14
Interview: Florence GrimmerInterviewer: Erica Grimmer
Name: Florence Grimmer
Date of Birth: April 26, 1926
Question: What kind of jobs did you have?
Answer: Worked in a grocery store, Imperial Oil, Eaton's, Sears
Question: Where were you born?
Answer: Ashmore (Digby County)
Education:
Question: Where did you go to school?
Answer: I went to Ashmore School; then went to Weymouth for grade 11
Question: What grade did you go until in school?
Answer: I went to school until grade 11
Question: What were your favourite memories about school?
Answer: My favourite memories about school were friends
Family:
Question: How many people were in your family?
Answer: Family consisted of three siblings and two parents
Question: What were your parent's occupations?
Answer: My mother worked at home and my father worked on the highway and had a small farm
Question: What were some of your family traditions?
Answer: One of my family traditions was family getting together at Christmas time.
Spare Time:
Question: What were some of the things you did in your spare time?
Answer: Some of the things we did in our spare time were walking a ways and going skating on an outdoor pond, going sliding, going to picnics on the seashore, playing baseball, and going to a young people's church group (BYPU: Baptist Young PeoplesUnion).
15
Interview: Eugene HanshawInterviewer: William Hanshaw, Grade 9
Interview:
Question: How are you?
Answer: Not bad, sir.
Question: What's your name?
Answer: Eugene Phillip Hanshaw
Question: When were you born?
Answer: January 9, 1934.
Question: Where were you born?
Answer: Halifax
Question: Have you always lived in this area?
Answer: Yes, I have always lived in this area.
Question: How long have you lived here?
Answer: I have lived here 70 years.
Question: Does most of your family live around here?
Answer: No, my personal family. Not my brothers and sisters.
Question: When you went to school in this area, where did you go?
Answer: Oakdene School
Question: What kind of school was it?
Answer: It was a good school. It went from grade primary, ah, to grade 12. Let's see…it was a good discipline school. You went there to learn. If you broke the rules you would probably get a ruler or strap. My grade primary and grade one teacher was Miss Schmidt. Grades four and five was Eleanor Morine, grades six and seven was Ella Johnstone. Some of these rooms had upwards to 44 people. You did as you were told or else you went to the head of class and had a strapping, mostly boys. If you didn't get your work done for the day you stayed in, sometimes to 5:00 or 5:30.
Question: Were you the kind to act up in class?
Answer: Not really…just thought I knew more than the teachers.
Question: Who was your favourite teacher?
Answer: Ella Johnstone.
Question: Did you ever try to move your hand away from the strap?
Answer: No, because they held your hand. I only had the strap a couple of times. Some of them got strapped lots of times. Phillip Gates, you could strap him all day long.
Question: Did you finish school? If not, how far did you go and how old were you when you quit and what did you do after you quit?
Answer: I finished grade six. I tried grade 7 a couple of tomes. Learnt more till grade 6 than they do today. After I left school, I went to work in a mill at the age of 16. I was 15 when I quit school.
Question: Was racism a problem in your school?
Answer: No, racism wasn't a problem in Bear River school, or I should say I got along with everyone.
Question: Roughly how many times a month did you get to leave town?
Answer: I never got anywhere till I was 12 or 13. Then we would go to Digby Friday nights to a show on back of a three-ton truck. Only place I remember going before that was down Franklin's Pond with my sister, Ruth and her husband for ice to make ice cream. Nobody went anywhere them days.
Question: What was there in Bear River for industries and stores?
Answer: One lumber mill; B.A. Alcorn Ltd. And one barrel stave mill. Bear River Packet used to come in to Bear River from Saint John with groceries and supplies. Pulp boats used to come in for wood from the Lincoln Pulp Company. There was a Drug Store and 8 stores plus two service stations. Five of the stores sold feed for cattle and horses, now there is no place to buy feed for miles. Oh yeah, there was two barbers; two to four doctors; one dentist, one or two days a week. Had a hotel (Grand Central); telephone office; three tennis courts that I knew of, one behind the Lovett Lodge, one on corner of Exhibition Road (where Charlie Hall lives now) and one up at Cunningham's on Chute Road. We had the Royal Bank. The house where Charlie Andrews lived sold feed. Dad built that.
Question: Any bars?
Answer: No; bars were not legal.
Question: Was Digby bigger than Bear River at the time?
Answer: Digby was bigger.
Question: Has Bear River grew or became smaller since you were younger?
Answer: Smaller, business wise.
Question: How has it?
Answer: No store. Only one store in Bear River and one service station.
Question: What did you do for fun when you were a kid growing up?
Answer: In the wintertime, skated and sledding down Sissiboo Hill. No cars to bother you in them days. Summertime we went fishing, helped people get in hay and swimming.
Question: How long has your family been here?
Answer: Since 1850. They came from Germany, I think.
Question: What memories or memory stands out about this town and your family?
Answer: Just everything in general, nothing in particular.
Question: Did you have any traditions in your family?
Answer: Had to be rich people to have a tradition. Went to Carnival and Bear River Exhibition every year.
Question: What affect did WWII have on this area?
Answer: Took a lot of the young people from the area. Brought Cornwallis in here made work.
Interviewed February 26, 2004 by William Hanshaw
16
Interviewed: Morse HaynesSubject: Scallop Fishing
Mr. Haynes: Well, uh, scallop fishing started about 53 years ago. It started with little bits of boats then, some of them was only 35, 30 ft. along, 40 ft., the like of that. Three drags they started with. Had a heisted engine on deck t'ain't like that today. And you used to get oh,anywhere from 4-500 pounds of scallops a day and the scallops then started around, they went by the gallon about 3.25, $3.00, a gallon when the first started. Were nine to a gallon, you'd ship 'em all to the States, in barrels, about 130 pounds to barrel, the way we used to ship them. And the scallops got bad, they went down. In the 30's, scallops was caught for $.08 a pound, shelled. That's right $.08 a pound. There were lots of 'em, we'd go down and load our boats, in a couples of days, you stay a day and a night, you'd get, I'd get 20-24 barrels and we'd sell 'em for $.08 a pound, quite a difference from today. Today they're around $ 3.30 today, scallops.
Question: That's quite a difference.
Answer: Yeah, that's right, But the first scallopers who really went outside was uh, well Wormell had a boat.
Question: Wormell?
Answer: Rolland Wormell, yeah; and Earl Vantassell. He was one of the first boats that ever started fishing outside.
Question: How far out would they go?
Answer: They'd go off about uh, the season then, we only had the one season, there was no summer season. Scalloping started in the fall and wound up well, the last half of April. They'd fish off the wharf and three, two and one half, three , four miles, that's about as far as they went offshore down off Scallop Cove, up in that area. Now you hear they have boats 50-60 ft. long and have seven drags on a bar now, where there used to be only three.
Question: How big were the three? The same size?
Answer: They was pretty well the same size. About 3 by 2 foot- 10 on a bar and oh, I'd say, 14, 15 feet - something like that. Well, we'd have seven on a bar, where would've been the engine then in those year was, well, some common gasoline engine - about 10 horsepower, 20 horse power - like of that. Then we had anywhere from 160 to 300, 400 horsepower then to do it. Dear 3,4 times as heavy as it was then, we have seven and we have a cable almost generally drag the scallop to uh 40 outside, 40, 50 fathoms down in the water, 150 fathom cable to drag in.
Question: Most of the ships were rigged with sonar?
Answer: Oh yeah, they all had depth sounder-------- C.B. sets and radars and all that other material.
Question: That wasn't changed for a few years.
Answer: Oh, last few years all we had was a compass, a compass and a clock, that's all you ever had to time yourself. We never laid up on account of no, what I mean no radar or anything like that, we had our compass.
Question: Did you used to sound with led?
Answer: Oh no, we went by marks on the land, you tell pretty well after you'd been out a few times. Strike a bed of scallops you'd take a mark on the land where it was. Off and on, up and down. Then you could tell pretty well. It increased I don't know how many fold it's increased since then. Years ago we used to get, oh for starting in used to get 3 ¼ a gallon, I guess. It very seldom ever got up to five dollars a gallon. That would be fifty cents a pound, pretty big difference. The boat that was all there are to scalloping. I guess going out and getting them some of them.
Question: these young guys down there, they get, what, 25 dollars a bucket?
Answer: oh yes, they're getting uh, we used to get anywhere from forty to fifty cents a bucket for shucking a bucket of scallops. And so, shock 5-18 pails in one day, fifty cents a pail- nine dollars of scallops, it only took 8 or 9 to a pound. The other day fill a thirty pound pail, you'd fill about 300 to a bucket. Now it's about 33, 34 hundred to a bucket. It takes anywhere from seventy to eighty to a pound. The other day it took eight, nine to a pound, ten.
Question: you must like to see the young fishermen today making all this money.
Answer: Well, it's a wonderful thing, for the past seven or eight years, I tell ya-I wouldn't say there's not a many. The price has more than tripled to sell it, doubled a dozen times as far as that goes. Oh you wouldn't make that money in those days. Just to think, 100 pounds meant eight dollars. The fish was just the same then, hake was 30 cents a hundred pound, wit the head cut off, you, it with the head cut off. Now hake is about oh I'd say, 11-12 cents a pound. Used to get 30 cents a 100 pounds, or $3.00 a thousand pounds.
Question: where would the market be?
Answer: We'd sell it to the Maritimes, Casey's over there. They used to sweat 'em and dry 'em and, of course, they'd sweat 'em and then they'd salt 'em and dry 'em apart. Then they'd go to the West Indies market.
Question: okay.
Answer: Don't know where I was now.
Question: Talking about the hake…
Answer: Oh yes, the hake. On them days we'd go out with 4 tons of trawling. We'd get anywhere from, if we didn't get 3000 pounds we would get anywhere from 3-5000. We used to have to dress them out there, heads off, bring 'em back to the…
Question: used to pay you out and… or…
Answer: Oh yes, soon as we got our trawling and it was fine weather, why we would start cleaning them. Time we got in we would have them half cleaned. Yeah…
Question: How many would you have on a boat?
Answer: Yeah, I fished uh, 28 years with my father. Out there in Victoria Beach was where I fished. When I fished around there, there was about 100 boats fishing, fishing for hake. There was about 33 small boats used to fish for Pollock across to Bay View. Out there used to fun and land 3 or 4 thousand pounds of Pollock. But lately, in the past twenty years, 15 years, why no Pollock comes in like they used to. I don't know the reason. No Pollock and no hake comes in the Bay now.
Question: No? Well. How long ago was it when you and your dad used to fish?
Answer: Oh, we started in uh, I wasn't very old, about 15, 16 something like that. We fished 28years. The hake comes up the Bay of Fundy, I don't know why, and the Pollock comes up the Bay of Fundy, it looks to me as if the herring is going to leave the Bay of Fundy. They ain't gettin' half the catch and what they're gettin' is not big herring like they used to. No, too many big boats, no big herring. Over to Parker's Cover they've got a big place over there and I believe it's going out of business. Plan on puttin' up trippers. They got about 50 boats down there rigged up, 10-11 nets to a boat on uh, some morning they wouldn't get 500 to a boat.
17
Mr. Lawrence Hersey - School Teaching Sept. 20, 1979Began teaching 1936
Taught for 35 years
Born in Freeport
Received his 1st job in Little River and taught from Grades 6-11 in a grading school.
His 1st year was not too successful, had been out of school for 10 years. Have done fishing previously.
There were little more than 25 students in this school.
Subject taught- general- math (alg. Geom.. trig.)
History, English, no sciences.
Did not use the strap often
Because Vice Principal in Weymouth in 1956 for 3 years.
Mr. Hersey then went to Yarmouth vocational school teaching English and remained there for remaining teaching years.
In his 7 years he remembers of only 1 or 2 students who did not plan to co-operate. There were 100 students and 3 classes.
Detention was the major type of punishment which Mr. Hersey felt was stronger.
Todays problems with children Mr. Hersey believes is due to the fact that children have so much freedom now and are many times skipping many of their childhood stages and trying to grow up to fast.
He thinks maybe we should be going back to the 3 basics- 3r's
Mr. Hersey's began teaching with a grade 11 education with a D license, he then studied for Grade 12 and received a A license. At this time he was frightened of the idea of university work.
By 1957 he convinced himself that he could do university studies. By that time he was 50 years old and elderly for university, so he took summer courses and correspondence courses. This was through Acadia, then later he attended courses offered in Yarmouth through St. Annes university and finally received his TC 5 by finishing his 21 courses.
Mr. Hersey's 1st salary was $300.00 paid through the section he taught in.
High salary was through a TC 5 at app $11,000.00
Salaries, later on, depended on the rank of license; at first it was paid by wjat the school section offered.
When Mr. heresy began. It was during the depression and jobs were not plentiful at all, in fact they were scarce.
When Mr. Hersey taught, a teacher was more like a God or Goddess and the teacher was in complete control. Also the schools were going along with strict up- bringing of the home. But later on during the war, teachers were hired quickly and easily and many teachers who were not capable or suited for this occupation were hired, thus students took advantage of this.
Mr. Lawrence Hersey September 20, 1979
Question: "You were once a school teacher?"
Answer: "Yes, I was. For nearly 35 years."
Question: "35 years. That's quite awhile."
Answer: "Yes it is."
Question: "Something to be proud of anyways. Where were your born?"
Answer: "In Freeport."
Question: "When did you first begin teaching? Do you remember the date?"
Answer: "In August, 1936"
Question: "Do you remember where you received your first job?"
Answer: "That would be Little River."
Question: "And what grades was that?"
Answer: "Six to eleven"
Question: "So you didn't have any little ones, primary to Grade 5?"
Answer: "No. That would be in the little two room school."
Question: "Oh! So what was this school like that you first taught at?"
Answer: "Well, it was called a grading school then, because the other type schools were called miscellaneous schools, then they were called miscellaneous schools, well miscellaneous means, like a stew, everything thrown in, you see. But when I was there, one of the bad years, when it was a two room school, and one room was divided, one to six and seven to eleven. And I had the six to eleven grades. It wasn't a very successful year, due to my inactiveness, first year teaching and having been out of school for 10 years. Because during that time, I wasn't very wonderful to put up with, and I was hanging on the nearest lamp post."
Question: "How many students would you have at one time"
Answer: "Well, I'd say 25 perhaps, maybe more, I'm not sure."
Question: "What subjects did you teach?"
Answer: "Well, that would be general subjects. The only thing I think in those days, of course, now remember, this would be 1936 and French is not as prominent as it is today, and my French was not very wonderful. I suppose there is the usual English & History, those were the two musts, you see in those days and then it was made up of whatever the teacher thought & the high school would take in Algebra and Geometry, some Trigonometry."
Question: "Did you have biology and chemistry?"
Answer: "No, Not in those days. Probably they were taught those Subjects in the larger schools, and later on, of course, I did teach Biology, strange as it may seem, I was sort of jack-of-all trades and master-of-none, you know. And later on I was vice-principal at Weymouth school."
Question: "You were vice-principal were you?"
Answer: "Yes, in the new school. Then of course, I had to take what was left, sort of the younger ones coming in you know. So I taught everything for Grade 12 Biology, Grade 11 History, Grade 11 Economics and later on, some of Grade 12 English, Grade 11 English, you see, but in the old days of course, there wasn't that choice of subjects, you see, so therefore the teachers more of less controlled everything and perhaps teach something that you could do well, although I admit my knowledge of subject matter had in."
Question: "What year did you become vice- principal?"
Answer: "In 1956, in Weymouth"
Question: "And how long were you there?"
Answer: "Oh, three years, then I went to Yarmouth and taught in vocational school. I wanted something new, well I went to vocational oce in Yarmouth and I thought, Oh, I'd like to teach in a set-up like this. So in 1959 the job was open, I applied and got it. So I spent the rest of my time in vocational schools."
Question: "What did you exactly teach there? What field was it in?"
Answer: "I was teaching English to all the students in the school."
Question: "They all had to take certain courses?"
Answer: "That's right. They were in Academic, you see, you divide it in two sections, the Academic and shop, the so called shop. The Academic would be, English, History, Mathematics, and science, you see, and then the other half would be shop. Then later on you might, lets see, about 1965, they changed that idea around you see, and that vocational and split it up so that the commercial group was separated form the rest of the so called shop teachers. And I was threshed into the job of teaching females. They offered it to a nice, presentable man, but he said no dice. I don't know, I suspose he would be run ragged by the females, and there was no danger of me suffering the same thing, so I found out that I got the girls and he took the boys. However, I was very thankful in the end, that he did that because the girls were more interested in learning subject matter and that's what I was teaching. That boys, of course, left the academic schools to escape the academic subjects in the vocational school and there were certain academic subjects still thrown at then and of course, they rebelled as years went on rebellion got more and more pronounced so I was very happy to have the girls, they were all very lovely girls. I think in the 7 years that I was in that school with strictly girls, there were probably one or two who weren't co-operating. I would have about 100 students. There were three classes. One was called the P.H.C- Post High Commercial, that is students who had their Grade 11, Grade 12 and they came in for 1 year. The other ones were just called commercial at first. Later on they changed the C. to S. Instead of Commercial, Stenographic. Of course, when I first started there, all the courses were 3 years, and afterward they decided they'd forget that & 2 years was started. So it was a 1 and 2 year set-up. Now in the 3 year if they could acquire enough skills. Say at the end of the 2 years, or even less that 2 years, in same cases, and they could go out and convince an employer that they were capable of carrying on efficiently, but they couldn't graduate. That was so, if they couldn't hold the job then they could come back to school you see. After they graduated they couldn't come back."
Question: "Something like apprenticeship, would it have been?"
Answer: "It would be something the same as that, yes. In fact the boys side did develop into the apprenticeship group afterward and then after they'd finish their courses in Yarmouth, then they'd go down to Halifax, Oh, perhaps the Institute of Technology, and they'd take their courses, or maybe work at a job at the dockyard or something like that."
Question: "Well, theres something I wanted to ask you about since you started teaching and at the very end, was the strap always in the room?"
Answer: "No, I lose mine and then I found it again, and then a teacher borrowed it and never returned it, for which I was very thankful. No, I think that became a thing of the past. If you couldn't control your classroom I never did have the opportunity to have to use it much and I don't think many teachers did, and of course now it is completely passé."
Question: "What type of punishment did you use?"
Answer: "Well, usually detention, which in a sense punished them worse because the strap you get it and it's over, where detention, if you got sentenced detention for two or three days, and I have seen students sit for ½ hours after school. Well, that worked until the consolidated schools came in and that changed whole thing, because there the buses came at 3;30 and all students had to go. So really you couldn't win. I don't think teacher can win over students, anyway really. It's something if you can grow with them, or get them to grow with you."
Question: "There seems to be some problem now, concerning discipline, especially some of the older students, now, and more so than what they were even say, ten years age, or five years age. Do you have any comments on this?"
Answer: "Well, I don't know about, you see I quit 7 years ago, so therefore, I wouldn't know about five. But looking back over the years, I think that today the students are grown up fast, long before they are competent to grow up. They are expected to be men and women, when they haven't actually gone through their childhood years, you see. Then again there are so many other things thrown at them. Today we have Television and radio and things like that. Now, when I was a kid, that would be a good many years age, over half a century, why there were none of those things. I can still remember when the first radio came, well we'd run a mile to get home to listen to the World Series on a little headset radio, you see. I think that the boys & girls have much more freedom than we did, as we tended to grow up in the image of our parents, you see. Were as today, the youngsters tend to look upon their parents, well maybe we did too, as fuddy-duddy's, but we didn't dare to say that and they tend to rebel against any authority and so they transferred their rebellion against home authority into rebellion against the established authority, towns and cites."
Question: "Do you think any of the ideas or methods or subjects that you taught, should be brought back?
Answer: "Well, I noticed that they have dropped History form High school. Now, I like History, we always did and I feel that it should be taught. Actually when you asked me that question I am a little bit out of line, because you see, for the lest 13 years of teaching I was in vocational school, so actually I haven't done any academic subjects, since 1959 and through the years I forget, but I would think History, and also I think that a return to the Mathematices. I know this new Math, and I suppose I shouldn't mention, cause I know nothing about new Math, and I would be only tying in with the old. No, I suppose that the subject matter I know that the movement of foot to go back to basics as we say, the 3 R's, I suppose and they are taken in the business and would know more about it than I, because as I said, I've been out for some time."
Question: "What type of education or training did you receive?"
Answer: "Well, I graduated from the high school in my home village of Freeport, that was only Grade 11 and than I fished for 14 years and than I decided to go into teaching and at that time Grade 11 was the lowest license granted, it was called the 'B license', and I didn't want to be right at the bottom of the heap so them I studied Grade 12 on my own & got it and of course, that gave me an 'A license'. Well, by that time that was just about at the bottom of the heap and when I couldn't see anything else because university than scared me. It wasn't until 1957, that I was convinced that perhaps I could be in the university world, and of course, than I'd have to go to summer school for a year, because I was getting too old. I was 50 years old when I registered for the first time at Acadia. And while I could not get a degree, you see there are two ways of getting into that. I hold a TC5 license, and I have more course at university than what the B.A. demands, but when I went to school, French, well any language other than English, was not taught. Perhaps English wasn't taught either, but as a result I could not matriculate at Acadia University, but they allowed, or did allow and I suppose they still do, students to come in without being matriculated, you see. And so the result was that I got passed summer entrances at Acadia, and correspondence course and St. Anne's University offered course in Yarmouth, so I finished off the 21 courses in 5."
Question: "What was the approximate salary, that you can remember, that you received when you began teaching?"
Answer: "Three-hundred dollars in the section, you see, in those days, every section is complete in itself and with my license, but at that time they were taking 16% for teachers' pension starting in 1928, which $140-$142, something like that. Well, of course the first years was in the depression, and I think myself got $15, and there was a $5 payment and a $10 payment, and it was paid during the summer & I got the rest of my money at Christmas time. It's very difficult for anyone who hasn't gone through a depression to realize what it was like. You said you are finding it difficult obtaining a teaching position, well I didn't have a teaching position until one week before schools opened and a friend of mine didn't even go to school the first year, so times were hard and of course, salaries were very, very low."
Question: "What did you finally end up with as a salary and what was the highest?"
Answer: "The highest salary I got, and that again was in 1965, was somewhere around $11,000, at the same time, that figure today is somewhere around $21,000, you see. So there has been a rapid change in the salaries in the last 70 years, of course, that $11,000, I only got for half a year, because I quit teaching in June.
Question: "Did the salary depend on how long you had been teaching?"
Answer: "Well, yes & no. The salary go up with certain licenses. Now, a TC5 you get a basic salary. And there are 10E etc., so at the eleventh year you are at the top and you stay there, you don't go any higher than you see."
Question: "Did it depend on your license when you began?"
Answer: "No, not necessarily. The salary was paid by the school section, and school sections could offer $300 here or $350 there and I'd go in either place if I could get the job, you see."
Question: "When you first began teaching were jobs plentiful?"
Answer: "No. Especially not at the time of the depression. No."
Question: "Did a lot of students, do you think dropped out of School during that time?"
Answer: "Well, I don't think there were so many dropouts, that is, not per years. There would be very few students who'd finish high school, who started in primary, you see. That is, there would be a number of dropouts every years. But not to have a big dropout. Well, I don't know what the average would be in the run of a year, but I know there would be very few students who started school, who finished school. For instance, when I got to Grade 11 in 1926 there were three students in Grade 11, you see. Of course, I don't have any idea how started back then, but certainly far more than three. And there was little difference in the educational picture than, because many girls, particularly went in for school teaching and at that time, well when my older sister was teaching you could get a license to teach Grade 9, 10, 11 & 12, you see. So many high school, well my older sister then, dropped out of Grade 10 and returned later and took their Grade 11. So, it is very difficult to say how many dropouts because many students dropped out for various reasons and then came back too, you see. Even when I was teaching in Weymouth in 1957, there were students who dropped out of Grade 10 & 11 and went out to work and suddenly decided they wanted more education and Came back in Grade 12, you see."
Question: "Is this possible, or is there such a thing? Who do you feel has a better situation, the teacher during your time or a little after or the teacher of today?"
Answer: "Well, I think the conditions have changed a great deal. For instance, when I started teaching & before that, I think teachers were, how should I say, a God or Goddess of a room, you see. That is a command of one room. And students, didn't rebel as much as they would do today, because they're used to more freedom, the home situations were different and naturally school situations followed along about the same thing. Now, I think the school were all in the same room till about the war, and I think so many teachers leaving the profession and going into services of various other better paid jobs, that a number of teachers were brought in who were young and had never taught and didn't have too high, perhaps a Grade 9, perhaps even lower, were brought in to fill the places. And they didn't plan to stay in the profession and so therefore, while they were given permissive licenses, they had no training and some of them stayed in and so I think the students took advantage of that fact because in many cases the teacher would probably be no older than the student you see, and probably the students took advantage of that."
Question: "What are your ideas about the scarcity of teaching jobs today? What do you think caused it or do you think anything can prevent it?"
Answer: "I think there to be a cause, and I think the movement into school teaching maybe, because of higher salaries, better teaching conditions, because back in 1948, they started with the Regional high schools, and so the teachers were only expected to teach one grade or one subject, you see. So you could specialize if you like, and certainly not have to change all the time. I think giving the higher salaries succeeded, but I think on the other hand, perhaps they're not careful enough in selections of the teacher. Giving a person a high salary doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get good results form the person, because everyone is interested in making money."
18
Interview: Verna LewisInterviewer: BJ D'Eon, Grade 9
Question: What is your name?
Answer: Verna Lewis
Question: How long have you lived in Digby County?
Answer: All my life. Since I was born in 1942
Question: Where were you born?
Answer: In Hillgrove, in my grandfather's house
Question: Was there a hospital in Digby?
Answer: I think so...I can't remember
Question: So your delivery was a house call?
Answer: Yes
Question: Where did you life as you grew up?
Answer: I lived in Hillgrove until I was nine or ten, and then I moved to South Range
Question: How often did you go to Digby as a child?
Answer: Oh, I don't remember going to Digby a lot as a child. I know that when I did go, I went with my neighbours, the Haight boys, whenever they would go into town.
Question: Did you often go with your parents?
Answer: No, not that I can remember
Question: Did you go into Digby for groceries?
Answer: I don't ever remember going into Digby for groceries. We usually just made do with what we had.
Question: So you and your family produced all your needs?
Answer: Yes, mom would cook all our food and sew our clothes. We had a vegetable garden and a cow and a horse. We would milk the cow and whenever mom would make bread, we would get the flour from the corner store up the road.
Question: You had a corner store?
Answer: Yes, In South Range and once in a while, mom and dad would give us five cents and we could walk up to the store and but penny candy. I remember once when dad gave me a dollar and sent me to the store to buy s blade for the saw. On the way I lost the money! I was blamed and they thought I spent it on something for me.
Question: Were you punished?
Answer: I think I was, I don't really remember, but yeah, they probably did punish me. It was a big than to lose a dollar. That was a lot of money then.
Question: Yes, I see. So when you did go into town, why did you go?
Answer: I don't really remember, its amazing what I've forgotten. I know that when we did go, it took a lot longer than it does now to get there with our old car. Cars weren't as fast as they are now. It would often take us around forty-five minutes when now it only takes fifteen to twenty minutes to get to Digby.
Question: Where did you go to school?
Answer: I went to a little schoolhouse here in South Range up until grade six. I would take my lunch, and sometimes walk home for lunch.
Question: How many grades were there?
Answer: Primary to Seven
Question: And you stayed until grade six?
Answer: Yes, and then we went to Digby on the bus for high school
Question: Did you have relatives in Digby?
Answer: Yes, we used to go into town to my aunt and uncle's house for a meal and a visit. We always loved going; they had a big beautiful house and they always provided us with meals we would never get at home. It was a real treat.
Question: What were the summers and winters like?
Answer: Well, the summers were always very hot; I remember that my brother and sisters and I would go topless in the summer up until we were 11 or 12 because it was so hot.
Question: And the winters?
Answer: They were very, very cold and there were lots of storms
Question: Do you remember storms like the blizzard we just had?
Answer: Yes, but it wasn't until I was a grown woman with my own children. It was terrible and lasted a long time. The wind was incredible and it blew out a few windows. Many people were without electricity for days.
Question: Has the snowfall changed at all since then?
Answer: No, we still always had around the same amount as we get now.
Question: What other types of disasters do you remember?
Answer: Well, I don't ever remember anything terrible happening. Just storms.
Question: Was there a lot of fires?
Answer: I don't think so; I suppose there were fires but not very much. There probably weren't as many things to cause a fire as there are now, with all the electricity.
Question: What did you have for news?
Answer: I remember there was news on the radio but I didn't listen to it because it didn't interest me or anything
Question: What type of advertisements were there?
Answer: I don't remember...maybe there were a few on the radio and there were posters or signs in the stores but that was all I remember.
Question: When you had snowstorms, how long was it till you were plowed out?
Answer: Well, we never heard tell of being plowed out the day of the storms like it usually is now. We were often stuck at home for days but we never cared because we were pleased and satisfied at home anyway.
Question: What was your first job?
Answer: I worked at Stedman's Five and Ten downtown Digby and I got paid $8.90 a week. It was when my brother, Arnold and I lived in an apartment in town.
Question: How old were you then?
Answer: I was 16 and my brother was 14
Question: What type of things were there for entertainment?
Answer: We went to the show, we had a theatre. We would listen to old soap operas on the radio and we would often walk the sidewalks. Another big excitement for me which wouldn't be very exciting now was when I got paid on Fridays at noon. I would walk down to the Cornwallis Restaurant which is where House of Wong is now. I would buy my dinner and I really liked getting strawberry shortcake. It was the specialty in strawberry season for $1.25. It was a real treat for me.
Question: What other places in Digby County did you visit?
Answer: We would go to Weymouth on July 1st every year, which was the highlight of the year. We took a picnic lunch and supper and there was activities set up everywhere and things like that.
Question: Was there a parade?
Answer: Yes and there was a big ball game and at night there would be fireworks. We stayed the whole day. We would also go to Bear River in July for the Cherry Carnival
Question: What things did you have in Digby County that we don't have now?
Answer: I remember downtown there was a big town clock that would strike every hour. We don't have that now.
Question: Did you ever hear church bells ringing?
Answer: Yes, but not a lot
Question: From the time you were a child to the time you were grown up with your children, did things change a lot?
Answer: Yes
Question: Have you always liked Digby County?
Answer: Yes, but many things have changed and you hear a lot more events and news happenings now. As children, we never heard of anything happening in town and we didn't have to worry about a lot. Now, you often hear of everything going on.
Question: Thank you very much.
Answer: Your welcome
19
Interviewed: Clare PerryQuestion: Clare, did you live in Digby all your life?
Answer: No, I was born in Digby (in the Ganong house) but left when I was 6 months old. Then I lived in Weymouth for 5 years, then we moved back to Digby where we lived in Stewart Raymond's house at the corner where the Harr's live now. We lived there 3 years. We then moved to Conway where we lived ever since.
Question: What did your parents do?
Answer: My father was a judge probate and my mother was a school teacher.
Question: So you took after your father?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How long were you a probate judge?
Answer: I was a probate judge for 20 years.
Question: Did you have to go for some sort of training?
Answer: I trained under my father for 10 years.
Question: Was it common for women to be working?
Answer: No.
Question: So you must have had a lot of respect.
Answer: Yes.
Question: Did you enjoy your work?
Answer: Oh, I loved it!!!
Question: So your father was a probate judge also. Did he enjoy his work?
Answer: Yes, he was a magistrate and a probate judge and he was a magistrate in the town the county.
Question: So your family would have been a well known family.
Answer: Yes.
Question: Do you remember the Gilpins at all?
Answer: I met them. I knew Charlotte Gilpin. My father felt that women should be educated because they had children to bring up and if the women didn't know anything then children didn't know anything. He was pleased with me being a educated.
Question: So it wasn't very common for women to be educated back then. Did you find that being a woman and being a probate judge you were a woman? Did they discriminate?
Answer: No they didn't, not the people or the lawyers. They couldn't discriminate against me because they had to come to me for certain things.
Question: Did you take part any other activities?
Answer: Being a probate judge took up a lot of my time.
Question: Did your mother like being a school teacher?
Answer: Yes, she liked being a boss.
Question: Was it acceptable for a woman to become a school teacher?
Answer: Yes, Yes.
20
Interview with Keith O. Raymond - 1979Done by: C.E.H
Question: I want to get some information about Centreville, your first recollections. When would that be? The fish plants and so on.
Answer: You want the history of Centreville when it first started.
Question: Trout Cove, yeah.
Answer: Trout Cove. It was changed to the name Centreville about, I guess, approximately 1918 or something like that. There's a gentleman by the name of Boutilier, Alfred Boutilier, who came up from down around the St. Margaret's Bay area and he started buying fish up in Shelburne Cove which after a year or so up there, he moved down to Centerville and he started building a plant there. He had a canning plant and he had a building and made his own tin in sheets, made his own cans and he put up chicken haddie, kippers, smoked kippers, olds they called them, and they also had the salt fish fin haddie.
Question: Was that Alfred's father?
Answer: Alfred's father.
Question: Major.
Answer: Yeah, they had their own generators, their own electricity at that time.
Question: Can you remember his plant?
Answer: Oh Yeah.
Question: When was he there generating electricity?
Answer: He was there from about 1910 and he passed away in 1912 then when he passes away, the bank took itover and it was sold to an outfit, Martin Wile, out of Boston.
Question: Martin Wile?
Answer: Yeah. Out of Boston. And then Charlie Morton bought it from Martin Wile and Charlie Morton ran the plant from about 1926 to about around 1930 and was sold to Lunenburg Sea Products out of Lunenburg and they ran it from 1930 to 1947 and I bought it in 1947 from Lunenburg Sea Products.
Question: Lunenburg Sea Products, then, was in competition with Maritime Fish, was it?
Answer: Ah, Right. And then in 1946, maritime Fish and Lunenburg Sea Products was amalgamated into what is National Sea Products then- now.
Question: Do you remember Boutillier having coasting vessels or steamers going?
Answer: Yes, he had.. he built.. he had the coastalboat named " The Centerville" which was built in Centerville and then he had another one called "The Frances B", that would be named after his wife, that would be Alfred's mother, and she was aslo built there in Centerville and they ran from saint John to Centerville taking his products to Saint John and Bringing food back like flour. He had a general store there too.
Question: I see. So the plant thata he originally owned was located where your plant.
Answer: Is now.
Question: Is now.
Answer: Yeah
Question: What about... when did scallops come to Centerville?
Answer: Well, scallops came to Centreville about 1922. My father started that there in Centerville. He had, I recall, a boat named the " Henry Ford". It was only a small boat, It was only 42 to 45 feet long.
Question: And would that be like a trawl boat or is that the kind of boat it was?
Answer: No it was the same as these boat are now... Small
Question: Decked over?
Answer: Yeah she was decked over. Then in 1925, Berle Outhouse, that would be Pearly Outhouse's father, built him a bigger boat and it was named the "Keith & Robinson". She was about, oh I suspose, what 45 feet long and decked over, f course. And she had an Acadia engine in her, a big Acadia engine. I don't know how.
Question: A one Lunger?
Answer: No, no. She was four cylinder. A big high thing and developed probably 50 horse power.
Question: Do you remember what kind of gear those boats towed then?
Answer: Now they had when they were first starting out, three drads attached to a bar. Three, three, three foot drags.
Question: Those drags would be bigger than todays?
Answer: Yeah they were three foot. Today I think they are only two and a half..two and a half feet. Thay were three feet drags or approximatelyeven three and a half feet, they were quite a bit bigger, well, notbigger then then they are now but they only had three to a bar and then after that, they made the drags smaller, two are a half feet and as they put five on a bar, six on a bar and you know they've go more power to two more bottom.
Question: And so when he first started fishing with that " henry Ford",your father didn't fish himself.
Answer: yeah he did.
Question: Oh did he? When he first started fishing then with the " Henry Ford", was that the kind of gear he was fishing with three on a bar?
Answer: yeah, and they had the heist, a big five hourse power heist on deck, either Acadia, made by the Acadia Gas Engines or the Lunenburg place, the Lunenburg Foundary.
Question: Did that have a separate power source?
Answer: Oh yes, it was a heist
Question: It's own engine like a donkey engine?
Answer: Yeah, and tured a wench or the hoist on deck. Yeah, that was separate from the main engine.
Question: When did the powering hoists for the main engine come along then?
Answer: the Powering hoists for the main engine came along about, oh, it was quite late because after the donkey engines, we got the car engines to pout on to fun the heist, four cylinder chevs or four cylinder Fords and running from the main engine, that didn't come along until about, oh, it must have been 1947 or 48 when they powered off trhe main engine.
Question: So this was about 1922 or 1923 when your father tarted fishing scallops in Centerville?
Answer: Yeah.
Question: Was there much activity then in the scallop fishery in Digby?
Answer: Well,it was a good as and better than lobstering or groundfish longlining, and they shipped all the scallops to the states in Kegs, we called the kegs, or barrels, they held, well the barrels we got made from bealer and baxter uo the valley held about 130 lbs. And the ones made down here by H. T. Warne held about 112 to 115 lbs. They were sold in the states by the gallon. We got paid so much per American gallon.
Question: Do you remember what kind of price there was?
Answer: I remember $ 5 a gallon was a big price. Normally, it would be around possibly $3 a gallon. $5 a gallon I recall once they got a cheque from one of the commission agents and they got $5 a gallon. That was a big price.
Question: And were there buyers at that time buying that scallops?
Answer: Here?
Question: yes
Answer: No, every fisherman shipped their own. We shipped or there must heav been ten or twelve commission agents on Boston fish pier.
Question: Do you rememberwho any of those people were?
Answer: Well, i used to go and get the fishingmen to ship to Reda Fisheries and if i got fishermen ship their scallops to Reda Fisherie, she would pay me $0.50 for every barrel that she recived from the fishermen but they were Reda Fisheries, Roland Solven, Denson Hardy, R.A. Kelly, oh there's so many more.
Question: So when you were going around getting fishermen to ship to Reda, how old were you?
Answer: I was about 12 years old.
Question: twelve years old. And was your father shipping at that time?
Answer: yeah a couple of boats.
Question: Did he operate more that one boat in the scallop fishery?
Answer: Oh yeah, There was three.
Question: So there was the Keith & Robinson"
Answer: There was " Keith & Robinson" and then after the " Keith & Robinson", the"Keith & Robinson" got lost off Yarmouth, he built two more, the "DemilleG." and the "Gerald D", and what was the other one'e name, I think it was the "Teraplane".
Question: And they were all involved in the scallop fishery?
Answer: Yes, fishing out of Centerville. Of course, the season in those days was from the !st of october to the last of April. There wasn't any summers.
Question: When warmal first started fishing, there wouldn't have been any season at all?
Answer: No.
Question: i mane legal season?
Answer: No he didn't go out in the Bay of Fundy. He just drug here in the basin.
Question: Was your father, then, the first one to fish in the Bay of fundy?
Answer: Out of Centerville. One of the first ones.
Question: There wasn't anybody else in Centervillefishing scallops?
Answer: No
Question: But did Warmal fish in the Bay of Fundy at all?
Answer: Oh yes, after he went out in the Bay of Fundy after he got some more heavier gear, When he first started out, he used only one drag and then after he got the three drag bar, the he went out in the Bay of Fundy.
Question: Do you remember the name of his boat that he started scalloping on?
Answer: No, I don't
Question: But that would have been about 1921 or 1922?
Answer: yeah, around that. 1920 1921.
Question: We were talking about season. There was a limitation out on when you could fish scallops.
Answer: That, i , there wasn't any limitation in thise years. But then they did come out with a season around, well let's see, around 1925 or 26, the they came out with a season.
Question: Would there have been quite a few people involved by 25 or 26?
Answer: Yes, ther was quite a few scallop boats.
Question: When you were twelveand you were going around trying to get fishermento ship to Reba, wht year would that have been?
Answer: That was in 29,30,31,32,33. There were ten scallop boat out of Centreville.
Question: That's Charlie Morton, Sr., that owned the Boutilier plant?
Answer: Yeah, that would be Darrell Morton's Father.
Question: Right.
Answer: And Gidneys-Ralph Gidney had a boat, Kenneth Gidney had a boat, Lee Wescott had a boat, Nels Kelley had a Boat, Cecil Dakin had one, Robbie Morehouse had one.
Question: So were there as many scallopers out of Centreville at that time as there were out of Digby?
Answer: Yes, there was at that time. Around well this was around 30, I guess,32 or 33.
Question: You mentioned that the scallops were shipped in barrels. Did they all go to the Boston market or did any go to places in Nova Scotia from Cetreville?
Answer: No, they all went to the Boston market and they all went to the Boston maket because they tried the New York maket once or twice and they always got shafted in New York so they stuck the Commission agents in Boston and they were pretty honest about them and they had the commission agent charge them so much for selling them.
Question: What about selling in Halifax or Lunenburg or Saint John? Any
Answer: No, Well, there was a market there but they didn't.
Question: Nobody from Centreville made a business of shipping there?
Answer: No.
Question: How did the scallops get shipped from Centreville?
Answer: We brought them up on the truck.
Question: Did every fisherman bring his own up?
Answer: No, we used to truck the other fishermen's scallops. I think we charged them $0.50 a barrel freight up. The train would leave here quarter after two, the train from Halifax going to Yarmouth. We put them on the train, go down and they'd be put on the Boston boat, the "S.S Yarmouth" and they'd be in the market in Boston the next morning at eight o'clock. They'd leave here quarter after two and they'd be in the market eight o'clock the next morning.
Question: And that ship ran Yarmouth to Boston every evening?
Answer: No, no, no, no. Every..I think three times a week.
Question: Three times a week. So that's when the scallops were shipped.
Answer: Right.
Question: Were they iced?
Answer: No, no.
Question: What.
Answer: In the wintertime they weren't iced. But in the spring of the year we would put them in begs and ice them and we used to
Question: But most of the shipping was done in the winter when it was cold.
Answer: We used to freeze some in the summer months, I mean in the spring of the year. We used to put them in gallon boxes, wooden boxes that held a gallon, eight pounds, and take them down to Yarmouth into cold storage and they were frozen for us down there.
Question: I see. When you say the spring of the year, how late did the season stay open?
Answer: April 30th.
Question: April 30th. So by April 30th, it was too warm to ship them the normal way?
Answser: Yeah, but anyway, the season was closed.
Question: So April 15th, would they be
Answer: Well, it would be too warm then, an, well, from the 1st of April it probably would be the month of April because you know they couldn't put them in a barrel.
Question: When did the first buyers get into the scallop business?
Answer: The first buyers got here….they came in at about after the war. It was ….General Sea Foods used to buy here out of Halifax and of course, Maritimes Fish bought scallops here and Vincent Snow. That would be, when was that, and during the war, no even during the was there were buyers here. I imagine the buyers got into the act, got into buying them around, oh possibly around 1940.
Question: When did you first buy scallops?
Answer: Oh, let me see, well, I first bought scallops about 47.
Question: That was after you came back from Montreal?
Answer: Yeah, when I started the fish plant.
Question: When you started the fish plant.
Answer: when I took over my father's fish plant.
Question: Right. Up until 1938 or 39, had you been actively getting fishermen to sell to some particular
Answer: Commission agents?
Question: Commission agent?
Answer: Yeah.
Question: And that was up until the time you left in 38 or 39?
Answer: Yes.
Question: That was the way it was done?
Answer: That was the way it was done. They were all shipped to, well, I would say, 80% were shipped to.
Question: And their weren't buyers like we have today. Their weren't buyers who..
Answer: No.
Question: owned boats or had shares in boats and
Answer: Well Frank Anderson owned boats here, yes, and George Morrell had three or four boats.
Question: That would be Earl's Father?
Answer: Earl's father, yeah. And Frank B, or Ian's grandfather.
Question: Frank was the owner of Maritime Fish.
Answer: No, Frank was the manager of Maritime Fish. His father before him, who was Called Shorten Anderson, before they started the fish plant and Maritime Fish took it over and they had a plant here and one up in Canso.
Question: I see. Was Maritime Fish owned here or somewhere else? Frank Anderson must have had an interest.
Answer: Yeah, he had an interest in it and it was owned by…
Question: And H.B. Short?
Answer: H.B. Short.
Question: Would there have been somebody outside of Digby who
Answer: Yes, Connors, Hal Connor's father.
Question: Connor Brothers Connors?
Answer: No, no.
Question: Hal Connors of National Sea?
Answer: Hal Connors and Boutilier.
Question: Alfred Boutiliers?
Answer: No, no. No, another Boutilies there in Halifax.
Question: The Boutilier that owns Boutilier's Fish Market?
Answer: No, it was another Boutilier. It was Hal's father and this Boutilier that owned Maritime Fish.
Question: How much how many scallops did these fishermen catch in those early days? What would have been a reasonable catch for
Answer: Well, a normal day, probably three barrels, four barrels.
Question: That would be three to four hundred pounds?
Answer: Ah, four, about five hundred pounds. That's four barrels.
Question: And what would the boats have been worth?
Answer: Boats at the time was worth…My father had one built the "Demille G" he had it built down in Cape St. Mary's, $350, and he put a St. Lawrence engine in her which was another $400 or $500. I suppose $1,500.
Question: And the price they got for the scallops?
Answer: Well, it varied. $3 a Gallon which would be about $0.40 a pound or $.0.35
Question: So they were grossing $12 to $ 15 a day on their catch?
Answer: Well, if they had four barrel, they would have, what, five hundred pounds, so that would be about $200 a day.
Question: I thought you said $3 a gallon, $30 a barrel.
Answer: No, I said, $3 a gallon.
Question: Oh, $3 a gallon. Sorry.
Answer: And they held about twelve to thirteen gallons and the Baxter and Bealer barrels held about fourteen or fourteen and a half gallons.
Question: What grounds did the different…did the Centreville boats fish on the same fishing ground as the boats out of here?
Answer: No, the boats, well the boats, our boats in Centreville used to fish off Sandy Cove ground there up off of Gulliver's Head, I mean, between Centreville and up off of Gulliver's Head, and, of course, the Digby boats would come down off Gulliver's Head but they never came down to Sandy Cove.
Question: And how far off shore did they fish?
Answer: Oh, I don't know. Two to three miles. Two miles.
Question: Where all those boats form Centreville deck over like your father's boats?
Answer: No, no. The last two, last three boats father had weren't decked over. They just had the table and were open.
Question: They were big, kind of extended Cape Island boats?
Answer: Yeah, they were only about 42 or 45 feet.
Question: But the normal….all those fellows were fishing with boats that were capable of hauling the three…the bar with three or more drags on it?
Answer: Yeah, them you see, what they would do with the boats during the off season, they would take the table off them and the scallop gear and would go longlining, trawl fishing.
Question: You mean trawl fishing by longlining not longlining like the long liners on the South shore?
Answer: No, no. They'd go haddocking or haking or something.
Question: When did the scallop fishermen start going further a field looking for other scallop beds?
Answer: What do you mean, off shore here or in the Bay of Fundy?
Question: Offshore, in the Bay of Fundy, there are other areas in the Bay of Fundy than just two or three miles off shore, aren't there?
Answer: Well, oh yes. Well, when they….see years ago, when it was closed, the season was closed from the 1st of May to the 1st of October, that meant the whole Bay of Fundy. And now, they changed the law. Now after the 1st of May, they can go six miles out.
Question: Right.
Answer: That never was before.
Question: Yes.
Answer: It was closed, period.
Question: Right. But now they fish for scallops down off Lurcher and, in Fact, out on Georges Bank and Browns and so on.
Answer: Well, they didn't go to out Georges Bank, out boats here didn't go out to Georges Bank until, gracious, I mean these small boats didn't go out there probably until 1975.
Question: Do you remember who the first fellow was to find the Beds on Georges Bank?
Answer: Darrel Morton out of Centreville in 1947.
Question: He found it?
Answer: He went out there, drug scallops. Fred Snow was the captain and there was Darrell.
Answer: No, that's Floyd.
Question: That's Floyd.
Answer: Fred was his brother. And he went out there, he and the crew…there was Fred, Darrel, Lornie Titus, a Dugas fellow. I've got it home. I forget…
Question: And did they go more than once, or…
Answer: Ah, they only went…I think they made…it in was in September. I was talking to Lornie the other day. It was in September and they,…I don't know whether he said they made one trip or two trips. Anyway..
Question: Why didn't they keep going?
Answer: Well, of course, the winter, the bad weather was coming on and they were smaller boats and no power in those days.
Question: Yeah
Answer: Not that much power. I think she was a 60 horse power caterpillar.
Question: Well, now at that time, there was no scalloping done around Nova Scotia except in this area.
Answer: That's right.
Question: So, nobody else was fishing on Georges Bank, in the Bay of Fundy or anywhere else?
Answer: No, no.
Question: Did that Morton Boat or anyone go back to Georges Bank after that, after 47?
Answer: No, he didn't go back, no. No, no one from this area went back. Then they started Lawrence Sweeney and I forget the fellow's name, Beck? He was one of the first ones, the old "Barbara Joe" I believe her name was. He fished out of Lunenburg or out of Yarmouth, I don't know.
Question: I see. When did Lawrence's boat start going out there?
Answer: Lawrence's boat started going out there about, oh, 50.
Question: 1950?
Answer: Yeah.
Question: Were they big boats like the current ones?
Answer: No, they weren't big boats like the current ones. See they'd send them out there. No, Lawrence started building these 100 foot ones, what are they, 105 feet. They haven't changed the design much. And they started building those bigger boats in 55 or 56, because some of those boats that Lawrence has now are 30 years old or better.
Question: Were they using the Digby gear when they first went out there?
Answer: No, they used the offshore gear.
Question: Who designed or developed that?
Answer: I don't know. I would… it must have been designed down in Lunenburg.
Question: So, as far as your memory goes, except for that Morton boat, nobody form this area went to Georges between 1947 until…
Answer: No, I don't know. I don't know, 1975, or 1970's. Probably the 1970's. Could have been a bit earlier than 1975, the 1970's
Question: In the meantime, the season here opened up so that it was a full year, they could fish all year around?
Answer: Yeah, I forget. I don't recall what year they did open it up outside six miles.
Question: And I was asking you before about the shucking. Had you seen a scallop, well, of course, the scalloping started about as early as you can remember. How did they know there were scallops there at that point, before they starting fishing for them?
Answer: Well, they knew when they'd get scallops on their trawl. I mean, when they were hauling trawls, some of the scallops would bite on the hook or you know, probably a bucket of scallops on their trawl. What they did down at Centreville, they couldn't shell them all out at sea, because of then smaller boats and there was a bunch of scallops so they used to bring them in and shell them on land or in the fish plant and then the shells were taken up and ground up for chicken feed.
Question: Where was that grinding done?
Answer: Right there in Centreville, right by my father's house. It's burnt down now. Right there in the field in back of the house. I have pictures of piles of scallop shells, fifteen feet deep and they used to grind them up for chicken feed and they had a very good market. In fact about 1977-78, we brought some scallops ashore and shelled them in the plant and I said well, I must get a grinder and grind the Department of Agriculture told me there was too much calcium in the shells. So apparently the chickens must be different in '75 then they were in '25.
Question: As far as you know, it has always been permitted to shuck them ashore?
Answer: As far as I …unless they made changes since we did it. It has to be a licensed plant, of course. You know, like where you shell your clams.
Question: When ….in those early days, was all the shucking done ashore or did they do any?
Answer: No, the only shucking done ashore was what they couldn't shuck while they were out there.
Question: So they did it while they were fishing and then what they had left over they
Answer: Yeah, because they came in when it blew in the winter time and they would take the scallops out. Probably wouldn't get out for two days and they would shell them ashore.
Question: Did they, when they caught the scallops then, did they just dump them in the hold as they do now?
Answer: Yeah.
Question: They didn't put them in baskets or bin or anything so that could be handled?
Answer: No.
Question: What happened to the fleet in Centreville? You had twelve boats or so.
Answer: We had twelve boats. Well, the scallops were scarce there and they went and converted. Boats got old and peple got out of it. Fellows got out of it and then they went and got the fish draggers which were bigger draggers now, so it just petered out.
Question: Did your..did you buy scallops in Centreville in your plant?
Answer: Oh, yes.
Question: But your father never bought scallops there?
Answer: Ah, no, they used to shop them.
Question: Your father was a buyer too, though, he bought other fish?
Answer: Yeah, everyone shipped scallops.
Question: When you got into the business of buying scallops, did you have boats fishing for scallops out of Centreville?
Answer: Well, we didn't get into, let's see, 47, there weren't any boats scalloping out of Centerville.
Question: You didn't really start buying scallops until…
Answer: Until about, well, I started buying scallops when I bah the first "Kathy & Janice", about 1953.
Question: I see, so she fished for ground fish in the summer.
Answer: She fished for scallops in the winter and we tied her up for the summer months. She didn't even…
Question: Oh, she didn't fish?
Answer: No.
Question: When
Answer: A.F. Theriault built her for me. She was about 45 feet long and he charged me, she was built in 53, $1,50 to build her, and I put a Dodge marine engine in her, which was another thousand dollars. The whole deal only cost me about, the wench and the whole thing about 3,500. They went fishing and we were paying about $0.30 a pound for scallops. This was 1953 and scallops went down in the States down to $0.23 a pound, and they, well, they said it wasn't worth it when they went down to $0.26 a pound, they tied her up.
Question: They tied her up. Did that boat eventually go fish dragging?
Answer: That boat eventually went fish dragging and she fish dragged a number of years, then I sold her to Roy Condon.
Question: At that point, in 1953, were you allowed to fish scallops only in the winter?
Answer: Yes, as I recall, just from the first of October to the last of April.
Question: While she was used by you commercially, did she always fish for scallops in the winter and ground fish in the summer?
Answer: Yes. Yes
.
Question: Did you have other boats that were in the scallop fishery?
Answer: Yeah, I had the "Melissa Jean". I had the "Melissa Jean".
Question: She fished out of Centreville and did the same kind of thing, fished for scallops in the winter?
Answer: Yeah, Yeah.
Question: When was she built?
Answer: She was built, the "Melissa Jean", she was built about oh, 1956.
Question: Yeah. And she kept fishing until the mid sixties?
Answer: She kept fishing until scallops got very scarce. They were allowed to go in the summer months at that time and scallops were scarce and I sold the "Melissa Jean' around 62 or 63.
Question: But she was fishing all year around for scallops was she?
Answer: Ah, in the latter years, in 60,59,60,61, till I sold her, she was fishing those years all the year around for scallop, but three or four years part of that, she fished scallops in the winter months or during the season and fish dragged.
Question: What would have been a normal daily catch for her?
Answer: What, Scalloping?
Question: In 1960?
Answer: Scalloping?
Question: Yeah.
Answer: In the summertime?
Question: Yeah.
Answer: Ah,
Question: Or winter.
Answer: Or winter. Of course, it varies. See, they had to go outside the three mile limit, well, in the summer-time, that's why they were only getting possibly a hundred pounds.
Question: That's why you let her go.
Answer: That's why I had to. Well, scallops at that time were only about $0.60 a pound, $0.50 a pound, and there was no way they could…
Question: Did you have other boats that were in the scallop fishery?
Answer: At that time? Well, I had, then I built some more boats. Built the Kathy & Janice II", the "Freda Grace"> "Sahyis" and I had another one there….The "Freda Grace", the "Kathy & Janice", oh what was that name of that other boat? "Melissa jean"…I had them anyway.
Question: Did they all fish for scallops at some time or other?
Answer: Yes.
Question: They all had dual licenses as we call them now?
Answer: Yeah. Yeah.
Question: And then the next generation of boats were the….
Answer: Were the, well, the 65 footers.
Question: Yeah. And you had two, just two of those, after the "Sahyis".
Answer: Yeah. Well, the "Melissa Jean" she was a seiner.
Question: Yeah. And the 65 footers had dual licenses in both cases?
Answer: Yeah, Yeah.
Question: And what would be a reasonable catch today for one of those boats now, a 65 footer?
Answer: Scalloping?
Question: Yeah.
Answer: Out of here? Two hundred pounds would be the maximum. A long day, too.
Question: When that crew, the Morton crew, went to Georges Bank in 1947, Keith tells me that according to Lorne Tius, who is still alive, that there were American fishing boats there dragging for scallops along side them. Subsequently, this fellow (he thinks his name is Beck) from Lunenburg went out there a few years later with a larger boat and he likely fished along with American fisherman on those grounds.
21
Interview: Mary RobinsonInterviewer: Emily Maxner, Grade 9
Question: What's your full name?
Answer: Mary Kathleen Tidd (Robinson now)
Question: Was there very many people in your area with the last name Tidd?
Answer: There was some but not a lot. Most were over the mountain - Culloden.
Question: How many was in your family?
Answer: I had three brothers and 3 sisters, not including me.
Question: Where were you born?
Answer: Born at home in 1924.
Question: How old are you?
Answer: Born in March 30th 1924, makes me 80 in March.
Question: How long have you lived in Digby?
Answer: I was 22 years old when I moved out of Digby.
Question: Why?
Answer: When I got married I moved, but I always went back.
Question: Where did you go?
Answer: Came to Conway.
Question: Does most of your family still live in the area?
Answer: I only have one sister older than me. She's 83, living in Digby still. The rest are all passed on.
Question: What historical memories do you have of Digby?
Answer: I can remember when they made the first big theatre on Front Street, called Capital. The Manager was Mr. Wing (ha, ha). I can still remember his name. Also, I remember the red school in Digby. That was the first Digby ever had until they made their new school. All the people that went through Digby became doctors, nurses, lawyers and anything in order. It went from grade primary to grade 12. Most classes were quite large. You didn't start having different teachers until grade 8.
Question: How long did you stay in school for?
Answer: At 16 I left school to work. My first job was babysitting then restaurant work than clam factories till I was married.
Question: What was the jobs of your parents?
Answer: Dad was a fisherman all his life until he got older then he traveled. And Mom worked out. Sometimes as a nurse for when women had kids. She would be there to help.
Question: What memories do you have of your family?
Answer: Well, I lost a brother at 4 years old. I was 6 at that time. He died with a summer flu. Many died with it in Digby at that time. It swept families right out. We didn't have a lot of necessities. In summers to make money we picked berries, babysat, ran errands. You would only make a dollar or so a week and we used that money to buy clothes for winter and school books. We did any job that we could.
Question: What was your community like?
Answer: Digby was only a small community when I was a girl, but as I grew up, more restaurants popped up as well as different stores.
Question: What was your house like?
Answer: Our house?
Question: Yep.
Answer: Our home was not a rich home but it was rich in love. Our parents did things that didn't cost; like going fishing…Papa always took us fishing. Many nights Papa would play the mouth harp and we would sing.
Question: What area of Digby did you live in?
Answer: We lived on St. Mary's; the longest and also Mount Street.
Question: What was the health care like?
Answer: Doctors came to your house in those days. If you caught any disease that spread, your house was quarantined by putting a black card on it. No other kids or people could come in your house. The health care in my day was better than now, I think.
Question: Why?
Answer: Because we got needles for anything that was going. The VON nurse always came to your house to check up on everyone. But there's more diseases now than there ever was before here. We never heard of AIDS. There was a lot of doctors.
Question: What happened when you got sick?
Answer: Mom would take goose grease and cook onions in it…it broke the colds. If you sprained your ankle or whatever, we rubbed old horse liniment on the area. There were pills for kidneys. They always made sure there was a laxative in the house if you got sick or got a fever…(ha, ha)
Question: (Ha, ha) oh my…So did you go to church on Sundays?
Answer: Yep! Went to Salvation Army when I was a kid. Then, when I got older I went to Baptist. 40 years ago I joined the Baptist Church in Smith's Cove.
Question: What was your religion?
Answer: My mother was a Methodist and Dad was a Baptist. I am Baptist.
Question: Do you remember going to Sunday School as a kid.
Answer: Yep!
Question: What did you do back then?
Answer: You didn't group up. We were taught right from the Bible. We were all in a classroom together to be taught.
Question: Did a lot of people go to church?
Answer: A lot more people went to churches back then. Drugs, liquor is all out there. Children are not made to go to church nowadays.
Question: What was Digby like?
Answer: You could walk anywheres and never had to worry. There were no gangs. There was always a town cop. He went through town all night.
Question: Was Digby different when the war started?
Answer: Cornwallis was set up as the navy place. Hundreds and hundreds of soldiers. There was an airforce on Cannon Banks, trained them for flights. The streets; at any time you could see sailors, soldiers and airforce. At midnight the train would come in and 50 or so would come in the restaurant at once. We would have to have soft drinks and sandwiches ready at that time.
Question: What kind of sports was there?
Answer: At the winter time we skated and bob sledded against each other. We really enjoyed winter in them days!
Question: Was there any sports in school?
Answer: No. We never heard of them. It was just tag and little games like that.
Question: Was the teachers strict?
Answer: Yes! Especially the principals.
Question: What was your punishments?
Answer: If anyone got caught with gum in their mouth, they had to sit at front of the class with gum on their nose. That was a big laugh. If you got in trouble you would have to stay after school right up till the teacher was ready to go home, then you were. The strap was also used. If the teacher couldn't handle you then they would get the principal.
Question: Did you ever get strapped?
Answer: Yes I did. Quite a few times.
Question: Why?
Answer: Everyone cheated, got caught passing notes, chewing gum, or not having homework done.
Question: Did you have a lot of homework?
Answer: Oh yeah, every night, but I never did it…(ha, ha). I only got to grade 10. When I was 16 I said goodbye school. At night we didn't have time to do homework because you had to do dishes, cook, take care of younger siblings and get your clothes ready for the next day.
Question: What was the rules of your house?
Answer: There was no swearing at all! Papa never allowed us to touch playing cards, any games, nothing like that on Sundays. They were quiet days. We always had sing songs Sunday nights. Mom was a wonderful singer. We had manners! We were never allowed to call someone by their first name. It was Mr. or Mrs. You were not allowed to talk at the table. Papa always served our meals when he was home.
Question: Did you have a vehicle?
Answer: Nope; never had a car. You either went with someone, went by train/buses or walked.
Question: Was there usually other people in your house besides family?
Answer: Yes. Our house always had kids, they looked for home-made cooking. We had swings and lots of climbing trees (apple).
Question: Did your family ever see anyone famous?
Answer: King and the Queen. I took a group of girl guides up one time. They was just an arm's length away. We seen them in Halifax.
Question: What did you do for fun?
Answer: Went to the theatre a lot for ten cents. We had dance halls, Big Apple…it was like Tim Hortons where lots of people went to talk and you could watch other (older) people dance. But mostly we made our own fun.
Question: Did you have any animals?
Answer: Always had our dogs and cats. We had pigs. The dog was the main thing…they used it as a guard.
Question: So what was life like back then?
Answer: Work, work, work! No drugs or liquor and you could walk around without any worry of someone killing you. You didn't see many people smoking. You never had to worry when you went out somewheres about getting beat or raped. You never heard much of rape.
Question: Did you have outside toilets?
Answer: (Ha, ha) Yep. Usually there was the Simpson's or Eaton's catalogues that was always hung up for toilet paper. Once a week one of us used to clean it. It was clean most of the time, it just smelled.
22
Interviewing: Vincent SnowInterviewer: Charles Halibuston
Question: Now, how about the beginning, Vincent? You grew up in Digby, Vincent?
Answer: Right.
Question: So do you, I wanted particularly you know about the scallop business and how it began in this area. There wasn't always a scallop fleet in Digby.
Answer: No.
Question: What do you remember about the earliest scalloping?
Answer: Ah, the thing that I remember about the scallop business, at the start, when I was probably about 9 or 10 years old, I suppose.
Question: Would that be around 1920?
Answer: Around the twenties, the early twenties, I suppose. My father, he took some time off from the sea. He was a sea captain, a deep sea captain, and he
Question: What was his name?
Answer: William. Captain William Snow. And my uncle, Vernon Bent, at that time, was interested in going in the scallop business and the boats were very small then. I remember they were much smaller than they are today. They were-for fuel they gasoline, almost all of the boats- used gasoline, and
Question: Were those boats like our cape Island boats, or were they decked in?
Answer: Ah, they had a little deck in the front, they were more like the Cape Island boat and yes they were open for the most part.
Question: An open cockpit towards the back end?
Answer: Toward the bow.
Question: Towards the bow.
Answer: Yeah, they had a little, sort of a little cabin toward the bow which is what the Cape Island boats have, as you know. And, anyway, he had my father interested to the point where he, I guess, whether my father bought a boat or they shared in buying a boat, and they went dragging, as they say, dragging the scallops or raking them out in the Bay of Fundy, and I remember them going through the winter out there with the tide and there would be a lot of ice cakes around, you know, and they'd wend their way when the weather was calm enough, when there was little wind, and they'd fish through the daylight hours and they'd return just before dark, and sometimes with the tide, and with the ice cakes coming in, I remember. But anyway, they were shucking their scallops shore those times. They used to bring them in and shuck them sometimes.
Question: How many men were on that boat? Just your father and Vernon Bent?
Answer: Yeah, just the two of them, I believe. They might have been or had somebody go along to help shuck the scallops. They'd shuck some outside and mostly ashore, then in those days.
Question: Where did they shuck them?
Answer: Ah, oh, I remember, Rollie Warmal, you see he was the, he and, Rollie Warmal and Ern Vantassel, I believe, were probably the first two to drag scallops and they first got them here in the Annapolis Basin. They found them there, and then it was later on, of course, that they went into the Bay of Fundy, but I remember that on one occasion, probably when I was 11 or 12 years old, they were along side of a wharf at the racket and they had this pile of scallops there. I remember they shoveled them out on the beach there, and I went down and they said that, well, if you want to shuck scallops, here's a knife, you know what I mean, and you go to it. They were paying maybe $0.50 a pail or something, I guess , at that time, and I made a dollar that day.
Question: So, you were shucking them right out on the beach?
Answer: Right there, in the outdoors. We were
Question: And what did Rollie, was it Rollie Warmal, Roland?
Answer: Rollie, ah we called him Rollie Warmal, but Roland I suppose his name was.
Question: And, was he the first fellow that dragged for scallops?
Answer: I think that he probably was, that a - I know it was Jim Trahan, the blacksmith, and Rollie Warmal that conceived that you know, a type of drag, and there was some contention I know in later years as to who- they wanted to get a patent done on the thing as to who was most responsible for, what do you say, creating this type of drag, and so, as I say, it was in the early twenties as far as I know, as I remember it.
Question: I see. Who, was there actually a battle about it, any court actions or anything about
Answer: I think there was a court, some court case over that, I'm not sure about that but I know there was some trouble over it anyway as to
Question: And Trahan's Blacksmith Shop was just at the end of your street, King Street?
Answer: It was, no, it was on first Avenue. It's where the Digby Forging, don't they call it Digby Forging now?
Question: I see, I see. That was Trahan's place.
Answer: that's right.
Question: when you say they first conceived the idea of the gear, was that the particular type of gear or was that scallop dragging, period? Had they found scallop drags or were they copying scallop drags from somewhere else?
Answer: they, I, maybe they got some idea of how to make them from some other place, I don't know, but they came up with something different again that would be suitable for dragging here in the basin and then eventually in the bay of fundy, you see. And
Question: Was there any scallop dragging going on further down the Bay of Fundy or on Georges Bank or anywhere you know of before Rollie Warmal started dragging here?
Answer: Ah, as far as I know, the only scallop dragging that amounted to anything was Digby for quite a few years, yeah. Then in later years, of course, down around Lunenburg, they used to set out and went to Georges and dragged scallops there.
Question: But that would be good deal later, wouldn't it?
Answer: yeah
Question: Wouldn't that be in the 1940's or so?
Answer: I think something like the 1940's of the 1950's, yeah, that they started, because for one reason, we had a number of boats that came from the south shore of Nova Scotia, that came to drag scallops here. There was a fellow by the name of Parks, he had a sort of little tugboat type boat. There was Venice Wilmouth who had the "Lazaren" he called it, the little- it was a small vessel, a two- masted vessel and he used to drag scallops here and a fellow by the name of Bacham and Strum, those fellows were from the South Shore.
Question: What period would that be? What years would you be talking about?
Answer: Ah, well it would be in the 40's. we started in 1936 to buy scallops.
Question: So these were fellows that you brought from?
Answer: That's right, yeah.
Question: Going back to the twenties when your father and Vernon Bent were fishing, were there other boats, there was Warmal,
Answer: That's right. There was a number of other boats but it was a small fleet and small boats and
Question: Do you remember any of the other people involved?
Answer: Ah, one of the first ones, now Frank Anderson, who was the assistant-manger, I think, or he might have been the manger of the Maritime Fish Corporation then, he had a boat, let's see, he had Shirley Tidd, I think, was running his boat and it was one of the first and one of the oldest I know that I remember in later years that was still fishing, and the "Earl h.", she was named after his son, Earl, H., yeah.
Question: Any other boats at that period? Was there anybody from Parker Cove fishing out of here at that time?
Answer: There would be some , yeah. The Longmires were into it. They came into it in the 20's, sometime in the 20's.
Question: Did they, in the 20's?
Answer: yeah, and there were people like, when we, when I first started in, there was like Ernest McGraw, Cyril McWhinnie had the "Aldenmack", a small boat
Question: This was 1936.
Answer: This was 1936, yes, and a few years later, when Cyril gave it up and Ernie McGraw still was carrying on or he owned the boat, George, a fellow by the name of Captain George King came to me one day and wanted to know if I would share with him in buying this boat from Ernie McGraw and that, by the way that was about what, a 45 or 50 foot boat, small- they were not very low in the water and, you know that he and I shared in the purchase of that boat, we both invested $350, $700- the boat was already to go, machinery and all the gear and everything.
Question: That was the full purchase price? $700?
Answer: The full, yeah, the full purchase price.
Question: What years would that be?
Answer: That would be in the 40's, probably or some, the early 40's, I would imagine, and
Question: And George King, is he related to Jack King?
Answer: Father of Jack.
Question: Jack's father?
Answer: Yeah. And he used to give me a share, you know. He was the captain of the boat and, that used to catch two to three half barrels of scallops a day, about as many as a lot of those boats are getting today.
Question: When you say a half barrel, was that a scallop barrel?
Answer: Yeah, they were waxed inside. They held about 125 or 130 lbs. if they were full, but there would be brine in with the scallops at the same time.
Question: So how many pounds a day was that boat catching, then, 250 or 300 pounds?
Answer: That is something like that. Yeah. And during the daylight hours, they'd come in a little after dark possibly.
Question: Now, did I understand you saying earlier that Clayton got into the scallop business before you did?
Answer: Before I did, yes.
Question: How long was your father involved in fishing scallops?
Answer: oh, I only remember two or three years he went, I guess.
Question: And then did he go back to the banks?
Answer: And then he went down to the deep sea fishing again. After that. He did this during the winter, I guess and the hardest part of the year when, you know.
Question: At that time, Vincent, in the early 20's, were there fish buyers in Digby like we have today?
Answer: Oh yes.
Question: So there was Maritime.
Answer: And there was Syda and cousins, I think, before my time. I remember them talking about Syda and Cousins. Hayletts around the retail market and they used to buy from the inshore fishermen, and that's all we bought. We bought from the inshore fishermen. We didn't buy from the offshore fishermen.
Question: Who else would have been in the fish buying business then?
Answer: Of course, there were the Maritime Fish were the big buyers. And they had, like, they bought from Centreville, you know, the Raymonds. Ern Raymond who was the father of Keith Raymond. They used to buy the fish down there in Centreville for Maritime Fish, and let's see, oh yeah, there would be Hayden, a man by the name of Hayden, who had a wharf to the west of the Maritime wharves. And I remember, That's where there was a dory tied at one of his wharves one day and I went down there and it had a long line on it, and I mean, quite a lot of play, and that's how I happened to row a dory, I got in it and the oars were left in the dory and I fooled around, I remember, after school one day, at Mr. Hayden's wharf.
Question: There was nobody around in the front of the town buying.
Answer: Now there was Sproule, there was people by the name of- I don't know whether he had boats or not. He had a store- a fit out store and Milbury had a fit out store for the fishermen in that area where the fish company is today in the racket.
Question: Do you remember how your father, then, when he was fishing for scallops, how he sold them? And where he sold them?
Answer: Ah, I know my brother, Boyd, was the sales manager for a National Fish Company in Halifax at the time and I know they used to ship some scallops down to him.
Question: How did they package them to ship them?
Answer: They would, now I would imagine, they would be shipping them in half barrels. I don't know whether they put them in boxes or not, but we were, by the way, I might say this, that my brother, Clayton, and I, they call him Bucky, as you know, anyway he and I were the first to grade scallops in Digby and we out them up in little plastic bags, about a pound in a bag and we packed them into wooden boxes, but first of all, you'd take the scallops and you'd wash them through the brine, and you'd cull them, you know what I mean to say, there was the brown scallops you used to pick out if they didn't look very good or there was a lot of foreign matter, like even the little baby cod fish, you know, that would come in with the scallops sometimes, and we'd wash them through and clean them up and then grade them for size, and now I had a salesman in Detroit who wanted the very small scallops so I'd pack off the small ones for him and they were the size that he used to buy the Cape Cod scallops. They get higher prices for that. Well, he paid me a bit more for them and, of course, he had three, what did he have, a very large restaurant in Detroit. I was there visiting there one time and there were three parts to it, I know, and there was a long line of people waiting to get in, you know, a very popular restaurant, and he served me some of these scallops when I was there so
Question: So you sold them direct to that restaurant, then, in effect?
Answer: That's right. Well, I had a salesman there and he used to sell them. He took me to this restaurant to meet this man that ran this restaurant when I visited there one day, but
Question: O.K., well, now, in 1936, you got into the scallop business yourself.
Answer: Right. And we sold the fisherman gasoline and oil, scallop kegs, and I sometimes used to buy their groceries for them, you know, if they were fishing night time, and the stores were closed, or whatever, and they would put their orders in.
Question: You mentioned scallop barrels or half barrels and scallop kegs. What do you mean by that? What were they made of? Where did they come from?
Answer: We bought them, first we bought them from, it would be, Oxners Limited, I think it was, in Chester, Chester Basin, actually, and then when he died or went out of the business, his son-in-law, by the name of Eric Countway, we bought, oh, we used to buy 200 barrels at a time, half barrels there were at the time.
Question: Why do you call them half barrels?
Answer: Well, that's the size that they were. A full barrel was about 200 lbs.
Question: Do you mean it was a barrel that's cut in two in someway to make it a half barrel?
Answer: No, they were made smaller, that's all. And they had steal hoops on them, you know, they weren't like apple barrels, and they were vey tight, water tight, and if they weren't quite water tight, we used to swell them and make then water tight to hold the brine.
Question: And when you packed the scallops in those, did you use a liner at all, or was it straight in the wood?
Answer: they were waxed inside. The wood was waxed inside.
Question: With paraffin?
Answer: they were burned to begin with, a sort of, I guess maybe the buring was to cure the wood or something, and then they were waxed so there was protection, you know. The scallops didn't hit the wood, in other words, directly.
Question: Were there other suppliers of barrels?
Answer: Yes. When they got through producing them, you see, in the 30's, by the way, the late 30's, we bought a lot of barrels from Bealer and the Baxter in Bridgetown, and I almost believed, now that I think of it, that they were the first before we bought from Oxner and Countway. Yeah, Bealer and Baxter. We bought, oh thousands and thousands of barrels, and Clayton and I, at the same time, we were running the golf links in the summertime at that time, 1937, and we were in the fish business as well.
Question: Well, at that time, the scallop fishery would have been only a wintertime fishery, wouldn't it?
Answer: Ah, it was seasonal from the middle of October until the end of April, I believe then, and then after a few years, they went beyond, lets see, they closed from seven or seven and a half miles off shore, and then beyond that, you could fish in the summertime.
Question: Would that be about 1950 before there was a summer fishery?
Answer: Around the late 40's I would say, or around 1950, yeah, when they brought in the summer fishery, it would be around the late 40's.
Question: Back to these barrels again, how many scallops, how many pounds or how many count or how many scallops, gallons
Answer: We used to put them up in gallons and after we washed them out of the barrels.
Question: Is that how you sold scallops at that time, by the gallon?
Answer: By the pound and by the gallon. The gallons- we used to get our cans from the States in Boston- American-sized gallon and they would hold eight pounds of scallops.
Question: These are- now you are talking about cans.
Answer: That's right. The cans-we bought the cans from Boston.
Question: Something like a paint- like a gallon paint can, is that what.
Answer: They were tin cans, yeah, I suppose they would, they were tin cans anyway, and they were shellacked inside. They had a shellac lining.
Question: How did, so when did you decide to ship, why would you sometimes ship in a barrel and sometimes in a gallon can?
Answer: Well, the first few years we were in the business, most everything was shipped in the half barrels, the kegs. They were properly called kegs.
Question: All right. I
Answer: Then we went into the more specialized business by shipping further. You could, well, you pack your scallops in cans and ice them, see, now when they were shipped in the kegs, they weren't, well, we used to sometimes put a junk of ice in the centre because that's where they heat up first is in the centre of the keg. And that would keep them cool. But to keep them longer, we would pack them in the tins or the cans, as you might call them, eight pounds to a can, and then there would be, but then we would, an apple barrel, by the way, we bought a lot of apple barrels, and we would put four of these gallon cans in the bottom, in the centre there would be five and another four on top, so let's see, there was thirteen or fourteen cans in a barrel, gallons, with ice, you see, all through the cans and on top. Of course, you would probably have about eight or ten inches of ice on the top of the barrel and you could ship them further, of course, and they would keep better, you know, fresher by doing it that way.
Question: How many pounds or how many gallon were there in one of these half barrels?
Answer: Well, thirteen or fourteen/
Question: No, in the half barrels?
Answer: Oh, in the half barrels? How many..oh, well we didn't ship the cans in those.
Question: No. But how many gallons or pounds did a half barrel hold?
Answer: 125 or 130 pounds. Loose.
Question: That would be about 15 gallons, then.
Answer: Yeah, that's right. Or a little better-15 or 16 gallons.
Question: And, what method or what were your markets when you were selling in the barrel, when you were selling only in the barrels, what markets were you shipping to?
Answer: I would say that a large part of our shipment to Boston and the Boston area. Some went to New York and there was the odd time, we had a man who was interested in buying our scallops way down in the Southern States, but we didn't ship many down there. In the cooler weather, we did, you know.
Question: In the barrels? Did you ship them down there?
Answer: Yeah, in the wintertime, in the cool weather.
Question: were you selling through brokers, through salesmen?
Answer: Well, we sold direct to him and we sold direct to Powell & Nickerson, a company in Boston we shipped to. That was direct to them.
Question: That's Powell & Nickerson?
Answer: Powell & Nickerson. And they were people originally from Nova Scotia, the Powells and the Nickerson.
Question: I see. Were they brokers like Reba and so on?
Answer: They were wholesalers but I don't know whether they were retailers or not, but I think they were wholesalers for the most part. The Consolidated Lobster Company was another company we used to sell to in Boston area and
Question: Well, now again, were they buying them so that they could ship them around there?
Answer: They were actually distributors, I suppose you could call them, yeah.
Question: What was the price you were getting when you started your business in 1936?
Answer: When we started in 1936, we were working on a commission and we started with $0.50 a keg. For 125-130 pounds, we were getting commission, for the most part. We shipped to Boston. We did a little business on our own, you know, we bought and sold, but then we figured that $0.50 a keg wasn't enough because we were taking shrinkage sometimes on that too, you know, so we struck for $0.75 a keg, I remember, and we got it.
Question: When you were, so when you were buying on a commission, you were also buying barrels. Now who paid for the barrels?
Answer: We paid for the barrels.
Question: Out of the $0.50 a keg?
Answer: Let's see,
Question: Or did the fishermen pay for the kegs?
Answer: The fisherman, yeah, that's right. We sold the kegs to the fishermen, right. They were paying for the barrels. They were about $0.35, I think, $0.35 or $0.50 a keg, then, that they paid us for those kegs. That's right. No. But if we were doing it on our own, if we bought them outright, we used to give the fishermen a chance either to sell outright at a certain price, because we'd try to figure out the market ahead of time, and then we'd get the market price everyday by telegraph. Yeah, we used to use the telegraph in those days, of course, we have the C.N. and the C.P. Both had telegraph office here, and we'd get the reports of what they sold in Boston that day, to Powell & Nickerson, what Powell & Nickerson got and what they were willing to pay us, and now we said to the fishermen we'll either pay you on the basis of tomorrow's market, see, because we shipped the scallops today, or we'd pay on the day after's market. You can take the results of that, or you can sell them for a certain price, after we really got going there, after a year or two, but that's the way it went.
Question: How many people were employed in that business when you started up?
Answer: ah, we had- there was Clayton and I, of course, and we had- when we just had the scallops, we only had one or two men working with us.
Question: When you were selling by the keg or barrel, did the fishermen actually pack them in the barrels themselves or did you do that?
Answer: Oh, they were in the barrels when they sold to us but then we'd take them out of the carrels and wash them in the big tubs. We used to have big dip nets.
Question: I see. Even when you were just kind of acting as a commission agent at $0.50 a barrel, you still
Answer: We still washed them through the brine and cleaned them up, you see, and cull them and take all the foreign matter out of them, and pack them off and ship them in the kegs, yeah.
Question: Now, when you- so Boston was your main market?
Answer: At the starting, yeah, the first year or two, two or three years.
Question: How did you transport them to Boston?
Answer: Well, they'd go by truck. I know there was Bill Hazelton used to take them from here to Yarmouth and they'd go on the ferry from Yarmouth to Boston.
Question: Did he operate a regular trucking service?
Answer: Yes, he did. Yes.
Question: Bill Hazelton.
Answer: Yeah, Bill Hazelton, yeah. They lived on the north end of King Street in his father's home. They lived there.
Question: And, did he- did that service go every day or every other day?
Answer: Six days a week. We operated six days a week.
Question: What happened to them in Yarmouth, then? What ships are
Answer: Let me see now. The Yarmouth boat, yeah, was it three times a week the Yarmouth boat…that's right too, but he was available for trucking, I say, six days a week, but I believe that we had three days a week that we shipped to Boston.
Question: What ship
Answer: Every other day.
Question: I see. Was there one ship that operated three times a week?
Answer: The Yarmouth, ah
Question: The "S.S. Yarmouth"
Answer: Actually the "S.S. Yarmouth" I think it was, and the "Evangeline" I think was the name of the other. There was two ships going, I think, between Yarmouth and Boston.
Question: Were they same- belong to the same steamship company? There was a Yarmouth and Boston Steamship Company or something.
Answer: Yeah, they belonged to the same steamship-and the C.P.-they were C.P. ships, so far as I know
Question: Oh, were they? Were there any ships coming in here at that time from Boston or New York?
Answer: Only that, let's see, in the late 30's early 40's there was a, in the summertime, you know, there were cruise ships.
Question: I see.
Answer: One from Boston every week and one from New York every other week, I remember.
Question: Do you remember their names?
Answer: No, I don't remember their names.
Question: But they didn't carry cargo back?
Answer: No, they were just cruise ships.
Question: Now when the business changed, and you got shipped in these cans, how much later would that have been after 1936?
Answer: We started shipping the cans, let's see, it was in the early 50's, probably '54 before I started shipping cans.
Question: So that's 10 or 15 years that you were shipping in kegs before that happened?
Answer: Yeah. We sometimes packed scallops into boxes, fillet boxes, and then, oh yes, the fillet boxes were what, 20 pounds. They'd hold 20 pounds of fillets. We'd line them with parchment, these boxes, and then we'd produced, then what we had, I remember we used to have our boxes made down in Meteghan and the Comeau Brothers, you know, the father, I guess, started the business.
Question: E.M. Comeau & sons.
Answer: Yeah, that's right. E.M Comeau & son, and we got them to make a ten pound box and it was all printed up, you know, suitably for scallops, and we packed those. I think that started probably in the 40's sometime. Yeah, sometime in the 40's we started that.
Question: Where did those boxes go, this was your own - nobody else was shipping in boxes like that then. That was just your own, that was Snow Brothers, was it?
Answer: Yeah, that's right, yeah. Snow Brother Registered, we called ourselves.
Question: Right. And where did you ship those boxes?
Answer: Well, there- my brother, Boyd, who was, as I say, I mentioned, I don't know whether I mentioned to you, but I mentioned to somebody, about being the sale manager of National Fish, anyway, in 1929, I think, he went down to Liverpool, he and a Captain Myers, and they started a business themselves, the Mersey people, the Mersey Fish Company sold out to them or there were Nickersons that owned the place and ran it, and anyway, they operated there for a few years and it was in depression times, and things didn't go very well, so finally, my brother, Boyd, moved to Montreal and he became a broke up there and we- he arranged a lot of our sales at Montreal and we used to ship to Quebec and throughout Ontario, different points in Ontario and Toronto, and so forth, and so he had a big connection, you see, with all the wholesalers and retailers there, and he used to sell quite a lot of our scallops from there.
Question: Were your shipments, so was your business at that point, then, after Boyd went to Montreal, was your market mainly in the Montreal and Toronto area?
Answer: Ah, our Canadian market, most of it, yes. We still shipped quite a few scallops to the states.
Question: How did you make your shipments to the Canadian market?
Answer: They all went by train, you know, by ferry across here to Saint John and then by train.
Question: So that was a daily service.
Answer: That was a daily service, yeah, and we could, as I told somebody, that we could count on the shipment leaving here within minutes, you might say, and arriving within minutes.
Question: What time of day did you get them out of here?
Answer: Ah, they left here in the early part of the afternoon. Of course, the saint John boat, you know, left here the ferry left here at
Question: At two o'clock or so?
Answer: Two o'clock. Around two or three o'clock, it was.
Question: And it was a three hour run to Saint John to meet the train?
Answer: That's right.
Question: And when would those scallops be in Montreal or Toronto?
Answer: Well, they'd leave here, let's see, as you say, two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and they'd arrive at about noontime, I think, in Montreal the next day or they'd arrive in Boston. If we were shipping to Boston, they'd arrive noontime.
Question: Oh, you could route them through Saint John to Boston as well, could you?
Answer: That is right. They had that train service from Saint John to Boston.
Question: What, after, then, you developed this little box, you were really in the business of buying scallops then. The fishermen had nothing to do with where you shipped them or what the price was?
Answer: No, we for the most part, I think, probably altogether, we bought at a certain price and sold at a certain price.
Question: Yeah. How long did that situation prevail where the fishermen had the option of saying I want my scallops shipped to Boston to so and so, or whatever?
Answer: Well, they didn't care where they went so long as you gave them the market, you know, figured out the market price. Oh, that went on until, I would say, until the middle, let's see, the middle 40's
Question: Middle 40's.
Answer: Yeah.
Question: As of the middle 40's, what kind of equipment were the fishermen using, and who were the fishermen you were buying from/
Answer: Ah, at one time, well, there was one winter I bought from the whole fleet. There was about 25 or 30 boats there. The source of supply had gone down to a point where some of the boats had given up, you know, and these ones from the south shore weren't coming and the ones from Pubnico, I don't know, there might have been several from there form Middle West Pubnico, but it wasn't worth while for Mr. Richardson, who was the manager of the fish company over at National Sea Products, as I guess it was then. He said you might as well look after my boats as well as your own and so we did. But,
Question: That would be the fleet in the mid 40's?
Answer: Ah, that would be the mid 40's, I think, probably that the source of supply went down to that point, but in the late 30's, from, let's see, when we first went in 1936, '37, '38, yes, and probably '39, there was something like, between Digby and the Bayshore, a lot of these boats were from the Bayshore- Centreville had at that time, probably 12 or 15 boats. Altogether, the whole fleet would be about 80 or 90 boats when we first started.
Question: I see.
Answer: Must have been around 80 or 90 boats registered.
Question: And it dropped down to 25 or 30 boats?
Answer: Down to around 30 or 35 anyway.
Question: At that point, when the fleet had diminished like that, what kind of daily catches would the boats expect to get?
Answer: Ah, they were down to two or three barrels. In the late 30's, they were getting as high, of course, they would fish all the fine weather they would get, sometimes they'd stay out for two or three days to a time, you know, night and day, and they'd come in with maybe 10 or 15 barrels, half barrels, kegs as we called them.
Question: After three days, after two or three days fishing.
Answer: Yeah, maybe 12-15 barrels. Yes, there again, there was a difference in the size of boats and, you know, the gear that they handled.
Question: Well now, the dragging gear was the same in '45 as it was in '35.
Answer: Pretty well the same, yeah. I think 18-foot bars they had and probably six drags, six three-foot drags on the bar.
Question: The number of drags would, perhaps, depend on the power they had in their engines, would it?
Answer: I think, yes, right. The bigger boats would carry heavier drags and more, but
Question: What kind of boats had they become in 1945? Were they still much the same as they were in '35?
Answer: They were still, yeah, run by gasoline and very much the same engines.
Question: Had they the elevated afterdeck decked over as we know today?
Answer: Yes, when we first started in the late 30's, they were decked over, yeah, the boats were decked over then for the most part. No, they weren't like they were in the middle 20's.
Question: I see.
Answer: Yeah.
Question: So that had changed between the early 20's and the 30's?
Answer: Yeah, they would go further a field and they would stay out, you know, longer hours and, you know, the boats were larger.
Question: Do you remember who the, I suppose there were highline fishermen, then, just as there are today.
Answer: That's right.
Question: In the mid 40's, do you remember, does anybody stick out in your mind as being among the better fishermen?
Answer: The fishermen, yes, I don't hesitate in saying that Wilbur Robinson and Elwood Oliver were very steady fishermen and they looked after their fish really well. Don Turner and his brother, they were good fishermen.
Question: Were they from around Granville, the Turners?
Answer: Ah, Litchfield, Don and his brother. Ah, Wilbur Robinson, of course, as you know, is from over the shore, Parkers Cove, and Elwood Oliver, and of course, Horace Snow From over in port Wade, he used to sell to us once in a while. He built his own boat and he had a nice size boat, a lovely boat, and as I say, Ben d'Eon, who is still living. He's in his early nineties now and they tell me he is very alert yet, and he used to look after scallops and they were good - they produced a good quantity of scallops and very best quality, I would say.
Question: Did those, you mentioned Ben d'Eon with a two - masted schooner. Did he, did that schooner and did the other boats have wheelhouse on them fore or aft at that time?
Answer: Well, the little two- masted schooner, of course, they had their fo'c's'les you know, forecastles, and the regular fishermen - they went sword fishing when they were in between scallop seasons, they would go sword fishing and like that.
Question: That schooner wasn't operating under sail when it was sword fish and dragging for scallops?
Answer: Well, I think they used sail, too, and they had power, of course, but I think that they had sail too. They used to use sail.
Question: Well, now, these other boats like Wilbur Robinsons and Snow
Answer: They didn't have sails.
Question: What did they, where was the wheelhouse?
Answer: Ah, they had a wheelhouse in back, yeah, those boats then, when they were covered over, the decks - when they had the decks on the boats, the wheelhouse was on the back for the most part.
Question: And they dragged their drags from the side, then?
Answer: Yes, that's right. Yeah, they were planked on the sides, you know, to protect them, the boat itself, and they dragged from the side. Yeah, today the scallop boats, as you say, the wheelhouse is up front, isn't it? And they have quite large wheelhouses. The boats today are very wide and they're deeper, of course, and the tonnage is quite a lot greater than it was when we bought scallops.
Question: Now when I came to Digby in 1962, a lot of the scallop fleet were what looked like converted sailing vessels, maybe. Or there were several Newfoundland schooners and slender, sleek looking hulls- some of the others that had been built for power. As you say, that's changed now. They look a lot stubbier, but were those boats
Answer: They were double enders, a lot of them, when we first went in, they were sharp on both and stern and bow, you know, double enders. And the one that George King and I bought was a double ender boat, the "Algamack."
Question: Were they all, were they mostly, most of those boats that came into the scallop fishery, had they been built originally for other things or were some of them built
Answer: Oh, quite a few of them were built
Question: Specifically
Answer: Some of them were built specifically for dragging scallops, yes, that's right. And a lot of them were built on the Bayshore, up around Parkers Cove, up that way.
Question: Do you remember the names of any particular boats?
Answer: Ah, well, there was the, let's see,
Question: Wilbur Robinson's boat, do you remember what that was?
Answer: Yeah, that was- Wilbur, let me see, what was his now, gosh now, I'm on the spot there now.
Question: Or snow? Was he the one that built his own boat, you say, in Victoria Beach?
Answer: Right.
Question: Horace Snow.
Answer: I forget the name of the boat that he
Question: Now, let's talk about Horace snow's boat that he built himself. Did he build it there at Victoria Beach?
Answer: He Built it over there at Port Wade.
Question: Port Wade?
Answer: Port Wade.
Question: And how big- how long would that have been?
Answer: That would have been about 50 or 55 feet probably, I suppose.
Question: And did she fish here for a long time.
Answer: Quite a few years, yeah.
Question: After he was gone, or
Answer: No, I think the boat was out of commission before he died, I think. I'm not sure about that, but I think it was out of commission. He might have sold it to somebody else, I forget now.
Question: Do you recall what her width would have been?
Answer: Ah, no, I don't know the dimensions. I really don't know the width. That is, it probably would have been 55, could have been a 65-foot boat.
Question: And what kind of an engine would he have had?
Answer: No, well it was a gasoline engine, but I don't know the power.
Question: They used to use Acadia engines in the 20's
Answer: That's true. Yeah, I know that Mr. Sollows used to sell - I think he sold boats here, you know, he was selling engines from
Question: Did he sell Acadia engines or
Answer: Ah, I think he did. I'm not sure about that.
Question: Did he sell anything other than that?
Answer: No, I don't know.
Question: Vincent, we just had a little interruption and you told me the name of the boat that Elwood Oliver operated at that time.
Answer: Yeah, the "Lorraine O." Was the name of the
Question: And those Turner brothers were who?
Answer: Donald and Milton. Yeah, they ran their own boat. Very good fishermen. They were very reliable. They were steady customers of ours. We really valued them as customers and friends, for that matter. Fine chaps.
Question: O.K. Now after, so you and Clayton and another brother established the business, Snow Brothers Registered, during 1936.
Answer: That's right.
Question: What course did that business take after that? What sort of business interest did, perhaps, you and your brothers pursue up until retirement?
Answer: Well, in the early 40's, my brother, Clayton, and I divided the business. He , ah, we had started the lobster business you see, and we had the scallop business, and so he took the lobster and I took the scallop business, and then after a little bit, we, I think that he and I also started buying ground fish, too, before we divided the business a bit but anyway, he just took the lobster end of it and he developed that by - he started building buildings and building lobster cars so that we were selling lobster the year around. I know I still did some business with him after we divided the business and, by pounding the lobster in floats. Why there was a fellow by the name of Edmond Thimont. He came up and built us some lobster cars.
Question: Oh, from Church Point, Saulnierville?
Answer: Yeah, he died just a few years ago.
Question: Comeauville
Answer: No. He was from down the -Westport. Down from the Islands. Thimont. Edmond Thimont. Edmond
Question: Edmond Thimont
Answer: THIMO
Question: He was from Westport?
Answer: Down- I think so. Yeah. He was from the Islands somewhere there, and I think it was Westport. Yeah.
Question: Ah, What sort of volume of business were you doing in scallops, say in the late 40's, when you were handling it all?
Answer: Well, we were shipping anywhere form like, 30- 40 kegs at a time, and I remember that was one particularly good spell of weather and we worked three days and three nights with hardly any sleep at all because the boats, then, used to, you know, they'd fish anytime during the twenty - four hours that was good, fine weather to fish and we'd get weather reports from the Wilsons who were then down at the lighthouse, you know, and they were very kind in giving us weather reports as to how the weather was in the bay, and so anyway, we worked these three days and three nights. I guess I got about five hours sleep, and average of two or three hours of night, and we were falling asleep on our feet for that matter, but we bought three hundred barrels, three hundred kegs during that spell of weather, and the fishermen, actually, they were wiser than us at that particular time. This was sometime during the late 30's, and they were wiser on the markets and they had rather, they were better weather profits than we were, so they knew, pretty well knew, that the market was going to go down and down and we were taking a chance on the weather breaking, you know, and the market holding, and that pretty near put us out of business. We lost over $300. We had bought 300 kegs and had lost over kegs and had lost over $300 so we had to reassess and think about this.
Question: What was the price of scallops? You lost about a dollar a keg.
Answer: Yeah, we lost an average of about a dollar a keg.
Question: What was the market value for keg at that point?
Answer: They were around, let's see, for a keg, 125 pounds, they were only going for about $12- $14 a keg.
Question: So about $ 0.10 a pound
Answer: Yeah, something like that.
Question: so you lost about 0.10% on your gross.
Answer: Yeah.
Question: Were those shucked ashore at that point or shucked on board?
Answer: No, they were shucked, for the most part, in the Bay and they took shuckers a long with them.
Question: Do you remember when and why what changed? Why they were shucked ashore?
Answer: I think there was more intensive fishing. You see, in the 20's, in the mid 20's and late 20's, they didn't fish as many hours, probably, as they began to fish in the late 30's, when we established our business.
Question: Was there any use made of the shells when they were shucking ashore?
Answer: Some, yeah. We used to barrel them up in the apple barrels, the shells, and some people like to have that and I think probably they were used for different purposes, I don't know. There was a certain amount of lime, you know, you break them up and they were good chicken feed. And clam shells, maybe, I don't know.
Question: In dollar volume, what was the biggest year, or would you mind telling me what was the biggest year of dollar volume that your business did?
Answer: Ah, scallops, let me see, I'm pretty, it's very hard to say but, we would, that was when, let's see, October, November, about a six-month season, would it be something like that, and the total production would be, oh goodness, we might send eight or ten thousand kegs to market, or something like that, if you could figure that out.
Question: I see, and at price of $12 or something like that?
Answer: Yeah, a keg, you see.
Question: Now, did you ever handle more scallops than you did during that period, after you and Bucky separated, did you handle more scallops after that, or, than you had before, or was.
Answer: No, about the same, the same Quantity of scallops. Ah, you see, I
Question: Then you got into clams after that period, did you?
Answer: Yeah, the clam business I went into about the middle 50's, and I still kept on buying scallops, but when we began to process clam meats, and we canned those you know.
23
Interview: Eva StantonInterviewer: Matthew Stanton, Grade 9
February 2004
Question: Ok, I got some different stuff here, like, umm, I got like where did you go to school?
Answer: Out in Tiddville. It was a house. Clifford and Elsie live in it now; they made it into a home. They turned it around sideways. It was, well I don't know if I ever got a picture of it or not, but it was pointed with the door towards the road. And they turned it around and made a home out of it after the school went to Sandy Cove.
Question: Mom wanted me to ask if you ever had any 'Snow Days'?
Answer: I don't, I suppose. But what I remember is the days we had off. We had one room. It was a one room school house. And the wood we used to have to carry it in from outdoor and put it in the porch, there was a porch in the school. And sometimes we only had one stove. It would be so cold and they'd be ice on the wood that we couldn't get a fire going. And we'd be sitting there with our mittens on and everything. And it was so cold the teachers would send us home 'cause we couldn't, you know, we couldn't function it was so darn cold. It was, the stove was, kinda one of those long things, not that high, and it would get hot, when you got it going. But sometimes we had to do it ourselves. And it was awful cold walking out over here, you know, up the road. So the men had cut us a path through the woods, I don't know whether you could still see any of that or not. And it used to go from up back of Joe's garage there, is where it came out. And then there was one that come out, one part of it, that come out down back of Lovett's, up behind his house. We'd come down through their yard. And if you wanted to you kept going across the top of the hill there and it come out where Steven and Paula lived, lives now. That used to be the Post Office. When I was a kid, they kept the post office in the house there. When I was a little kid the post office was down by the road into a building where, you know, do you know Gert?
{No, not really}
No, well she lives across from Steven's driveway. They got them television things in her yard now. That was a little building; they moved it over there for her to live in, her and her husband. And that used to be the right through the foot of Steven's driveway and it was a little store and a post office, when I was a small kid.
But it was a lot warmer going through the woods then it was coming up the road.
Question: So there was no plow come over here?
Answer: No, not until we was married.
Question: You had to shovel the road?
Answer: Yep. The men had to shovel the road.
Question: When does the plow come over to the road? That would be around?
Answer: They got Frank to call and they sent a tractor down from Digby, or somewhere. 'Cause when he called, that musta been in '48, '47 or '48. No it wouldn't have been '47; it must have been in '48. But before that, when I was a girl they wasn't a plow come down The Neck. There was a bus that used to come that carried the mail and it took people to Digby in the morning. It took the mail up in the morning, and it brought it back, it came back with the mail at suppertime. Well you could go up, if you had business on that mail. It was a bus, old fashioned looking to what they got now. But he had a plow on the front of it and that's what plowed the road. See the road wasn't paved then, Matthew. I guess the first for plow, paving the road was, was when Stanley was a little feller, and Kemp, well not when Kemp was born. There was working on the road in 'Lake Side'. It was a hell-of-a bumpy mess. It used to be, 'cause it was full of pots. Kinda like your drive way down here. But it's a dirt road.
Question: Ok, did you ever go to, like, any dances or movies or things like that?
Answer: Oh we used to go to Digby go to the movies. Yeah they was two movie houses in Digby then. The 'Bijou' and the 'Capital'. Where the 'Capital' was they've just built that, that new place where you buy health food. What is it called... 'Sea' something? They just built it last summer.
{I dunno, 'Sea' something?}
Right there, its right there by the shoe store downtown, coming in. You know there's a new building there they just built. You never even noticed it?
{Nope.}
It was in there. I think there's a parking lot there too 'cause it's been a parking lot there for years. It burned down, that one theater. And the other one was somewhere down around where, just below where the Jewelry store is. That was an old building. That was called the 'Bijou'.
Question: Like I hear Grampy, or something or Dad, maybe, talking about going to different dances and stuff. Like would they just, like, have them. Just certain people have one or was that like...?
Answer: Uh, that was not when I, that was during the War. Well I musta been, let's see the War started in '39, and it ended, it lasted four years didn't it? I musta been 16 or 17 when the war ended. 17 probably. I don't know where the dances was before that, but during them years they was sailors in Digby like crazy. 'Cause that, where we go to Cornwallis, that was where the sailors from all over Canada trained. In Digby was just sailors, sailors, sailors, sailors and they used to have dances for them. And, well they
used to have two or three places. Some of them was kinda just drunk hangouts, but some of them. I used to go to one down, where Annie used to live when she first had a place in Digby you remember, down there. There was a big place that the sailors, that the Navy owned, and they was rooms in it they used to have dance every Saturday night. And you could go down there and they had rooms where the men could go and write letters and setting rooms where you could go talk to 'em because a lot of them was lonesome. And it was just young fellers lot of 'em, and they had service police there. But then there was another dance hall out by the propane place Kemp goes. Out to the foot of 'Racquet Hill' there, where you turn up to...
{The Golf Course?}
Yeah, right to the foot of that hill. There was a dance hall up over head in that. I never went there. It was kind of a rowdy place.
Question: What kind of jobs for like different people, like in, women or stuff was there, like, you know around here?
Answer: Well, there was a tuna fish factory all summer. And we did up pollock. And Jesus, they was some crowed, seeing them in it. They split 'em like you do to soften 'em. Oh, you never seen such big pollock now days as they was then. And they'd be laying on these things and they'd come in and thick, about that thick, you'd be canning them. We'd eat so damn much we wouldn't be hungry. We ate the tuna fish too. That's what, in the summer there wasn't much in the winter, the men went lobstering but there wasn't much for the women. See you didn't, you didn't go to Digby to work then like you do now 'cause nobody, hell I don't know if anybody around here had a car. Uncle Vaughan used to come home in one; that would be Wayne's father, down there. Every week he used to call us from Digby and he must've rented one and he'd come home. That was when I was smaller. But when Frank and them got grown up they got some kinda rattle trap piece of a car.
{Yeah, dad was saying some feller there got a half ton truck and was in the winter, was towing kids up and down the road on the car hood and he'd, I dunno, break down trail heads in front of there I guess.}
Yeah. But when I, when I was small, before I got that old. Why we used to go in the woods and pick berries or we'd go on the shores and play on the shore and we'd go down to the wharf and catch pollock, you could catch fish down there then. The wharf they had then, it blew down. A lot of it was on spiels, they had butt men and it was on spiels, I can remember watching that go.
But we'd get hungry, we'd go over on the beach, take an old tin can and imagine that was what the paint came in in those days. And it was over there and we'd pick penny-winkles and cook 'em. Build a fire and cook them and pick them out with a bobby pin and eat 'em or you'd pick berries and keep right on playing all day long. 'Cause they was such a crowd of us we wouldn't think to go eat.
I can remember coming up the road, when I was a kid, down there to Ruth's and going like this on your belly. You could hear the water jiggling in your belly, you'd be so darn hungry. But we all had a good time. But sometimes they'd be fights but them's what's around a bunch of kids.
But, yep, we'd start riding down hill, from up by Kemp's house there, and go clean down the cove over by where your father lives. 'Cause they was hills, there was those three hills here (we'd call them the first, second, and third hill). Sometimes it would be a ball and we wouldn't make the turn here.
Question: How would you steer coming around the turn like that? Like just lean it down to one side?
Answer: It was our feet, you'd be laying on your belly and your toes. You could steer it either dragging one foot or the other. God, to learn how to do that. After awhile I, a few of us would have sleds, bottin sleds, and they had a thing with a handle in the front that you steered them with. But most of the sleds was something somebody made. Then going down from Joe's down we rode there a lot down far's the cove and haul them back up. Hell they'd make bumps in the road and let 'em freeze at night, no wonder it hadn't killed you, tore your kidney's right out. That's what they'd do going over these bumps and go right in the air. It's a shame I can't, it's what I tell April, that I can't show you what I can see isn't it. I wonder if some day they'll have it so that you can.
In the winter we skated on the pond up here. I can remember them building that pond. Dad helped to work there 'cause there wasn't enough money in fishing here. Five dollars a week.
Question: So what is it just like Little River that they just plowed out?
Answer: You mean up there?
{Mmmm}
It had been kind of a, it had, well you know, yeah, what it was Little River. That's what it had been at one time. It had little sticks; I remember that, sticking up there. But the Whitman's' owned that land then and they made the pond that's there. They hired the men from around here one time, so scares and they did it. I believe they had a nice house too. Think your father can probably remember that. I think. But when I was a kid they used to have just a big saw that they stuck down in and kept sawing it. But he can remember doing it with a power saw. That was in the later years.
But the ice would be that thick. Just as pretty and blue. They'd never let us go skating up there at Christmas day; it always was safe Christmas day. I don't know why. We used to, but then in February I guess they'd start cutting it in January and February and we were skating then. They'd be a big hole in the middle of it.
I can remember your Grandfather, he had a calf. His father gave him a calf one time that the cow had, it was a little bull calf. And he used to go up there on the ice with it. And I remember they had a hole cut in the ice and I don't know they must have got water up, it was a round hole. And that, one of his legs went down in, a lot of wailing that darn thing. We used to have it hitched up and haul wood. You seen it, pictured it up there him riding around on its back.
I remember one time me and Gen, Frank's sister who's dead now, we was up there and we could hear it, was skating, and we could hear this awful noise. Woooooo, it would go and cracking, the ice, and we started for home. We was scared, afraid we'd fall in. And we met Gena's father coming from the woods, cutting wood, he came down by here. He was talking to us and we was telling him. And he said that bull that'd be the oxen. It was just that sometimes when the ice, you know, when you can see them thick cracks in it when it's heavy that way.
{Mmmm. Me and Damien was up on it and it was cracking.}
Yeah.
{That and Dad was saying it was just water running out and it starts to sag down a little bit.}
Yeah, yep. Well that's what it was doing and it was making a hell-of-a noise. Scared the hell out of us. Cripps they scared us of that pond anyway. We couldn't go up there and learn to swim, they was afraid that we'd get drowned and we wasn't allowed up there in the summer time, even though all the rest of the kids learned how to swim in it. My kids did. Never learned to swim 'cause we used to go down on the beach. By the time you got to your knees you was so damn cold you couldn't. They wasn't scared of us getting drowned there 'cause we couldn't go out far enough, I don't think they hardly knew they was a Lake Midway, well we couldn't have gotten there anyhow. But we had a good time 'cause they was an awful lot of us, kids everywhere.
Question: Well there was, like, that many kids here. Musta been a lot out to 'The River' and that. And out to Tiddville.
Answer: We never went up there. We didn't have to it seemed. We went to the store, walked to the store and back. But you see, you didn't get acquainted because you only had the little school out here to the road. Tiddville kids come over. But you didn't get acquainted like you do now. It's kinda hard to understand.
But, you see, they was nine kids down Frank's house, 'course some of them was older than me and some was younger. There was six over home. They was eight down to Wayne's. And they was seven over to Kathaline's, over where Teed lived there. Down to Ed's there musta been six or seven. The only one that you could have, and Ethel Elms they was six. And they was only three to Orin's house. His mother died awhile ago with cancer. But it was, it was...
{A lot different?}
Yeah, even the cloths was different. You'd damn near freeze to death 'cause you'd wear something wool and the wind blew through it. Now days what you have the wind don't blow through it.
We was poor, people was poor around then. But the kids made their own fun. I can remember the little boys that would, the carts and things they used to make. Now days, hell we don't make nothing, we go buy it.
They used to have a great big wheel off of a wagon, you know them great big rims you seen them. The iron rims about that wide. And Frank and Ensley and them, they'd have a stick, a crotch of a tree like that with a handle, a stick handle on it. They'd put that, straddle that, and they'd run along. And they'd go like the devil. And they got so they could run and kinda keep up to it.
And then the cart's they'd make. They'd take a stick of wood that was about that big around and cut two blocks off it like that with a hole in the middle with a rod through it. Just a handle on it and you know they'd go along with that. Later on they got so they put hind wheels on it too and then they had a cart to set on. And they'd have a rope to haul it with. Well the rope, it was kinda made so that when you pulled on one side it would go one way, you know, and on the other. They amused their selves.
Everything you had was home made. Somebody'd come up with something new. 'Course your Grandfather and Emsily, when they got a little bigger, they got smart and cut his fathers car half in two to make a thing for his Dagon. That kinda stirred up trouble.
Question: Don't matter anyone said they'd do.
Answer: Your father, at his and Kemp's age, after they come from school they could go take somebody's dory down though. They'd have about 5 or 6 traps down in the cove. Then they could go out and haul them traps and have a little money. Now days, hell you'd be in for it if they caught you doing that. I don't think things have changed for the better.
Life was easier, in a way. It was hard to earn money, maybe harder than it is now. Things wasn't worth as much, you didn't have as much money. But you made due with what you had. Everybody, or most people around had a cow, even during the Warring years. And they'd have a pig you'd kill in the Fall, you'd have that. And you'd have butter and they had hens too. Then when the War come, they'd be stuck on the shore on the beach. Hens stuck there.
Question: Was it still good when they come?
Answer: Yeah it was rations. And it was, it was in cans. It was just where the boats had been torpedoed and stuff. You never knew what you was going to find. Oh the young boys, it's a wonder they hadn't all got killed 'cause they'd find shells and all kinds of stuff up in the forest. Murray one time had a hand-grenade throwing them around.
Question: They just floated to shore?
Answer: Yep, they'd be in cases. See the boats that'd been torpedoed that was during the War. And we'd see, we'd see a bunch of boats out around for a while and we knew they'd be looking for something. Now what it would have been, I suppose it was submarines or something. Lots of times we saw boats going from St. John down to Halifax that we knew was joining the bunch that go over seas.
When I go to Cornwallis, maybe I'll get over it someday I don't know, but all I can think of, it puts me in mind of a graveyard. 'Cause I think of all them young fellers, they was all being, some of them was even 16 when they joined. 17 and 18 years old that was so full of fun then, and they never got out of Halifax, you know, just out of the harbour a ways and the boat would be torpedoed.
There was one boat that was torpedoed down off the Island that body's come ashore. A lot of them was on the shore down here. And they took him to Digby in the back of a police car with his feet sticking out. The poor bugger. He musta ran, I guess, I don't really remember. Dad said he had a picture in his pocket of some kids, two kids. And they put him in a garage down; we had the barn we had was down where you go in Cusma's driveway. That building that Joe's got was part of it that was where we kept the hay. And that's where they put him, laid him out so they come and got him. Never would have let that happen now days, it shouldn't have been allowed then.
24
Interview: Leigh TheriaultInterviewer: Colin Theriault, Grade 9
Question: What is your name?
Answer: My name is Leigh Theriault
Question: How old are you?? When were you born?
Answer: I was born in 1953, and I am 50 years old
Question: Do you have strong religious beliefs?
Answer: No, I believe in evolution
Question: Where have you lived all your life?
Answer: 80% of my life I spent in Digby County. I mostly lived in the town of Digby
Question: Who are/were your parents?
Answer: My parents were John Theriault and Estella Comeau
Question: How many brothers/sisters do you have? What are their names?
Answer: I have one sister and three brothers living, and one deceased. My sister's name is Marie, and my brothers are Harry, William, Daniel, and Paul
Question: What jobs did your parents have?
Answer: My father was a carpenter, and my mother was a house wife
Question: What did your family have to work on at home?
Answer: My family had a farm to work on
Question: Did the family get along?
Answer: Yes, very well
Question: What values have you learned through your life?
Answer: I've learned respect; you have to work hard to make a living, and 50% fun.
Question: Where did you go to school?
Answer: I went to Digby school
Question: Did you get a full education?
Answer: No, I had my grade 9
Question: Did you go to college or university? Where did you go? When?
Answer: I went to community college in Middleton in 1969-1971
Question: Were you involved with any organizations during your life?
Answer: I was involved in the Digby Fire Dept., Scouts, Civil Air Search and Rescue
Question: What jobs have you had during your life?
Answer: I was a mechanic, carpenter, clerk, manager of parts department
Question: Has your life passed by quickly?
Answer: No, I have many memories of my life
25
Digby County:A Journey Through Time With Families
Interviewed: Beulah Thimot
Interviewed by: Fallon Thimot
Question: What is your full name?
Answer: Beulah Irene Thimot
Question: When and where were you born?
Answer: I was born in Freeport, Digby County on August 9, 1932
Question: What was the reason for living in Digby Co.?
Answer: It was my home town, and that was where I was born and raised.
Question: Where exactly in Digby Co. did you live?
Answer: I lived in Freeport.
Question: How long have you lived here?
Answer: I think it was 63 years in Freeport and the past 10 years in Digby.
Question: Do you have any siblings? If so, please name them.
Answer: I have 10 siblings. Pearl, Edna, Gertude, Louise, Vesta, Raymond, Lou, Earl, Carson and Clifton.
Question: What were your parents names?
Answer: Percy Earl Thurber was my father. Belle Marie (Garron) Thurber was my mother.
Question: Where were they originally from?
Answer: Percy was from Freeport and Belle was from Westport.
Question: What did your parents do work wise?
Answer: My father was a fisherman, and my mother worked in the factory (fishplant) Connor Brothers, and she sold Avon for a number of years and she was also a house wife for 11 kids and a husband.
Question: What was your house like?
Answer: It was just an ordinary house, well kept, had an outhouse and later had indoor plumbing, as soon as hydro was brought to the island we had it, and we were also the first people on the island to have an electric washing machine.
Question: What was your school like?
Answer: We had a school with 4 rooms in it, 2 downstairs and 2 upstairs. We had outside bathrooms(then called backhouses instead of outhouses). There was only 4 teachers and our school went from grade primary to 11. To heat the school we had a potbelly stove that used coal, And we had to carry drinking water from the neighbours down the road in a bucket.
Question: How far from your house was it?
Answer: About a half a mile.
Question: How did you get to school?
Answer: We walked to school.
Question: Did you finish school?
Answer: No, i finished grade 10.
Question: When did you get your first job? What was it?
Answer: It was working in the factory(Connor Brothers) in the cannery and I got 25 cents a hour. I was about 14.
Question: Was it hard in your house chore wise?
Answer: All the girls had their own chores and you had to do them or you wouldn't be getting out of the house, and if you did them wrong, you'd have to do them all over again until they were done right.
Question: How much money did you get for an allowance?
Answer: I didn't get any.
Question: Was there any big snow storms, well bigger than the one we had this winter?
Answer: Yes, I've seen it worse than that. Pretty close to the tops of the telephone poles. There were no snow plows. The men had to shovel the roads and they had their own section to shovel and if it wasn't done, you'd get fined.
Question: When you were a teenager, what did you do in your spare time?
Answer: Spare time... we used to have a club called BYPU. It was a church club. I used to go to church and sunday school every Sunday, and every summer, they'd have a big picnic over at Will Pyne's farm and uh.. we used to have 3-legged races and sac races and they would have a scramble for candy. I also used to go to the movies Friday and Saturday night and after the movies were done, there would be dances. There was no liquor served at those dances at the time. And the music we listen to was tapes.
In the summer time when i was a kid, i stowed hay for local farmers. I also used to drive with the milk man Carmen Mase, he drove so slow that he wouldnt get the job all finished in one day. We went strawberry, blueberry and blackberry picking in the summer. In back of my house was a hill, a grass field and you could walk back and up over the hill there was a rock where you could see both bays and all over Freeport and now the hill is all full of alders and if you tried to walk back there you'd get picked to pieces. We went sliding on Crockers Hill down to Austin Weskits store, and we went skating on the brook and Fannies pond.
Question: Did you have any hobbies?
Answer: No i didn't.
Question: Do you have a favorite/funny memory or story you would like to share?
Answer: No.
26
Interview: Holland TitusJuly 23, 1979
Question: How old were you when you went out?
Answer: What? When I started?
Question: Yeah
Answer: Oh, I started when I was, I was, I went to school up unto ten. About that time I started. I was about eighteen, seventeen.
Question: Seventeen, eighteen huh?
Answer: I was seventeen.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: Oh, gee, we made none. Oh no, no we never. It was at one time oh, let me see, in 1923. I don't know whether was out fishing then or not, but in 1923 my brother and I, we had a boat built. The Cape Island, Clark's Harbour. I took her home in March. It was the eighteenth of March I got her to Westport. Well, that spring we went lobster fishing and it was of course, in those times we saved everything you know you were selling the smaller ones to the factories around here. Well, anyway, and in the month of April we put out, I put out a hundred pots where we put them of course, you wouldn't know. What they call the Searcher's Shoals. Twenty-five miles off Westport.
Question: Twenty-five mile off Westport?
Answer: Yeah. Sou-West, fourteen miles off of Yarmouth. Well, we put our pots off down there and we caught some lobsters, but they wasn't worth anything. Well, anyway, we saved out lobsters, we saved our lobsters. The last month did we cart up.
Question: Thirty-eight hundred pounds? That's a lot of lobster.
Answer: No.
Question: For two people it is, isn't it?
Answer: No. Look at the fishing we done to get them. We was about three weeks.
Question: Three weeks?
Answer: Getting that much. That summer we had to sell out see? The season closed and Kinney was buying Westport. Had two or three buyers down in Westport. Well, they selled out, no market. And there was a buyer from Portland over to Freeport. Jameson, Lloyed Jameson. He was born in Portland, and he was doing something in Portland. He was crating them through and well he took our lobsters. Clementsport didn't get no lobsters at that time, that was in 1923.
Question: Oh, I see. Thirty-eight hundred pounds?
Answer: Well, we got enough to pay our bills for that long.
Question: You got enough then?
Answer: Got enough to pay our expenses.
Question: Really?
Answer: We got eleven cents a pound.
Question: That's not too much.
Answer: And then I took, we had a fish net, and four of us built a one of these things they got off the weirs you know and a in the harbours down here at Westport. And of course, I, I fish if we had uh, I'd go out and seine the, that weir probably we'd have 30-40 barrels of herring couldn't sell them. Had to throw them overboard.
Question: Why couldn't you sell it?
Answer: No market. Look at today. Geez, you get about 15 dollars a barrel for them today.
Question: Yeah, like they have some of those back.
Answer: And look at lobsters. Look at the price of lobsters today. Some difference.
Question: Yeah, not fair.
Answer: There's no comparison at all. Fishing today there's no comparison with it was in the 30's. Course, uh, when it came up in the 40's, during the war, when the war started then the price came up. Well, even scallop fishing. I was up here scallop fishing '45, '46, '47, Had my own boat. We got 50 cents a pound for scallops. Today they're getting three dollars.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: Well, I don't know what other information I can give you, I can answer questions.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: Well, I don't know what other information I can give you, I can answer question.
Question: Yeah, I was wondering once you caught you lobsters what did they do, did they can them? Or did they sell them or…
Answer: Oh no, they went right on the market, the American market. That's the shippers, the shippers, see anything under nine inch would go on to the canners. They canned everything.
Question: Just off to the canners. And where would the canner be around here, that would be in the states too?
Answer: No, at that time we had 2 canning plants down at Westport.
Question: Yeah?
Answer: Are you familiar with down there?
Question: Not really. I just been down a couple of times.
Answer: Yeah, in Westport we had there was 2 canning plants down there of course that was when I was young. You know.
Question: How many people would work there at the canning plant?
Answer: Oh, probably 15 oh, about 15-20 in all, yeah, in the canning plant you know we'd borrow them. Of course, I used to work in a canning plant on the holidays and Saturdays when I was going to school.
Question: Would you get extra money for it?
Answer: Well, you know a little bit. I made it. I used to have to help out. Get a pound of better or a quart of molasses to take home. My father never made no money. You know at that time.
Question: What did your dad do anyway? Was he a fisherman?
Answer: Yeah, he fished and he went to sea some. And he tired cooking. Oh, when I was a kid growing up my father was only making what, $20.00 a month. $5 a week.
Question: Yeah, it's not a real big wage.
Answer: No it's not in comparison, living today is no a boat shucking scallops. $20 a bucket. Those kids they don't save it, I don't think.
Question: No, they seem to be spending it having a good time.
Answer: Oh yeah….going to the tavern, see them going to the liquor store.
Question: Yeah, gee. Well, what would you have done for entertainment down in Westport if you had a chance and a bit of extra money? Would you, like was there a show or…
Answer: Well, yeah, it uh, in the '20's we used to have a piture show there.
Question: Yeah, did you?
Answer: Yeah, silent pictures. Yeah, it was about twice a week.
Question: have good crowds too I suppose?
Answer: Yeah, oh yeah, no money in it. You could go to a show for $0.15, $0.20…..Well, I think when I grew up. Well, I think we had better fun than they have today in a way.
Question: Is that right?
Answer: Oh, yeah, we used to put on plays. Practice say, a month, 2 months in the fall of the year. And in the winter it didn't matter what we had the sons of Temperance. We had once a week. You know? You know, we had these house parties.
Question: Yeah?
Answer: Today it's all together different, parties today, you just, you young people today all you have to do is raise hell and tear things to pieces.
Question: Yeah, it seems to be a pretty wild bunch.
Answer: Oh, yeah, there's no comparison, oh yeah, you can't compare the living. And then when we finished she was a hard to find. We had to do some hard scrounging and look what we got today, oh boats, crates, sounders, radars, you know. What we had to get was when we wanted to get a show off ground. I fished away form home say twenty miles and we wanted to find out how deep the water was we had to fire lead overboard, and let it go down.
Question: Yeah? Just send a piece of lead down to the bottom and see how deep it was?
Answer: Yeah. If we wanted to get say fifty fathom of water we might be sounding sixty-eight to seventy fathom of water. Today why, all's you gotta do is read that. So depressing.
Question: A lot easier now.
Answer: Oh, yeah. You're in the thick fog huh. With these radars aboard the boats today it doesn't make any difference how thick it is. That used to be fishing through that…from down to Westport.
Question: Is that right?
Answer: Sure.
Question: How big a boat did you and your brother have in 1923?
Answer: Oh, that was a forty foot boat.
Question: A Forty footer?
Answer: Yeah, before that we had a thirty-six. We used to go heights of twenty-five to thirty miles a day in the summertime.
Question: Just the two of you crewing or….
Answer: Well, in the summertime on used a crow line salting the fish there'd be un three of us. About the some as lobstering since there'd only two in a boat.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: You got if fixed John?
John: No, Thursday ten o'clock he told me to come Thursday ten o'clock. He must be busy.
Holland: Yeah, I seen you gone this morning.
John: Yeah, yeah, I heard you eight o'clock.
Holland: Right…
(Irrelevant conversation)
Holland: You represent the fishin' industry?
Question: No, its with the museum, the Admiral Digby Museum. Like we're just trying to find out about like I don't know just history of Digby. Like there's not much really written up about it. So, we were going out and interviewing people and trying to make it up so it doesn't get lost. I was wondering where you were from.
Answer: Out here at Westport.
Question: Born in your mother's house or….
Answer: what?
Question: Born in your mother's house or….
Answer: Well, I was never, oh, I was born yes in… We never owned the house. It was a rented house. Oh, yeah, we never had a house of our own until just before mother died. But, after I was married I rented four years and them I built my own.
Question: But, that was done, uh you built on the island on Westport?
Answer: Oh yes, on Westport, well, they say I can't remember but they say at one time probably when all the vessels was there people come in from outside. Oh yes, that's when Joe and I'd be kids, babies. They'd estimate it's pretty near a thousand, a thousand man population.
Question: A thousand men on that island?
Answer: Population, population….
John: They was all big families.
Holland: But today, I don't think you'd count out three hundred.
John: Oh yes, over three hundred.
Holland: Is there over three hundred there now?
John: Yes.
Holland: Well, why didn't you tell me? I wonder how many of the names are on the voters list. I never noticed that.
John: That gives you an idea.
Holland: Well, uh, if there's uh, there isn't four hundred.
John: No, there's not four hundred, three hundred, three hundred fifty or so.
Question: Why would the population drop off like that?
Answer: Well….
John: They all had big families. Every one of them had big families
Holland: I can't tell you.
John: Today why, nobody has big families down there.
Holland: The older people why there's not very many elderly people om the island. Years age weren't old people anyway what they are today out in the Westport today you won't find I don't imagine on Westport today you wouldn't find over fifteen, would you John?
John: No, I don't know if you'd find that many.
Question: I wonder why that is?
Answer: Well life is very much different than it was when we grew up.
John: Well, there must be in Westport, there must be eight of 'em here, old people.
Question: Is that right?
John: Yeah, in Westport alone, there's three of 'em right here.
Holland: Yeah, here he is. We don't talk to him though. He don't want us to talk to him.
John: Well, I was down at the wharf watching them.
Holland: I was down there this morning.
John: A smelly old truck come by me and I was only that far from the truck but when that water comes down, by golly, the whole side of my car, I had to wash her.
Holland: That was where, that was way out.
John: No, I was way out and had a look around.
Holland: They had those big tank trucks outside.
John: That gives you an idea.
Holland: Well, uh, if there's uh, there isn't four hundred.
John: No, there's not four hundred fifty or so.
Question: Why would the population drop off like that?
Answer: Well…..
John: They all had big families. Every one of them had big Families.
Holland: I can't tell you.
John: Today why, nobody has big families down there.
Holland: The older people why there's not very many elderly people on the island. Years age they weren't old people anyway what they are today out in Westport today you won't find I don't imagine on Westport today you wouldn't find over fifteen, would you John?
John: No, I don't know if you'd find that many.
Question: I wonder why that is?
Answer: well there must be in Westport, there must be eight of 'em here, old people.
Question: Is that right?
John: Yeah, in Westport alone, there's three of 'em right here.
Holland: Yeah, here he is. We don't talk to him though. He don't want us to talk to him.
John: Well, I was down at the wharf watching them.
Holland: I was down there this morning.
John: A smelly old truck come by me and I was only that far from the truck but when that water comes down, by golly, the whole side of my car, I had to wash her.
Holland: That was where, that was way out.
John: No, I was way out and had a look around.
Holland: They had those big tank trucks outside.
John: Eh?
Holland: They had big tank trucks. Took two loads.
John: Yeah.
Holland: That's for you come down.
John: Yeah, that's for I come down. One fellow landed and wanted 5 ton, he said.
Holland: Oh yeah, takes 3 or 4 of those small boats to take in that much. Up to Casey's where Casey's got his that's where they unloaded.
John: Well, that's where I was
Holland: Yeah.
John: Where Casey's was
Question: So you've got 3 fishermen here?
Answer: Yeah, there're 3 of us, yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy those big tankers. There's those big tankers outside there.
John: Yeah
Holland: One of them big boats there well, Matthews from Grand Manane fishin' from out those big one.
Holland: I think he took in two or three ton.
John: Yeah.
Holland: Took them way down to Wedgeport.
John: Yeah
Holland: That's where they was carring them.
John: Yeah.
Holland: I imagine this one here probably went down to Ben's down to Saulnierville.
John: They was pack in all his in that………….
Holland: Oh yeah, well they was putting it up there.
John: On the wharf there
Holland: Yeah
John: Yeah
Holland: Those other boats are up beside there.
John: Yeah
Holland: See them big tankers.
John: These boats, some of them's from Pictou
Holland: Oh Yeah?
John: Yeah, yeah, they to carry ice in one of 'em when they made that long lift here, I guess these two loads are goin' there now.
Holland: Well, the fisherman's got a great break today.
Question: Yeah, how do you mean?
Answer: On money.
Question: Yeah.
Answer: No comparison, no comparison.
Question: Who owns those big ships down there, the bigger trawlers and draggers, what ever they are?
Answer: Oh companies, you know, big companies.
Question: What would they be fishing for now?
Answer: Herring. Have you been down there on that dock?
Question: No I haven't.
Answer: OH, well you wanna go down there.
Question: Will they be going out to the weirs to take the herring out?
Answer: No, they have big stakes to set they go out at nighttime, you can only see those at night-time, you have to have night time to see those. You see herrings come up in the water at night time. Daytime as soon as the sun come up, they go right down to the bottom.
Question: Is that right?
Answer: This is a feller from Westport, he's fisherman too. He' wanted to get some news on fishing business. I tell him there no comparison today you can't compare fishing today to fishing 60 years ago. 60 years age we couldn't sell our fish. Today you haven't got money enough to buy 'em.
Question: It must have been pretty bad working all day then having to throw your fish back in the water?
3rd Fisherman: Oh, yeah, yeah well, we sold them high $0.30 a hundred. Nice great big fish, $0.30 a hundred.
Question: You mentioned something about the sons of Temperance.
Answer: Oh, yes the son of Temperance used to years ago. That's where we got our entertainment when we was kids. Didn't we Colman? You join the son of Temperance at that time 14 years old. We had a lovely hall there too.
Question: What did you have to do to join? Anything special or……
Answer: Well, you know we'd have to take a pledge. If you broke the pledge then you'd have to get reobligated.
Question: So you would have to get reobligated every weekend then?
Answer: Some did. I took a pledge when I was 14 and I been rid of liquor. I could swim in it. Never took a drink in my life.
Question: Never had a drink in you life?
Answer: I been down the Carribean, down to Cuba, where you could buy it for $0.25 a bottle. That corn liquor. All other fellers most of 'em got drunk, but I never
Question: That's good pledge if you can stay with it that long.
Answer: Yes. Well that's what it was at that time. When we grew up we'd have our house parties and we had better time than these kids have today. I think.
Question: Not quite as wild I suppose, ripping things down and smashing things up?
Answer: Well, oh now there were elderly people you know, we'd respect 'em. Another thing, when we were young, young men you know, say in our twenties and thirties, same as the odd fellows, if one of the members was down sick well the members would set up with him you know, and tend hem all night long. Today they don't do that. No, these young people wouldn't know how to take care of anyone. You see everything goes on. There's no comparison in today an what it was 60 years ago.
Question: Not as much of the neighbourly community type of?
Answer: No, I don't think there is, I don't think there is. There is cases where, you know, one will help out the other. I don't think there is anything you can do. Of course as far as money, there is anything you can do. Of course as far as money, there is money today. Down here shucking scallops get $20.00 a bucket, for shucking scallops. Down there there not fast really but some of those young folks make $50.00 a day.
Question: That's pretty fair.
Answer: Well, yes, and then a fast shucker, some down there will make $100.00 today. I could go down there and shuck and make $17.00, when you get in your 80's well you've had it it, I'm past 82 so……
Question: Is that right: What about John?
Answer: John, John will soon be 82, it's comin' up soon. We worked hard. Boy, I'll tell ya, the years go.
John: I didn't think I'd be here this long. Work will never kill no one.
Holland: I been down, I don't think I'd ever get back.
John: The only thing I think that might, I got rheumatism right in my knees and legs, by God, their awful, wearing rubber boots all the time. Well it was always rough where we fished. Where we used to fish most of the time you had to hang on never knew if you could get back or not.
Holland: I was tellen him John, see summers we used to fish the Grand Manane Banks and we never had no sonar. You have to get in 50 fathom water. A fella caught a 6 pound cod when he hauled that back he didn't sail until he touched ground. Now all you have to do is say hello to the ground, they show ya.
Question: You can see where all the schools are now.
Answer: Oh, they pick up schools of fish and everything.
John: Yeah.
Holland: yeah.
Question: How many fish would you catch hand wise on an average day? You would catch that many would you?
Answer: In August, mid August, we'd go night fishin. We'd take 3 men in a boat and come in the next morning. They'd average 4000 up to 8000.
Question: With just 3 men going out at night?
John: There was a time when you couldn't give 'em away.
Holland: I told him John, when we had that weir home there, different times we had a great big 17 foot dory. I've seen that dory twice taken in the dock and we couldn't see 'em. George Morell, two or 3 times come up with his dump truck and take 'em and out 'em on his field. And sometimes we'd hafta dump 'em when we did sell we got a dollar a barrel. That's when carter put the smoke house up. We filled that smoke house at a dollar a barrel.
John: We sold Pollock for $0.30 a hundred. Now they $14.00 a pound for them. We sold 'em $0.30 a hundred
Holland: I was telling him about the time we has 3800 pounds of lobster and we couldn't sell 'em and Gordie jenson took 'em over to Freeport- $0.11 a pound.
John: I got $0.09. Had to take 'em to Yarmouth. Took 'em on the boat and got $0.09 a pound.
Holland: Well, we shipped, Frank and I in December, that would be your Christmas money, we shipped 600 lbs. of lobsters up to Nonnie Campbell, she run a restaurant up there and we got a cheque for 60 odd dollars. That was supposed to be our Christman money. The folks today the first have they make in the last week in November the high boats can get 1000 lbs. 1000 lbs when they get $2. lb. there's $2000. right off the bat. So there's no comparison whatever.
John: Codfish the most I ever got in Codfish in my life that was the last when I knocked off fishing and that was $0.16 lb. Now the kids today get pretty near $0.81 and a bonus on top of that.
Answer: No gov't bonus when you guys were fishing.
John: No bonus, no, no bonus, while we were fishing.
Question: Nothing was subsidized? They wouldn't pay anything if you had a bad season?
Answer: No, No.
Question: No, relief we had. I used to have to go pick up coal on the beach to burn and cut wood and stuff like that. My father didn't make any money at all.
Answer: Father would get $5.00 a week, or 20.00 month on Westport. I'd go out the clam flats and dig a bunch of clams for $0.25 and go to the store and get some molasses to take home.
John: My Father and my oldest brother Freddy, used to fish up here to Digby in Snow's vessels. They never made no money. We'd have to go on the beach two or 3 of us and pick up coal and go in the woods and cut alders and bring 'em out to burn.
Holland: Yeah.
John: I remember one time when he came home he did bring one of them great big long boxes of raisin cookies. God, we howed into them, I'll tell ya, 4 kids. After I got to growing up it was different. I caught my fish, didn't make a lot of money, but I made a good livin.
Holland: Mr. Darin, there, his father's a blacksmith. He'd pound iron all day to make $0.50.
John: Yeah, I can remember him down there.
Holland: you been down……. You wanna take a walk, drive down on the fisherman's wharf there, see 'em shuck scallops.
John: Never seen 'em shuck scallops?
Answer: I read about how to do it, but I've never seen
John: Oh, my God, scallops are just little things no bigger than that. Oh, it takes a long time to fillet 'em.
Holland: John, I'm gonna tell 'em when I first came up here 3 years age. I went down and shucked 7 buckets. It was $10.00 a bucket then. Now they're getting from $20.00 to 425.00 and you see…..
John: There must be 20 on them boats.
Holland: oh, there's 30 men on Sonny's boat now. He come in this mornin. Yeah, had his hatches full. Land knows how many he had on deck.
John: They must be getting down right to the right close to the bottom. Cleaning the bed out. Oh, lotta gravel.
Holland: Yes, to see the fishermen down around that wharf.
Question: What do you do with them once you take the shell off the scallop?
John: Well they put 'em in bags and I don't know if they freeze 'em or what…….
Holland: Oh, yes in them packin places there, you take O'Neils, he's got a …..
John: Does he freeze? Oh, yes in 5 pound boxes. In Casey's too.
Question: Where would they send most of those?
Answer: Go to the Stated. They go all over probably to California.
John: Oh, yes.
Holland: You take the boats down there, there getting $3.10 per pound.
John: Yeah. There makin a lot of money those fellas.
Question: Must make you angry all the work you guys did.
John: No, no.
Holland: Oh, I'm glad they're makin it. Well that's the only thing keeping us old fellar. We get a pension so, you know. My father never got no pension. Well he got a little, first one he got was $14.00 a month.
John: I give everything over to him. The shop and all but he lost the shop and they had to build a new one. They give 'em relief to build a new shop after the storm.
Question: Ground Hog day storm?
John: Oh, it cleaned everything right out.
Holland: They was well payed.
John: There was only on there couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 shops left.
Holland: It tore the waterfront up. They was well payed.
John: Oh, yeah they was well payed. But oh, they lost a lot of things. My boy I don't know how many tanks. Those tanks tanks that you salt fish in, they all went.
Holland: Well, that place I had, had 17 tanks, but the government payed.
John: Oh, the government payed.
Question: If that ever happened in the 20's you wouldn't have gotten anything.
Answer: If that had happened in the 20's we'd been ruined.
John: That was done, that was done in one sea. You wouldn't believe it, take the whole ……., started from the lower part of the island, the sea come in and come right up and kept on going, took every building along with it in its way. Only left just a few buildins. Wasn't no more than, I guess, four or five buildins left on the water front.
Question: That must have been pretty scary down there.
Answer: Very, we weren't there the ones that…….
John: No. we wasn't there.
Holland: I've heard say the ones that………
John: Got no ides what it was.
Holland: It was scary alright. Next one might cover the Island, gone right over.
John: Yeah.
Holland: You know, you never know.
Question: You know, it surely could.
Answer: You'd have to be there to see it to realize it.
John: Well, when you take one sea come in like that, they didn't know. What was gonna come or if you was gonna go under or not.
Holland: No, if they had another one…….
John: Well, a tidal wave it could kept commin and whole island could a gone under.
Holland: Right over- those things, you know……..
John: It was the tide, you see it was a tidal wave, the tide after that storm the tide went down as much as four or five ft.
Holland: Lot of 'em figured the world was comin' to an end at that time, the older ones.
Question: Must be hard to get anyone who it sick down there up to the hospital.
Answer: No, not so bad.
John: Not so bad now.
Holland: They got an ambulance right down on the island.
Question: Few years ago it must have been hard.
Answer: Well,….
John: That's the reason we're up here though. My wife was sick, she said I'm not stayin here another winter. Well, I said, if I get a chance to sell, I'll sell. I had a chance to give it away and I give it away. Decided to come up here.
Question: Must be a lot easier than down on the island?
John: oh, yes, now my wife's in the hospital down here.
Holland: Oh, there's no place down there for elderly people.
John: Well, you take you take …she's scared in the summertime when it's blowin, she scared to death, nerves. No, she couldn't stay there. She's nervous. You know, we moved up here, we been up here for goin' on 9 years.
Question: Yeah, must be quite a change.
John: Yeah, the young crowed down there, I don't know any of them. Eight years, if someone was 7 or 8 they'd be grown up and you don't know em and they got wiskers and all.
Holland: It was a good life though on the water. I enjoyed every bit of it.
John: Oh, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed it. I would a never come myself it hadn't been for the wife and her nerves. I think I'd been better off really if I'd a stayed there. I think this time when she went in the hospital, I think she really was homesick, myself. She don't say so, oh, but I really do feel so. I woulda had something to do down there.I come up here and I got nothing to do. I coulda gone down and built a trap if I'd wanted to, jigged around the shop, went fishin once and awhile if I'd a wanted to. They catch squid now. Kay went out last night and that struck em at Alders Cove they drifted in the passage. The young Moore fella drove a truck up here with me from Connor's and they drifted in and they caught 800 and then uh, Roy Grey and uh, his brother there they went out, they had over 800.
Question: This is squid?
Holland: Yeah, squid. That's something that hasn't been for years.
John: No, years and years.
Question: How do you catch squid?
Holland: Well, they have a little squid jig.
John: With prongs on it.
Holland: It's full of pins.
John: With prongs on it.
Holland: It's full of pins.
John: It has pins, ya know, and they suck on it and you haul it up and you have to turn the jig upside down and let em drop off.
Question: I heard something that they shoot oil or ink all over you do they?
Holland: Oh yeah.
John: Oh, yeah
John: They got an ink bag inside of em and that's full of ink and when they come out of the water they'll shoot some water sometimes and sometimes the ink will come out. Yeah, they'll squirt ya boy.
Question: Squirt each other on the boat, eh?
John: They make great fish bait sometimes the fish likes em.
Question: What would have been the main fish back in the 20's and 30's?
John: What would have got the best market?
Question: What would have been the main fish back in the 20's and 30's?
Answer: Oh, I'd say there was no market really, but they was the same fish that you catch today.
Question: Herring….
Answer: : Cod, Pollock, of course the herring. They make a difference in the herring today, the herring fishin is different.
Question: How has that changed?
Answer: The market has changed the herring.
Question: You still catch them the same way?
Answer: no.
Question: No?
Answer: No, years ago we never heard tell of a seiner (open net for sea fishing). We used to seine Pollock, schools of Pollock, but never heard tell of seining herring.
Question: How exactly do you do that, seining?
Holland: : Well, they're seining about 300, 3500 fathoms long……
John: Oh, 400 fathoms long.
Holland: Them are 40 fathom deep and they run that out you know, to make a big long circle. They pick the other end up with both ends aboard the boat and then they pull that up from underneath which draws them together and then they got the fish. If you go down on the wharf you'll see the seiners there.
Question: Yeah, I think I will go down later this afternoon.
John: They got a big roller now and that seine comes over the roller. We used to have when we seined we used to have to pull em by hand.
Holland: The roller rolls it.
John: All they have to do is core it.
Holland: Yeah.
John: There's nothing to it now.
Holland: Then the machinery pulls it together.
John: Yeah.
Holland: There's an awful lot of new inventions today.
John: Most of the herring these fellas find the herring are 'bout that long before they can save em.
Holland: yeah.
John: And down our way all they can find is all mixed up, herring from that size……is all they'll take. If they don't get the big herring you can't save em you gotta let em go again.
Holland: I asked Guptille the one's in the big one down there if he heard anything from the folks down the island last night. He said he heard some of em talking they went offshore. They went out, they must have gone out round McDormand's pass that way. They tried to find the big herring. Yeah, you wanna go down on the……and you're interested in pick up you know write up about fishin.
Question: Yeah, very interested. It just amazes me how it has changed over the years from the couple of people I've talked to.
Answer: No comparison.
Question: Are you saying that there was no size limit on anything like on lobsters, you mentioned earlier. You could keep any size lobster?
Holland: Oh, years ago there was not, you could save anything that went in that trap when they had the canners. I don't know when this went into effect, this 9 inch law but that's been the last I suppose fifty years that you couldn't save small ones. I know when we had that Cape Island boat in 1923, we sold to the canners. There was a canners then.
John: Yeah.
Question: That was right on Westport?
Holland: Yeah.
John: I guess in Prince Edward Island they save small ones.
Holland: Yeah, they have canners down there.
John: They have canners. I don't know how whether there's been any difference or not. They claim it would ruin the fishing if they cut the small ones off.
Holland: well, made a big difference down home when we was fishin whoever heard tell of goin out and getting a 1000 pounds of lobsters. We got 200lbs, 300lbs at the first of it, John.
John: Yeah.
Holland: Take in the summertime and in May the catch would come up pretty good. We used to go to Yarmouth sometimes and sell out . Then Cape Saint Mary's we get I'd say, 300 or 400 pounds of lobsters.
Question: How long was the season? Same length of time?
Holland: Years ago we had 6 months. Today it's only 3.
John: No, it's 6 now.
Holland: What?
John: six now, they start in December and knock off in May.
Holland: Yeah, that's right. We did have 3.
John: Yeah, we had 3.
Holland: Few years ago.
John: Well, one time they had 2 seasons. You start, I guess, in the fall
And you went so long and had to knock off.
Question: Why, it was too much?
John: I don't know, they had two seasons in one.
Holland: They do it in Grand Manan
John: Eh?
Holland: They do it here.
John: That's right they've got 2 seasons here in Digby
Holland: Yeah, above Point Prim.
John: Yeah, they start here 15th , 15th of October and they fish for aq couple months I guess they em up and then they start again.
Holland: Yeah, they have fish above Point Prim.
John: Yeah.
Holland: From Cole Harbour to Point Prim is a six month season.
Unknown Woman's voice: the old men's convention?
Holland: Oh, old men! What are you talking about old men? I don't like that. We may be old today but we will be you tomorrow.
John: Sun's getting warm.
Question: All you guys out here watching the pretty girls walk by?
Answer: We used to have to watch over in the lounge but we can't see them now.
Question: Do they have a recreation room here in the building?
Answer: Oh, yeah.
Question: Must be a little boreing for a fisherman?
John: The recreation room is right in here.
John: When are you going down home to Freeport, tomorrow?
Holland: No, I was talking to Vike last night and she wanted to stay down till Tuesday.
Started fishing at 18 yrs. Old-small income
1923- Brother and he had a boat built- Cape Bound- Heart's Harbour
Lobster fishing-no size limit
April-100 pots- 25 miles s.w. of Westport
Caught 3800 lbs of lobster in 3 weeks
Sold out that summer - no market'
Buyer from Portland- Gordie Jameson- 1923 received $0.11 lb.
4 built a weir- seine-30-40 barrels of herring which they had to dump overboard.
Today it is $15.00 a barrel.
1930's-no comparison to fishing today
Prices rose once the war started
Scallop fishing in 1945-47-$0.50 lb. while it is $3.00 today
Lobsters went on American market-under 9 inches went to canners-2 canning plants on Westport-15-20 employees
Worked there on the weekends when he was a kid-had to help buy groceries
Father was a fisherman-didn't make much money. Worked on the "Old Westport" for $ 20.00a month
Today it is $20.00 a bucket shucking
Used to have a movie house- silent pictures twice a week. $0.15 or $0.20 a show
Used to have a better time when he was young-used to put on plays
Belonged to the sons of Temperance-met once a week-Had house parties
Fishing was much harder-no sounders or radar- tested depth by dropping lead.
Boat he owned was 40 ft. - before that owned a 36 ft.- used to go 25- 30 miles out
Usually a crew of 3 in the summer time- hand-line and salting the fish
With lobster fishing- 2 in the boat
Born in Westport-parents never owned a home until just before his mother died.
Built his home on Westport.
Population used to 1000 on Westport'
Population today approx. 350
Used to be a big fleet of vessels and big families
Not many old people there today
6 or 8 people from Westport right at Basin view
Fisherman have it much better today-money
Seiners -only seine at night- herring come to the top light sends them to the bottom
60yrs ago he couldn't sell his fish- did get about $0.30 a hundred
Sons of Temperance-joined at 14 yrs. Of age- took a pledge-never took a drink in his life.
Had a good time at House parties- Had a nice hall- a lot of community spirit- helped sick friends.
A good shucker makes $100.00 a day
Could make $70.00 a day himself
Friend John joins in the conversation
Used to hand line for cod
Go night fishing- average 4000- 8000 lb a night
Remembers having his 17ft. dory full of fish and couldn't sell them- used for fertilizer
$. A Barrel-filled the smoke house.
$0.30 a hundred- today Pollock is $0.14 lb.
$0.11 a lb for lobsters in 20's and 30's- once sold for $0.09 a lb at Yarmouth
Was no relief or subsidies-had to pick coal on the beach for fuel
Also sold clams for $0.25 a bucket
Cut alders to burn
Best price ever was $0.16 lb. for cod
Mr. Dakin's father- blacksmith- lucky to make $0.50 a day
Quite a bit of gravel in the scallops means they are cleaning the bottom of the beds.
Markets are in the states and all over the world. ($3.10 lb) Happy the fisherman are making money
Ground Hog Day storm-wiped out waterfront
Both have had a good life on the water
Catching squid- method-used for fishing bait
Main fish in 20's and 30's-same fish as today
Seining-method and changes-only keep big herring- over 9"-no size limit years age
2-400 lbs was a great catch
Have two season- take a month off and then start again
END OF TAPE
27
Interview with Arnold Trask1976
Lighthouse Road, Digby, Nova Scotia
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