Tall Ships and Tankers: The History of the Davie Shipbuilders

Davie has been a synonym for shipbuilding on Quebec’s South Shore for more than one hundred and seventy years. Indeed, the families associated with the company can trace a shipbuilding lineage that reaches back to Canada’s colonial past. George Taylor, shipwright, arrived in Quebec in 1811, and after participating in the race against the Americans to secure naval control of Lake Ontario in what became known as the Shipbuilders’ War, he settled in Quebec and established himself as an independent shipwright of skill and integrity. In 1820, Allison Davie, a ship master newly arrived in Lower Canada, married Taylor’s daughter. The Taylor-Davie partnership flourished, building fully rigged ships for the British navy and steam-powered vessels to serve the towns of the St. Lawrence. As generation followed generation, workers at the venerable yard at Lévis successfully made the transition from sail to steam and from wooden-hulled vessels to steel, adopting new technology to suit new requirements.

Davie shipyards have built and repaired tankers and freighters, fishing boats and ferries, offshore oil platforms, and warships ranging from coastal patrol vessels and minesweepers to destroyers, and frigates. Through the firm’s enterprising General Engineering Division, it has also ventured into industrial fabrication including railway cars and even sonar domes for U.S. warships. The company name has changed over the years, but the firm (now called Davie Industries) has always symbolized fine workmanship and been an integral part of Canada’s commercial and military history, contributing mightily to the growth and independence of this maritime nation.