Women Shipbuilders and Mrs. Martin (Malti)

Roughly one million women were employed in Canadian industry during the Second World War (1939-45). As war production increased, and more men enlisted for military service, women filled the labour shortage by entering traditionally male-dominated jobs - including in Canada’s shipyards where, on both coasts and along the St. Lawrence River, approximately 4,000 helped build naval and merchant vessels essential to the struggle for Allied victory.

 In the Maritimes, hundreds of women shipbuilders laboured alongside their male counterparts. At Foundation Maritime Ltd, the yard in Pictou, Nova Scotia, alone, 24 Park-class cargo ships were built for Canada’s Merchant Navy. At peak production in 1943, more than a third of the Pictou yard’s 2,000 employees in various trades were women.

Female workers such as Mrs. Martin (Malti), a Mi’kmaw mother, were praised for their tenacity and work ethic in all weather conditions (Malti is the Mi’kmaw name for “Martin”). However, they also faced numerous challenges, including gender biases, lower wages than their male colleagues, and a pressing need for childcare.

Little is known of Mrs. Martin, even her first name has not been found, however, photographs depict her employed as a bolter with a toddler on her back. She tightened the bolts that held steel plates in alignment so that they could be riveted together.

After the Second World War, most working women returned to their domestic roles. Yet, the industrious legacy of Mrs. Martin and her trailblazing coworkers in breaking gender barriers in the trades continues to this day.

Foundation Maritime Ltd., Pictou, Nova Scotia

Pictou has been a centre of shipbuilding for generations. At the start of the Second World War, Pictou Foundry and Machine Company Limited, one of the province’s oldest firms, owned a boat launch and repair facilities. In 1941, the federal government authorized expanding Pictou’s marine building facilities with the construction of a new wartime emergency shipbuilding yard, the management of which was assumed by Foundation Maritime Limited, to deliver several 4,700-ton cargo ships.

The first of these Parks freighters was SS Victoria Park, a Scandinavian-Gray class vessel completed in April 1943. By the end of the war, the yard successfully launched twenty-four 4,700-ton merchant ships.

This shipyard was also the largest employer of female labourers during the war, more than any other yard in Canada. With a workforce of over 2,000 employees at its peak, more than one third were women.