Practical Shipbuilding

Nenana marks the end of the period of practical shipbuilding, during which master shipwrights accumulated knowledge as apprentices and craftsmen and constructed ships using measurements obtained from half hull models that were then scaled up to produce patterns for the hull. This artisan-based approach, known as practical shipbuilding, continued until the late 1920s in BC and the Yukon. It was gradually replaced by scientific shipbuilding, which used formal design and blueprint production as the first step in the construction process. Until Nenana, there were no surviving early examples of these blueprints. As a result, naval architect W.C. Nickum's 1932 set of original blueprints for Nenana is a significant discovery and the first known set of blueprints found for a wooden hulled stern-wheel steamboat in the Yukon drainage and BC.

Fairbanks, Alaska · United States