FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FANCY FAMILY
Mahone Bay area craftsman continues making oars the old-fashioned way
South Shore Breaker July 9 2025 By STEVE GOW
Van Fancy is hard at work in his shop, where he often provides tours if he's not too busy.
For Van Fancy, there was very little doubt he would eventually find himself in the business of making high quality oars for boats. “It was always on the agenda since I was young,” says the owner of Van Fancy Oars & Paddles in the Mahone Bay area. “It was always in my blood because my dad did it pretty much all my life growing up.”
With more than a century of family heritage in the paddle-making profession, Van would follow a long lineage of craftsmen when he joined his father full-time in 2000 to run the business under the moniker Milton Fancy & Sons.
“In reality, if you went back through the Dafron Industry and Nathan Joudrey days, dad had almost 50 years in total of making oars and paddles,” adds Fancy about the legacy of oar-making in his family. “Plus, my grandfather Clarence, he had about 15 years in and then dad's brother — Arnie, my uncle — he had almost 15 years in (so) we are well over 100 years in the Fancy family of making oars and paddles.”
In 2006, after Milton sadly passed away, Van and his wife Janice Dares took over the family business and opened Van Fancy Oars & Paddles. Ever since, Van has been turning out some of the most respected handmade oars in the world — all made by traditional means.
“The machines and everything are dated way back when dad started here in the '80s,” says Fancy of his shop on Cornwall Road, where almost all the tools to make outstanding oars are themselves hand built. “Dad didn't have much of an education but he knew machinery and how to build stuff.”
Fancy also ensures most materials are locally sourced in his shop, with very little waste heading back into the environment. As Van notes, most everything in the shop is recycled — from discarded chunks of wood or kindling to even the smallest particles.
“All my sawdust goes to a bunch of guys who smoke fish and hams and make beef jerky and that,” notes Fancy.
Not only does he craft sought-after straight and spoon blade oars and a whole range of paddles, Fancy's business also deals in oarlocks, mounts and almost anything related to such boating equipment.
“I even do a little tiny three-foot flat paddle,” says Fancy of the decorative piece. “People take that for birthday gifts, weddings, anniversaries and use that for a guest book or something. That way they don't have a guest book that they stick in the drawer (and) it can be something they can hang on the wall and have a keepsake.”
Occasionally if he isn't too busy, Fancy will also offer tours to people who enquire ahead of time or to visitors who stop by his Middle Cornwall shop — a demonstration that never ceases to create an impression.
“People get quite impressed at the steps of how to make an oar (and) the shop is kind of like what many people say is a working museum,” says Fancy. “Some things are all old and antiquey and everything, but they still run the way they (used to) — they click, they clatter a little bit — but they still work.”
Stain Glass Dedication
Remembering a master craftsman
We would like to share these photos of a beautiful stained glass window.
Dedicated in loving memory of longtime oar maker, master craftsman Milton Fancy.
The window was placed in the New Cornwall United Baptist Church, near the Fancy home, by Milton's wife Melba, his sons Carson and Van, family and friends. A large crowd of family and friends from across Canada and the United States attended the dedication ceremony.
Made by stained glass artist Rick Wilson, the windows features a anchor, the crown of thorns and three spikes, while the lower section portrays a dory and four oars.
Milton Fancy and his finished product.
