Abstract
Launched in 1945, the schooner Norma & Gladys illustrates the best qualities of Newfoundland and Labrador’s industries of shipbuilding, the Labrador fishery, the Grand Banks fishery, and coasting freight to remote seaside towns. Her story also illustrates the worst examples of the province’s favourite bloodsport: partisan politics. In 1973, she was purchased by the provincial government and refitted as a floating maritime museum; her political legacy soon included innumerable blunders and cover-ups, mutiny, a stowaway, and perhaps the ghost of a sealing captain.