The FV Shenandoah has a long and storied past. Built and launched in 1925 at the Skansie Shipyard in Gig Harbor, Washington, Shenandoah fished for some 73 years. As one of the last remaining fish boats of her era, she was donated to the Harbor History Museum in 2000 by the Tony Janovich family and hauled out of the water in 2003. Conservation and restoration work has continued on her ever since, and she will become the centerpiece of the Harbor History Museum's new Maritime Gallery due to open in 2025.

Sales of these shirts?our 2020 Shenandoah design?will benefit the Maritime Gallery project directly while also providing a much-needed dollar-for-dollar match for the state and federal grants we have received to support the Shenandoah restoration effort.

This year's design was derived from feedback from last year's t-shirt campaign supporters and incorporates some very cool elements: The boat silhouette is from the actual drawings done to document the vessel for the national Historic Engineering and Architectural Record maintained by the Library of Congress; the lettering is inspired by old photos and "shadow letters" found underneath curling layers of paint on the boat's bulwarks; and of course the fish are salmon, the very species the Shenandoah was built to catch and carry.

Shenandoah is rich in Croatian history, having been built by men from the Dalmatian Coast on the Adriatic Sea who immigrated to Gig Harbor for a new life and livelihood. Pasco Dorotich, the boat's owner, immigrated first to Canada where he married and started a family, then to the United States around 1910. Pasco, along with his son John and son-in-law Nick Bez, was launching a new enterprise in the Alaska fishery. A little known fact is that Shenandoah was originally built as a tender, the type of boat used to haul fish from fish traps to cannery. After traps were outlawed in Alaska, the boat was rigged as a seiner and continued to fish for the next few decades with John Dorotich as skipper and later John's cousin, Tony Janovich at the helm.

Plans for the new gallery that will feature Shenandoah are underway at the Harbor History Museum. It will add 3,500 square feet of year-round exhibit and education space and protect the extensive work being done on the Shenandoah. When complete, visitors will be able to step aboard the vessel to discover life on a fish boat crew and the journey from "Sea to Table" that our seafood takes each season. Every dollar counts as we move forward with this exciting project!

The Shenandoah as she appeared in about 1960. Her deck house was rebuilt in 1949 to offer more room for skipper and crew, and her bulwarks were rebuilt in the early 1950s. Work boats had to be constantly maintained in order to be effective and safe out on the water.

We have come along way from this photograph taken of the Shenandoah in the open-air gallery in 2017, but we still have a long way to go. The concept drawing at the top shows our vision for enclosing the gallery. Our exhibit design team is busy creating concept drawings for incredible learning experiences in the gallery that we'll be able to reveal in 2021. Our conservation/restoration team is doing meticulous work removing rot and restoring the deck house. So buy a shirt as your ticket to hop aboard and join us on this fantastic journey. Thank you for supporting Project 224606!