to get a few calls!

Ironically, this year our shop did not use a dory on our float. Why? Well, parade chairman Howard Keeping needed a boat big enough to accommodate a six-piece band and the dories we have on hand (all 13-foot bottoms and smaller) were just a little too crowded. But our Cross Island skiff – featured in the latest edition of WoodenBoat magazine’s Small Boats edition – fit the bill, er, the band very nicely!

In fact, the next time someone asks about the capacity for this boat, I may just say: two trumpet players, two saxophonists (alto and tenor), one fellow on clarinet and another on the euphonium (baritone horn) just to see how that goes over!

Here are some more pictures from this year’s parade. And even though it’s still pretty early, Happy Holidays from all of us at The Dory Shop!

Dory Plug