A small yarn shop with a big personality 

In a cozy home down a long stretch of driveway in Salmon Beach, you’ll find The Shorn Ewe Yarn Shop and its proprietor, Shirley McIntyre. The shop is small and quaint, but features shelves of organized yarn, magazines, hooks and more. It’s also the place to be if you’re looking for products from the Briggs & Little company based out of Harvey, New Brunswick. 

Shirley is all smiles as I walk into the shop, get my phone recorder ready and ask her questions about where she’s from, what led her to being a business owner, and some challenges that she’s faced along the way. 

Shirley is from the area, being born in Janeville just five houses past Jay’s Place. She graduated from BHS in 1990, took a warehousing course in Saint John, and returned to work for Westburne. For a while she drove a forklift and unloaded trucks before hurting her back permanently at 26. Then she went inside and worked in sales.

Eventually she moved to Fredericton, where she stayed for many years, and where she met her husband of now twenty years. 

Shirley worked for a while in Fredericton, but eventually faced a complete burnout which sidelined her for five years.

“I deal with severe depression, and anxiety,” says Shirley, “I also deal with agoraphobia and opening this shop was my way of dealing with it and still being social. It’s a little step, but a big step.”

Crocheting and knitting since she was five years old, Shirley thought “why not open up a shop?” as part of her retirement plan when she and her husband moved back to the area after his 20 years with the military.

“There was a nice little yarn shop behind the Tim’s on St Peter and when that closed down, I decided to open up my own shop.” 

Shirley and her husband moved back to the area eight years ago, and she is now celebrating five years at The Shorn Ewe Yarn Shop. She says she gets customers from Maisonette, Tracadie, St Isidore, Belledune, Petit Rocher, and Beresford, and that many of her customers are loyal and continue to return.

“I started with a little glass shelf in the corner,” says Shirley, and now she has a complete showroom filled. 

You can find the Shorn Ewe Yarn Shop at 3729 Cape Road. You can also visit them on Facebook,

I want to thank Shirley for welcoming me into her shop and going through many of her life experiences with me, even some that might not have been easy to discuss.

If you’re in the area, go pay Shirley a visit. The shop is open from 12 to 6 every day except for Sunday, and during the summer it’s also closed on Monday. 

Thank you again to all our followers for coming on this journey with us. This is another edition of The Northern Heat Report, where people come to listen to the stories that haven’t been discovered yet