Letterpress printshop and bindery at NSCAD University in Halifax, housing one of Canada's largest collections of functional typographic material with over 1,000 typefaces. The Dawson Printshop ceased commercial operations due to NSCAD budget cuts but continues to serve as a teaching space and visiting artist workshop facility.
About This Site
The Dawson Printshop occupies Room N100 of NSCAD University's Fountain Campus, a National Historic Site of Canada set within a block of Victorian terrace-style buildings at 1895 Granville Street in downtown Halifax. Originally housed in the Killam Library at Dalhousie University, the collection was relocated to NSCAD, where the larger space allowed the printshop to operate as both a commercial letterpress studio and a teaching facility. The shop contains rare equipment, including a Vandercook Universal II proof press, alongside more than 1,000 cases of wood and metal type spanning centuries of typographic history. Medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry taught and worked at the Dawson, where its bindery and historical materials provided the context for analysing ancient manuscript fragments.
Connection to Oak Island
In Season 5, Episode 12, Alex Lagina and Jack Begley brought material recovered from the H-8 borehole to the Dawson Printshop, where medieval bookbinding expert Joe Landry and his apprentice Katherine Taylor examined the fragments. Landry identified the scraps as genuine parchment and vegetable-tanned calf leather consistent with materials used in books capable of surviving for 2,000 years. The purple-stained wood fragment drew the strongest reaction; Landry compared the colouring to Tyrian purple, an ancient dye so costly it was restricted to church documents and royal decrees. He suggested the staining could result from ecclesiastical leather bleeding into a book board, and noted that the wood's thickness was consistent with a book cover. Taken together, the parchment, leather, and purple-stained wood formed what Landry considered evidence of an ancient bound volume deep beneath Oak Island.
Fieldwork Notes
Alex Lagina and Jack Begley visited the Dawson Printshop to consult Joe Landry, a medieval bookbinding expert with direct access to historical printing and binding materials for comparison. Landry's apprentice Katherine Taylor assisted with the examination. The visit was filmed for Season 5, Episode 12, "A Key to the Mystery," which aired in 2018.
