Self-Guided Tour
A self-guided tour is available at the museum. Staff and volunteers are happy to answer questions, help with church records or genealogy resources, and point visitors toward exhibits that match their interests.
Current Exhibits
Follow the story from the lobby into the original 1860s house and upstairs rooms.
Begin with the welcome panel, Lane/Heffern family photographs, historic area maps, and the story of Salvage as a central fishing community in Bonavista Bay.
Learn about schooners, the Hunter family, local fishing marks, and the vessels that carried people, supplies, news, and fish products through outport Newfoundland.
Explore the timeline and architecture of the house, including exposed wooden walls, the stone fireplace, the inglenook, and the story of the families who lived here.
Household tools, lighting, heating, foodways, textiles, and family labour show how women's work extended far beyond the walls of the house.
This section highlights the community museum tradition: donated and loaned household items, work tools, records, and objects residents felt should be preserved.
See local handmade objects and traditions including spinning, dyeing, knitting, sewing, broom making, woodworking, and other resourceful skills.
Photographs and examples of handmade birch brooms tell the story of a local craft now recognized as an endangered tradition in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Annie Lane began knitting for the Newfoundland Outport Nursing Industrial Association as a teenager and continued for more than 70 years.
The parlour features stories, songs, musical instruments, vintage radios, the Doyle Bulletin, Confederation-era change, and Gerald S. Doyle's legacy.
The under-stair closet remembers Bessie Heffern's sewing nook and the everyday creativity of women, with old wall boards and layers of wallpaper still visible.
Upstairs, clothing, hats, jewellery, a feather bed, a velvet wedding outfit, mourning dress, and the Shroud of Salvage speak to family life and death customs.
The Bishop's Harbour room and hallway include schools, church organizations, commercial activity, hunting and fishing, leisure, tools, the FPU, and the Loyal Orange Lodge.
A self-guided tour is available at the museum. Staff and volunteers are happy to answer questions, help with church records or genealogy resources, and point visitors toward exhibits that match their interests.