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University M icrdrilm s International 300 N. ZEEB RD., ANN ARBOR. Ml 48106 8214089

Gaffney, Michael Edward

CROSSHANDED: WORK ORGANIZATION AND VALUES IN A NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERY

The Ohio Stale University Ph.D. 1982

University Microfilms

International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M I 48106 Copyright by Michael Edward Gaffney 1982 CROSSHANDED Work Organization and Values in a Newfoundland Fishery

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Michael Edward Gaffney, B.S., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University

1982

Reading Committee: Approved By

Dr. Ojo Arewa Dr. Chung-Min Chen Dr. Daniel Hughes Department of Anthropology for Lou Svigel dorymate

ii AC KNOWLEDGEMENT

I and my family would like to thank the people of the South Coast, especially those of Ramea and Grey River, for their assistance in this study and their friendship.

iii VITA

August 22, 1947 ...... Born - Cleveland, Ohio 1969 ...... B.S., United States Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, New York 1970 - 1972 ...... Instructor, Department of Nautical Science, United States Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, New York 1972 ...... M.A., The New School For Social Research, New York, New York 1973 - 1975 ...... Teaching Assistant, Department of Anthropology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1975 - 1977 ...... Research Fellow, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland 1977 - 1978 ...... Assistant Professor, Department of Nautical Science, Maine Maritime Academy, Castine, Ma ine 1978 - 1980 ...... Behavioral Scientist, Eclectech Associates, North Stonington, Connecticut 1981...... Senior Project Manager, Mari­ time Transportation Research Board, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.c.

PUBLICATIONS

1982 Organizational Implications of Reduced Manning in the Liner Trades. Kings Point: National Maritime Research Center. 1981 Bridge Simulation: Trends and Comparisons. Proceedings of 37th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Navigation. Washington : Institute of Navigation. Merchant Marine Personnel Research: Paradigmatic and Cultural Comparisons. Proceedings of the First Inter­ national Shipboard Habitability Design Conference. New York: The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. 1979 A Study of Human Resources in Ship Operations. U.S. Maritime Administration, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. The Human Element in Ship Operations. Castine: Center for Advanced Maritime Studies. 1978 The Development Cycle of the Domestic Group on Newfoundland's South Coast. Papers from the Fourth Annual Congress, Canadian Ethnology Society. Richard J. Preston, ed., Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 40, pp 1-18, Ottawa: Mercury Series, National Museum of Man.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Cultural Anthropology Ethnological Theory. Professors Daniel Hughes, John Friedl, and Ojo Arewa Cultural Ecology. Professor Chung-Min Chen Maritime Anthropology. Professor Raoul Andersen

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... iii VITA ...... iv Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 The I s s u e ...... 2 Thesis Structure ...... 9 T h e o r y ...... 11 South Coast as Culture Area .... 13 Fi e l dw ork...... 16 II. THE SETTING ...... 23 Newfoundland ...... 23 South Coast ...... 28 III. THE ENVIRONMENT ...... 35 Effective Environment ...... 37 L a n d ...... 37 S e a ...... 45 Perceived Environment ...... 54 IV. HANDLINE ...... 67 G e a r ...... 69 P u n t ...... 71 B a r q u e ...... 76 Shoalwater Handlining ...... 80 Deepwater Handlining ...... 95 V. T R A W L ...... 101 B u l t o w ...... 101 Row D o r y ...... 114 Motor D o r y ...... 117 Flying S e t ...... 119 VI. ORGANIZATION OF WO R K ...... 130 C r e w s ...... 132 S h a r e s ...... 138 VII. DOMESTIC G R O U P ...... 147 Regional Patterns ...... 148 Fish, Boats, and C r e w s ...... 151 Developmental Cycle of the Domestic G r o u p ...... 154 VIII. MERCHANT RELATIONS ...... 171 South Coast Economy ...... 174 Merchant as Employer ...... 187 Merchant as P a t r o n ...... 190 Owner as Broker ...... 198 IX. EPILOGUE ...... 202 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 210

vii r

\"A O ■fi

OF ST. LAWRENCE •;£•£/

&/e, .... GREAT NORTHERN PENINSULA INTRODUCTION

Residents Tell Union To Stay Away Residents of the town of Ramea on the south coast of the privince have sent a notice to the Newfound­ land Fish, Food, and Allied Workers Union (NFFAWU) indicating that they don't want the union to come to Ramea. Mayor H.J. Reid of Ramea told the Telegram Tuesday night that the people are nervous that a similar situation will develop in their town as had developed in the nearby town of Bur- geo. About 120 members of the NFFAWU at Burgeo went on strike in June a- gainst Burgeo Fish Industries Ltd. for union security and a new wage and working agreement. However, the comp­ any owner, Spencer Lake later closed down the plant and it appears the town has been torn apart by the dispute. Mr. Reid said last night that a com­ mittee of 10 employees of the fishing company, John Penny and Sons of Ramea, headed by Arch Carter, started up a petition regarding the NFFAWU. He said they visited every household in the community and 700 residents signed the petition, with only six people, two of which were company em­ ployees, refusing to sign the peti­ tion. Only people over school-leaving age were asked to sign. Ramea has a population of about 1300 people. Mr. Reid said the petition indi­ cates that the town of Ramea doesn't want anything at all to do with the NFFAWU. 1 2

The notice has been sent to Rev. Richard McGrath of the NFFAWU, with copies being sent to the union pres­ ident, Richard Cashin; Premier J.R. Smallwood; Opposition Leader Frank Moores; and federal Transport Minister Donald Jamieson.

The Telegram St. John's, Newfoundland

Why some people or some regions or even nations turn more than others towards cooperative ideas and meth­ ods is not clearly understood nor has it been scientifically studied. Doubtless there are strong elements of cultural background, social tra­ dition, education and leadership in­ volved .

D . Snowden The Cooperative Movement In Newfoundland

The Issue

For more than one reason the Institute of Social and Economic Research recommended Ramea as a site for my re­ search. As an offshore island outport with ice-free harbor, fish processing facility, and small boat and trawler fishing fleets, it matched my requirement of a specialized (one industry) fishing community. But the Is­ land was of interest to the Institute because of its rep­ utation, gained in the years immediately preceeding my 3 fieldwork, as an outpost of anti-unionism. Burgeo, a neighboring settlement on the 'mainland' (Newfoundland proper), had been nearly destroyed by in­ ternal conflict following unionizing efforts in 1971, and the merchant family that guided the economic for­ tunes of both communities had retreated to Ramea where their influence was seemingly undiminished by events occur- ing only ten miles away. The long and difficult struggle in Burgeo had been the first test of the strength of the new fishing union (Newfoundland Fisherman, Food, and Allied Workers Union), and Ramea shared in the publicity not only because of the presence there of the merchant who was the personification of anti-unionism in the Province, but also due to the community's active espousal of the same cause. Several press releases from the town gave notice to the Province of the people's united determination to keep the union out of their town, and at least one incident occured in which a union organizer was persuaded to go no further than the town dock and to take the next coastal boat from Ramea rather than hold a public meeting on the subject of unionization. The conflict between the union, residents, and merchant, and the role played in the fray by the pre­ miere, Joey Smallwood, is given considerable treatment in a popular biography (Gwyn 1968) on this figure whose lengthy and colorful political career within the Province has given the book wide success nationwide. Ramea, therefore, is not so unknown to the outside world as its remote location might suggest. The town was very recently in the public eye as its dragger fleet was the only one in the Province to ignore a trawlerman strike in the Spring of 1975 and continue 4 fishing. And, during my first visit with NFFAWU officials before proceeding to the field, I was warned of the fierce loyalty of Ramea people toward their merchant and the like­ lihood that I too would not be well received. Regional resistance to cooperative or collective move­ ments within Newfoundland had been recognized by scholars and activists long before the most recent fishermen's union met with differential success within the Province. The first fisherman's union, Fishermen's Protective Union, was formed in 1908 and experienced no difficulty in organizing the North and East Coasts of the Island. So completely was the FPU backed by the populace inhabiting that portion of the colony that the organization became a significant com­ mercial and political force with its founder holding high­ est public office. Yet the South Coast was never successfully organized by this first union. Nor has this Coast served as fertile ground for the organization of cooperatives. In terms of isolation, the Great Northern Peninsula compares with the South Coast, and yet of the Peninsula Snowden could report; " ... and nowhere else today is such a marked degree of co­ operative success evident in rural Newfoundland" (1965:27). In contrast, only temporary cooperative success was report­ ed for the South Coast by Richardson (1940), and then only in Placentia Bay, on the east coast of the Burin Peninsula, outside of the culture area that will be later defined in ecological terms. That same year the only cooperative in existence west of the Burin along the South Coast was at St. Veronica, a lumbering community in Bay Despoir (Maceachern 1940:9). And this small pocket of cooperative 5

involvement on the Coast remained active for a period of years only in the lumbering settlement of Bay Despoir. In 1964 Dawe reports: "There is now no cooperative active on the Southwest Coast between Grand Bank and codroy (1964:2). Although no theories had previously been offered in ex­ planation of this regional failure of cooperative enter­ prise, Feltham (1959) in his historical treatment of the Fishermen's Protective Union in Newfoundland suggests sever­ al reasons for lack of organizing success on the South Coast: 1) that the political involvement of the FPU in the election of 1913 left its founder and driving force, Coaker, little time for continued organization, 2) that the southward move­ ment of the union was hampered by settlements more heavily influenced by the capital, St. John's, the center of FPU op­ position, 3) that the movement was essentially a Protestant one and therefore held little appeal for the Catholic dist­ ricts beyond the head of Conception Bay, and 4) that "The fishermen of this region (Northeast Coast) because of the peculiar nature of their work were different from the fish- erment of the rest of the island in that there was a great union readiness already existing among them" (1959:35). Feltham's 'great man theory', stressing the importance of Coaker's personal charisma as necessary to the success of organizing efforts - and his sidetracking by politics before extending his personal efforts on the South Coast, may have some merit. The Fishermen's Protective Union phenomenon had many of the characteristics of a revitalization movement, but organization in every instance did not require Coaker's individual attention. Continued FPU organizing success on all coasts proceeded without him, including limited gains 6 beyond Conception Bay. The restraining influence of FPU opposition in the Capi­ tal may have played a role in the failure of the union on the Avalon Peninsula, but is of no explanatory value in the case of the South Coast. There local merchants, rather than St. John's firms, supplied the fishermen and took their catch. And even these commercial interests did not neces­ sarily deal with the St. John's exporters. The larger South Coast firms shipped dried fish to Europe and South America in their own schooners. Feltham's argument based on religious differences is the one he advances most strongly. The movement was stopped, he believes, at the head of Conception Bay and also on the West Coast because of intervening Roman Catholic settlements. "This was the first region in the path of union expansion with a Roman Catholic majority" (1959:36). "Thus from its birthplace in Notre Dame Bay the union expandes southward until it reached the Roman Catholic district of Harbor Main and north and west until it reached the Roman Catholic dist­ rict of St. George's. Attempts to by-pass these districts and unionize the South Coast with its predominate Protestant majority had very little success ... " (1959:4). There are really two arguments being presented by Feltham here. First, that the Catholic districts were not receptive to a Protestant movement; and second, a 'roadblock theory' that holds that the location of intervening Catholic commun­ ities physically halted the spread of the movement from Pro­ testant areas to the northeast and west to the Protestant south. This latter proposition would seem to have least merit in that geographic pockets of resistance would seem to 7 be relatively unimportant in a coastal maritime economy. In fact, FPU organizers were present on the South Coast. Older Ramea informants recall the lack of success of one persist­ ent union man on the Island. The sectarian argument maintains that it was the reli­ gious background of the fishermen themselves that predis­ posed them toward or away from union involvement, a thesis most recently defended by Gwyn (1968:22). As pointed out by Brym and Neis (1978), this reasoning need not imply an ideological rather than structural difference between the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities. The authority of the formal church hierarchy was much stronger in the Rom­ an Catholic districts and may have acted to discourage pa- rishoners from embracing what the church may have perceived to be a threat to its influence. Noel (1971), however, suggests that ideology was a factor in the FPU's failure in Roman Catholic districts by pointing out that Coaker's back­ ing of prohibition in 1915 was much less palatable to the Roman Catholic Irish than to the more sober Protestant Eng­ lish . Yet the fact remains that Fishermen's Protective Union councils were formed in the vicinity of Ferryland by Roman Catholic fishermen of the Southern Shore; and Catholic set­ tlements scattered in the North, rather than resisting the movement, had very strong FPU councils (Feltham 1959:37). And it must be realized that the South Coast which remained unorganized in spite of union activity was even more Protest- and than the Protestant Northeast. The ratio of Roman Cath­ olic to Protestant in Burgeo-LaPoile District (central South Coast) at the election of 1913 was 1:50. Whereas at Fogo, 8

Bonavista, and Twillingate where the union strength was greatest, measured either by FPU voter support or number of union branch stores, the ratio varied from 1:6 to 1:10 (Feltham 1959:164-166). Further, the only cooperative suc­ cess attained on the South Coast was in the predominantly Roman Catholic region west of the Burin Peninsula and in the Roman Catholic lumbering communities of Bay Despoir. Simi­ larly, the Antigonish cooperative movement of Nova Scotia was most successful in Catholic areas. "It may be noted that in some purely Catholic parishes a certain community feeling has been developed under a paternal system and that here a definitely cooperative influence, that of St. Francis Xavier College in Antigonish, is making itself felt" (Digby 1934:23) . In comparison to the 'ideological', 'roadblock' and 'great man' theories, I believe Feltham was closest to the truth when he pointed out with respect to the North and East Coasts of Newfoundland, that the peculiar nature of a fish­ erman's work was different from that found elsewhere on the island, and that consequently there was a " ... great union- readiness already existing among them" (1959:35). I intend to argue that there has been a significant regional differ­ ence between the South Coast adaptation and that which pre­ dominates in other areas of Newfoundland (Northern Peninsu­ la, Northeast Coast, Southern Shore), and that distinctive elements of environment, technology, work organization, soc­ ial organization, and values, have a bearing upon South Coast resistance to unionization and cooperative ventures. A fishermen's union official once told me that the lack of union militancy of South Coast fishermen was because 'Its 9 not in their blood.' I will attempt to demonstrate that metaphorically he was correct; that a significant reason for the difference in the people of the coasts proclivity to col­ lective activity is ’structural’ and can be traced to pecul­ iarities of work organization and environment.

Thesis Structure

"Unionization ... constitutes an explicit recognition of the existence of permanent conflict at the workplace and the necessity of collective rather than individual action to re­ solve it" (Rinehart 1975 :121). As Rinehart points out, there are two principal relationships bearing upon the tend­ ency of any group of workers to resort to unionization; 1) the relationship between labor and management (fisherman and merchant), and 2) the relationship among workers (fisherman and fisherman). Recognition of the importance of the nature of the rela­ tionship among workers is attested to by Snowden's comments regarding cooperative activity; "A study on cooperatives must be concerned with people in relationship to the envi­ ronment, and with their relationships with one another, for the interrelationship of people is the very fibre of the co­ operative movement" (1965:i). This thesis consists of description and analysis of the structural conditions which have resulted in the development of a regionally patterned relationship between individuals that may be termed exceedingly individualistic and competi­ tive. Chapter 2 presents an historical account of the 10 settling of the coast, information relevant to the subsequent description and analysis of patterns of fisherman/fisherman and fisherman/merchant relations. Chapter 3 outlines the peculiarities of the surface and submarine environment of the South Coast, both from the perspective of the ethnogra­ pher and the resident fishermen. In chapters 4 and 5 are described the unique forms of work organization engendered by this combination of environment and technology during the historical period. That period is here defined as ex­ tending from the date of settlement to the commencement of dragger (trawler) fishing and the fresh processing of fish - about 1950. Hook and line fishing did not come to a close at this time, however, and is pursued today in much the same form. And so too were many of the elements of the perceived environment carried over into the dragger fishery. It should not be thought that the introduction of mechanized offshore fishing, and the large scale processing of fresh fish, re­ sulted in a sea change in either the economic base or orga­ nizational and ideational levels of South Coast Newfoundland culture. They did not. And, as earlier observed, values change comparatively slowly. It must also be recognized that the values held by any Ramea man forty years or older have been directly influenced by economic structures described in these chapters. In this regard the use of ethnohistory is a valid technique in linking earlier forms of work organization and economic structures with continuing or surviving value patterns. Chapters 6 and 7 make clear the connection between historical forms of work organization and the traditional social structure of the Coast. Corresponding values not man­ ifest directly at the level of fishing operations are 11 revealed within the context of non-work relationships. Fi­ nally, the relationship between merchant and fisherman is explored in Chapter 8. I will attempt to demonstrate that the patron-client relationship between them is more recently an intensification rather than a residual feature of the historical pattern for Newfoundland. In total then, the thesis will be directed toward the ethnohistorical and ethnographic description and analysis of two patterned relationships, fisherman/fisherman and fish­ erman/merchant. Referring back to Rinehart's preconditions for 'union readiness', it will be shown that there is some question as to the workers' recognition of 'permanent con­ flict at the workplace', and certainly little consensus on the part of the workers as to the necessity or even desira­ bility of 'collective rather than individual action to re­ solve it . 1

Theory

This ethnography is principally a product of my research interest in the depiction and analysis of the interrelation­ ships between several levels of an occupationally special­ ized sociocultural system, a Newfoundland fishing community. The approach is therefore holistic and functionalist, but is guided overall by a theoretical orientation of cultural ecol­ ogy. Briefly stated, that viewpoint suggests that cultural systems will be more likely to show similarities of structure if based upon analogous techno-environmental foundations or exploitative patterns; and the obverse, that a cultural 12

system will demonstrate unique characteristics to the degree that is incorporates singularities of exploitative pattern. This is the theoretical orientation which led to my original proposal to conduct an ethnographic study of a fishing com­ munity, and serves as the basis, I believe, for maritime an­ thropology as a distinct subfield of inquiry. Implicit in the above prdcis of the cultural ecology per­ spective is the proposition that there is more than a gener­ al functional relationship between environmental, technolog­ ical, work organizational, social structural, and ideational levels of the cultural whole. Rather, cultural systems are viewed as adaptive ; and a causal flow between these variables is recognized as proceeding from the most toward the least materialist, from the least to the most pronounced ideation­ al levels. Adaptation first occurs in those realms of a culture most central to productive activity with functional correlationships at other levels as a secondary process. The use of a cultural ecology model (especially in analysis of cases of specific rather than general evolution) does not preclude appreciation of the occasional reversal of causal flow between materialist and ideational levels of a socio­ cultural system. The model does suggest, however, that in the long run and in the largest number of cases it is the materialist infrastructure of a culture that determines the nature of the ideational superstructure (Harris 1979:73). In this cultural ecology analysis of a particular sociocult­ ural system (specific evolution), no evidence of such a re­ versal was found. Specifically, I will focus upon the role of work organi­ zation in the traditional and contemporary fisheries of the 13

South Coast of Newfoundland as a mediating or bridging struc­ ture between the physical environment and predominant value orientation of the residents. By 'work organization' I re­ fer to the patterned task-oriented social relationships be­ tween and among individuals engaged in the productive pro­ cess. It will be shown that with respect to notions of individ­ ualism and competitiveness, South Coast values are quite dif­ ferent from those in evidence for other regions of the Pro­ vince, certainly in degree if not qualitatively unique. The structure of social relations will also be seen to be at var­ iance with the pattern heretofore described for rural Newfoundland. Similarly, and as the basis for this subcult­ ural variability, the distinguishing features of the South Coast exploitative pattern and environment are highlighted.

South Coast as Culture Area

I view ethnography as principally answering to the anthro­ pological and interdisciplinary need for descriptive accounts, suitable for comparative purposes,of sociocultural systems. Although my original purpose was to describe a specialized fishing community and to a limited extent draw comparisons between fishing and nonfishing cultures, the nature of the research problem encountered once in the field demanded a more detailed comparative analysis of more limited scope. Therefore, my description of South Coast society is in count­ erpoint to prevailing views of rural Newfoundland culture in general, specifically to the ethnographic accounts available 14 for the Great Northern Peninsula, Northeast Coast, and South­ ern Shore. It is hoped that this regional comparative ap­ proach, beyond its central role in the analysis of the research problem at hand, will also contribute to the wider descriptive goal of the study in highlighting aspects of South Coast adap­ tations . Detached observers have noted, and Newfoundlanders them­ selves recognize, the Island's lack of cultural uniformity. It was often expressed to me by South Coast residents that each settlement was unique from all others. Yet, as Chiaramonte '1970:5) has pointed out, wider affiliation is ev­ idenced by individual indentification with the bay in which one's community is located. More inclusive regions consist of such areas as the Northeast Coast, Great Northern Peninsula, Codroy, West Coast,and Southern Shore. The Southwest Coast, or 'South Coast' is a designation somewhat more ambiguous than these others. It may refer to the coastline from Port Aux Basques at the southwestern tip of the Province to the tip of the Burin Peninsula; or exclucing Fortune Bay, terminating at the eastern entrance to Hermitage Bay. It seems that coastal transportation routes and the me­ dia have been responsible for the more recent and most expan­ sive identification of the 'South Coast'. The Canadian Nation­ al freight, passenger, and mail service has as its South Coast termini Port Aux Basques and Burin, and the commercial radio station carrying local announcements and advertising broadcasts from another Burin Peninsula community. To travel anywhere outside of the Coast, the residents of communities ranged be­ tween these two ports must use one or the other as gateways. And when the media speaks of the South Coast, it 15

is in reference to this expanse. But prior to mid-century, several distinct areas were rec­ ognized within this larger portion of the Coast. The 'West­ ern Shore1 consisted of those communities immediately to the east of Port Aux Basques that served as seasonal bases for the offshore winter schooner fishery, and where fishermen commonly left their homes in the summer months to fish in Nova Scotia waters. Bay Despoir, in the deeper recesses of Hermitage Bay, was distinctive in the emphasis there on 'woodwork' or lumbering rather than fishing. It was, and is, also outstanding for its Roman Catholic settlements, Indian population, and recently, construction of a hydroelectric fa­ cility. Situated in-between the Western Shore and Hermitage Bay is a comparatively even stretch of coast marked regularly by narrow, deep, fiord-like bays. It is this portion of the Southwest Coast extending from the western reaches of Her­ mitage Bay to the vicinity of Ramea/Burgeo that I identify as the 'Central South Coast' for the lack of any specific local terminology. The reason for the lack of a local name for an entity that I perceive to be real can be explained. Distinguishing the location of his community from the rest of the South Coast to another resident of the same coast, the name of the settlement or that of a larger nearby com­ munity would suffice. To a Newfoundlander from another coast, 'South Coast' would likely be the answer to a question of origin, this description being sufficiently precise. How­ ever, the subcultural area I have designated 'Central South Coast' though unnamed, is recognized by its inhabitants who give nominal identity to the region by naming of contiguous 16 areas. Because 'Central South Coast' is a clumsy term not used by Newfoundlanders, I will resort to it only when nec­ essary to distinguish this portion of the coast from adjac­ ent areas. For the most part, I will use the more economi­ cal and familiar 'South Coast' with the understanding that the reader is aware of my more restricted meaning. By heur- istically making this terminological segregation of the larg­ er Southwest Coast, it is my intent to show that an adapta­ tion developed within this region which differed significant­ ly from other coasts, and to a degree from that which e- volved to the east (Fortune Bay) and to the west (Western Shore). While this study is not devoted solely to an explanation of South Coast resistance to unionization, and is foremost an examination of the 'pattern of life' of one South Coast com­ munity and section of coast, an attempt will be made to un­ derstand the unusual strength of local opposition to union­ ization efforts in Ramea and on the South Coast, on the bas­ is of an analysis of sociocultural systems (functionalist model) rather than through the proposition of monistic caus­ ality. This systems approach, however, is not one of causal indeterminancy. An attempt will be made to associate anti­ union ideology with the exploitative patterns (cultural ecol­ ogy model) of South Coast adaptations.

Fieldwork

The fieldwork period consisted of a seventeen month resi­ dence on the island of Ramea, supplemented by a several week 17 stay in Grey River and occasional interviewing in other com­ munities of the central South Coast. The fieldwork was pre- ceeded by two weeks in St. John's, and was followed by six months at Memorial University of Newfoundland. The total re­ search period extended from April 1975 to April 1977. My original intent was not to conduct a regional study, nor to rely so heavily on ethnohistorical material. Rather, I planned to describe the culture of a single, occupational­ ly specialized fishing community - a description that would be based on a cultural ecology or cultural materialist model. But my research scheme, goals, and methods, were altered in the early stage of the fieldwork, a consequence of particular events surrounding the fieldwork and conditions on Ramea at the time of the research, mediated by my own personal in­ terests and inclinations. This description of the fieldwork process is intended to provide the reader with some informa­ tion that might explain both the direction and conclusions of that research and its product. The Newfoundland Department of Health somehow discovered that my wife, Gloria, was a registered nurse? and even before we arrived on the island, attempted to recruit her as a temp­ orary replacement for the resident nurse. He would be spend­ ing the best part of our first summer in St. John's, attend­ ing mandatory courses. There was no other replacement avail­ able, and should Gloria not have accepted the position, she would have been the only medically trained person on the Is­ land, and therefore 'de facto' the nurse anyway. She hesi­ tated to accept the position for several reasons, the princi­ pal one being that her first charge was our less than a year old son. Nor was the prospect of being the only source of 18

medical attention for a population of 1500 particularly at­ tractive. She would also be responsible for the 200 person community of Grey River where a weekly clinic was held on­ board a converted trawler ; which boat also served to trans­ port the nurse and patients between Grey River, Ramea, and the hospital on Burgeo. I strongly encouraged her to take the job, for a very selfish reason. I expected her nursing to open doors to my fieldwork, and to serve as a form of reciprocity for the in­ dulgences I would expect of the Islanders. I, the Department of Health, resident nurse, populace of Ramea, and lack of an alternative, prevailed; and Gloria's practice on Ramea and Grey River proved to be of great value to all parties, in­ cluding my wife. But part of the bargain struck with Gloria entailed my services as principal parent to our son for the duration of her employment. That arrangement soon proved to be even more restrictive of my mobility than I had planned, and so my ear­ ly fieldwork consisted of only those tasks that could be ac­ complished by an ethnographer with a baby on his back or close at hand. Most difficult to accomplish in this fashion was participant observation of men at work, the technique on which I had intended to concentrate. Therefore I early changed my plans to remain on the South Coast for a year and a half rather than twelve months, cutting in half my research and writing time at the university. During that first summer I was able, however, to spend a considerable amount of time meeting and visiting those mem­ bers of the community who were not, at the time, engaged in work or vigorous outside activity. For the most part, this 19

consisted of retired fishermen who provided me with a great deal of information regarding their individual occupational histories. I continued to pursue this 'method of opportuni­ ty' longer than my domestic situation required, for several reasons. First, the material gained in this fashion was pro­ viding a pattern of historical work organization and social structure that had not been previously reported for Newfound­ land, and in fact, was quite distinct from the general char­ acteristics of Newfoundland culture described by other eth­ nographers. Although I resisted the idea of a historical or ethnohistorical study, I felt that to ignore the material would be to 'miss the forest for the trees.' It was too im­ portant to overlook. Also, the South Coast pattern that was emerging from occupational histories entailed a value system that corresponded perfectly with the historical and contemp­ orary events at issue - the failure of cooperative and union organization. If a sense of responsibility to the body of knowledge of general Newfoundland culture was not sufficient to convince me to pursue this line of inquiry, an awareness of the needs of my own particular research was. Thirdly, I soon discovered in those initial months of mapping and do­ mestic interviewing, that relatively few household on the Island were composed of families originating in Ramea. Most were identified, and identified themselves, as 'belonging' to the small outports on the mainland (Newfoundland proper) to either side (up or down coast) of their present home. Most of these communities were no longer in existence, having been resettled gradually or rapidly under the respective pressures of economic constraints and government incentives. I found that in gathering occupational histories of these 20 fish ,rmen, I was also recording the techno-environmental histories of settlements without a future. Again, I felt some responsibility to grasp the opportunity (salvage eth­ nography) , and I was encouraged by the unique and clear pat­ tern that was emerging from the material. Participant observation (when I was finally able to get at it) consisted of taking part in the full round of commun­ ity life, but was particularly directed toward the occupa­ tional sphere. I attempted, and nearly succeeded, in fish­ ing at least once with every inshore fisherman, made a num­ ber of offshore dragger trips, and fished myself from my own dory constructed for me by a fisherman friend. I also spent time in and around the fish plant, although personally, and professionally, I found this activity less interesting and less rewarding than that which surrounds the catching of fish. A great deal of information was obtained by talking to active fishermen in their stages as they prepared for the next day's work. Ramea is a community clearly divided between local labor­ ers and a managerial/professional elite who are, for the most part, not of South Coast origin. Early in the field­ work, I was approached, and tenpted, to establish friendship ties within this latter group. But recognizing that the for­ mation of such alliances would close other doors, I conscious­ ly avoided such affective association. This isn't to say that I experienced any conflict with this group, although the mer­ chant family and plant managers were well aware of my interest in, and inquiries into, the reasons for the union's lack of success in Ramea. They never conveyed to me their concern that my research might serve to create unrest in the 21 community, provide useful information to the union or other outsiders, or that I myself was a partisan on the side of the union. But since the status quo was, at least at the surface, in the favor of the plant owners, my presence and activity could very easily be interpreted as a threat. Per­ haps for this reason they did not volunteer information nor, in some cases, respond positively to specific requests for information. The owners were, however, very helpful in as­ sisting my family in terms of our domestic needs (they were our landlord), and invited us into their homes for holiday social events. The relationship was cordial and guarded, not close. This relationship prevented me from obtaining the depth of information I would have liked on the topic of mer­ chant/fisherman relations (from the merchant's perspective). As a consequence, however, I did get a better feeling for the workers' views of the relationship, and at the same time gained an understanding of relationships among fishermen, my principal (and original) fieldwork goal. And, as the field­ work progressed, I came to enjoy a number of friendships which provided an occasional and welcome retreat from the role of ethnographer. Following my departure from the South Coast, a number of months were spent searching the original colonial records for description of the economic and social structure of the South Coast. This proved to be fruitful as the records in­ cluded the annual narrative reports of the fisheries patrol officers. These British naval officers, charged with en­ forcement of the fisheries laws, circumnavigated the Island on a regular basis. Since their principal responsibility was the fisheries, their accounts give very good detail of 22 the organization of work and even of the values associated with the fishery (since such values become explicit in the presentation of fishermen complaints which the patrol officer was frequently called upon to hear). Because they were gener­ ally not Newfoundlanders or fishermen themselves, the offi­ cers recorded a number of observations that might not have been thought worthy of note by someone closer to the Province and its industry. And because of their responsibility for patrol of all Newfoundland waters, they had a very good com­ parative basis for observation. THE SETTING

These little places got settled more or less from poverty. They come over from England and Jersey and other places because the times was so bad. And they settled down in these little places, every little nook and hole there was, wherever they could get into, purpose for to catch a fish.

Ramea fisherman

Newfoundland

Earliest European interest in the Northwest Atlantic fish­ eries of the 15th and 16th centuries was focused upon the Great Banks rather than the inshore waters of Newfoundland. The Island itself was used only as a source of water, wood, and bait, and as a temporary refuge for repairs. Not until the 17th century did England, and to a lesser degree France, begin to develop a greater interest in Newfoundland both as a base for a migratory fishing ship inshore fishery, and as a fortified outpost in the struggle for North American em­ pire. Colonization of the Island was not of high priority for either country although the British formally took possession in 1583 and sponsored several charter companies, none of

23 24

which prospered. What early settlement did occur was not by government or mercantile design, but the result of the gradu­ al accumulation of fishermen who chose not to make the return voyage to Europe. Initially, these men wintered on the Is­ land not only to protect the shore property or 'rooms' of their employers, but to extend the length of the season by continuing the shore based fishing effort after the trans­ atlantic vessels had departed for the Southern European mar­ kets in advance of the severe fall storms. Some fishermen, however, never again joined the autumn convoys, ?.:.d weighing the prospects of adventure and economic opportunity against the reality of unemployment and land scarcity at home, made the Island their own. The English effort was at first entirely shore based which enabled the fishermen to employ wind and sun in the production of a lightly salted dried fish which commanded a premium price on the Mediterranean and Southern European markets. Large vessels carrying from three to forty fish­ ing boats and crews would hazard the ice-bound waters of early spring to arrive early enough to be able to claim first right to favored shore locations. The best rooms pro­ vided good anchorage for the fishing ships which would no longer be used until fall, a source of fresh water, beaches suitable for the drying of fish, and most important of all, situated nearby to productive fishing grounds. Because the English fishery was a seasonal one, bounded by the limitations of spring ice and fall storms, it is not surprising that they chose their rooms from the harbors and coves of the lower Northeast Coast and Avalon Peninsula. For in this part of the Island, the season, though short, is 25 marked by the annual onshore post-spawning movement of great numbers of codfish in pursuit of caplin, this species itself engaged in a spawning migration which leads them into shal­ low water and even onto the beaches of the Northeast Coast and Southern Shore. This seasonal concentration of cod, their voracious feeding, and the ready availability of bait, made the shore fishery a highly profitable undertaking in spite of the personal and financial risk entailed in the crossing of 4000 miles of North Atlantic which lay between West Country England, the fish, and eventual market. The French, who had a longer history of participation in the Northwest Atlantic fisheries were not so committed to a shore based effort and had developed their own domestic mar­ ket for a heavily salted 'wet' or 'green' product which could be processed aboard the fishing ships themselves without any need for land facilities. "By the last half of the 17th century, of France's North American cod-fish fleets, only slightly less then one-half were probably fishing each year on the banks" (Head 1976:16). The remainder of the French vessels were fishing in a manner similar to that of the English, but on the North and West Coasts of the island (Petit Nord, Cape Bauld to Cape St. John), and in the vicinity of the Burin Peninsula on the South Coast. This latter area also served as a seasonal base for the banking vessels, especially Placentia which was for­ tified and garrisoned. The only shoreline which saw no ac­ tivity prior to the 18th century was that of the western reaches of the South Coast and the southern portion of the West Coast, which in comparison to other areas were lacking in fish during the months of the summer migratory fishery. 26

On the Southern Shore and Northeast Coast fished by the English, the growing number of 'livyers' or year-round set­ tlers, became the object of dissatisfaction on the part of the mercantile interests of the West Country ports who had developed and prospered as a result of the Newfoundland trade. To them, the colonization of the Island meant great­ er competition for the seasonal fishing ships who earlier had only each other to contend with in their annual race across the Atlantic for the better fishing locations or 'berths'. There was also the threat that the settlers might do business with the New England traders who, like the English sack ships, coasted between the rooms in late summer and fall in an at­ tempt to buy fish and supply fishermen with winter provisions and fishing gear. The challenge was three-fold in that this competition not only drove up the price of fish obtained from the settlers, but eventually competed again with English fish on the for­ eign market. The trade also deprived West Country industry of Newfoundland as an outlet for their products which had earlier been supplied to the fishing fleet during their fit- out in preparation for the spring sailing. These same ex­ panding industries were cheated of the domestic labor pool which was diminished by permanent settlement in Newfoundland. To protect their interests, the merchants, or 'Western Ad­ venturers', lobbied to the Crown to discourage year-round settlement of the island on the charge that it would deprive England of the 'nursery of seamen' that the migratory fishing ships provided in the absence of a standing navy. Spokesmen for the livyers countered with an equally patriotic plea for government encouiragement to settlers as a hedge against 27

French economic and military encroachment on British North American Interests. Most ink has been spilt by historians of Newfoundland on the subject of this conflict between advocates of year-round settlement and proponents of seasonal exploitation, and the resultant retardation of the colonization of the island. Matthews (1968) has demonstrated that earlier accounts of this conflict (Prowse 1895) have been drawn too simplistical- ly, when in fact, the livyers were not a group apart from the Western Adventurers. The year-round settlers were drawn from the fishermen and merchants of West Country England and some­ times abandoned the island to rejoin the migratory fishery. Intermediate social structures also appeared such as 'bye- boat keepers' who maintained permanent shore facilities but seasonally removed themselves and most of their employees to England to return again in the spring as paying passen­ gers aboard migratory fishing ships. Head (1976), in a geographer's analysis of the coloniza­ tion dispute and historical settlement patterns, is in agree­ ment with Matthews that the year-round inhabitants did not seek out remote harbors with passages hidden to the sea in order to escape punitive naval authorities or maurading mi­ gratory fishing vessels protecting the interests of West Country firms. Rather, dispersed settlement followed as a result of the most efficient manner of prosecuting the in­ shore fishery. The delay in settlement was primarily due to the equivocal nature of the fishing venture and the other- wise uncertain economic base of the island. It was never ab­ solutely clear to the fishermen and merchants which adapta­ tion proved less risky, the annual hazards of two ocean 28 crossings, or the permanent settlement of an island lacking in resources other than a seasonal glut of codfish. For three hundred years, fishermen, firms, and governments con­ sidered the same question and tried various solutions. In a sense, although settlement of Newfoundland is now a fact, developments of the last thirty years (outport resettlement, provincial outmigration, decline of shorefishing and ex­ pansion of trawler fleets) demonstrate that the economic wis­ dom of expanded and dispersed settlement is still problematic.

South Coast

In spite of two hundred years of fishing activity on the Newfoundland banks by several European nations, the South Coast of the island was little used and poorly charted until the 18th century. Consistent with the French concentration of fishing effort on the offshore banks and their limited in­ shore operations on the eastern reaches of the Coast, earli­ est cartography shows very little detail of the western and central portions. For example, at the close of the 17th cen­ tury the entire shoreline from Cape Ray to the Burin Peninsu­ la is depicted as a part of Fortune Bay (Wisscher 1680). What little is known of French shore based activity at the turn of the century suggests an adaptation not very dissimi­ lar to that of their adversaries on the Northeast Coast and Southern Shore. Bay d'Espoir seems to have been the western limit of French expansion, where fur trapping served as a supplement to the summer inshore cod fishery of the Burin Peninsula (Coast of Chapeau Rouge) and Placentia. 29

Following cessation of hostilities in 1713, the English by the Treaty of Utrecht, assumed authority over the former­ ly French controlled South Coast. British migratory fishing ships, facing stiffer competition from year-round inhabitants on the traditional East Coast inshore grounds, seemed to take initial advantage of this gain in territory but failed to ex­ ploit it even to that level attained by their predecessors (Head 1976:58). What post treat English involvement in the South Coast fishery did occur, followed the earlier pattern of reliance upon the summer onshore movement of cod, and therefore was focused within the area of this resource base, i.e. Placentia and the Burin Peninsula. "On the southern coasts in particular, it is important to note that in large part what had happened was merely a change in nationality of exploiter; the same activity continued, and although it fell back in volume, it continued in much the same places" (Head 1976:60). If any westward expansion took place at this time, it may have been by some French inhabitants who wished to remain in the now British territory and agreed to an oath of allegiance. The first British commander of the garrison at Placentia was, however, like his earlier French counterpart, an active par­ ticipant in the fishery himself. After absorbing the neces­ sary local knowledge of the French inhabitants regarding the location of the best grounds, he is reported to have driven them out of Placentia Bay (along with some English settlers) to portions of the Coast less accessible to his control (Head 1976:60). Again, it is doubtful whether such a migration would have been pressed beyond the limits of the sparsely settled Burin Peninsula. 30

Yet in 1730 (Seutter) a chart was produced which features and names the larger bays, inlets, and offshore islands of at least the central portion of the South Coast. The same work shows scant improvement in the depiction either of the westernmost shoreline from Witte Bear Baye (White Bear Bay) to Cape Ray, or that stretch of coast eastward of R. des Chaleurs, including what is now known as Hermitage Bay. An unidentified chart of 1733 in which some of the earlier French place names are given English translation, identifies 'Ramour' within the Eatons Island group, and once again shows the offshore island progression and coastal features. An English edition of 1747 (Bowen) and a subsequent French ver­ sion (Vaugondy 1749) alter little the cartography of the pre- ceeding two decades other than some further translation and the addition of place names to the east and west. The ser­ ious surveying of the South Coast was not undertaken until the second half of the century with the work of James Cook. But the charts of the 30's and 40's are evidence, if not of settlement, than at least of growing interest in the shore­ line west of the coast of Chapeau Rouge. Head (1976:63-68), reviewing the mid-century fishing re­ turns for Newfoundland, found for most of the coasts that had seen more intensive fishing, evidence of the attainment of maximum sustainable yield, a level of harvest at which in­ creased effort depletes the stock to the point where harm is done to subsequent fishing seasons. The statistics showed both a long term decline in overall landings and a decrease in yield per unit effort. This near collapse of traditional inshore cod stocks provided the impetus for the development of an English banking fleet and perhaps stimulated a resident 31 migration of English and French further to the north and west. English interest in, and knowledge of, the South Coast and its settlement was also spurred for political reasons soon after the conclusion of the Seven Years War. France had been removed from most of her North American empire but had retained fishing rights and shoreside curing privileges in Newfoundland from Cape Bonavista on the Northeast Coast to Port Riche on the West. Faced with the inadequacy of ex­ ist ing charts for both these areas and the South Coast, and responsible for the enforcement of treaty provisions rela­ ting to the 'French Shore', the naval governor of Newfound­ land petitioned the Admiralty to commission a hydrographic survey. Proper charts would not only give his officers the means of safe navigation of their vessels, but would inform them of the specific locations of the ambiguous geographic­ al terms of the treaty. James Cook and an assistant were assigned to undertake the project (Whitely 1975:4-5). Following the more urgent need to chart those areas of greatest French involvement (Quirpon, Strait of Belle Isle, Fortune Bay), Cook did not conduct his survey of the cent­ ral and western portions of the South Coast until 1766, the product of that effort being the chart of 1775 (Cook and Lane). In addition to the provision of the first accurate chart of the coast based upon astronomical observations. Cook also re­ sponded to his charge by noting any extant shore installa­ tions or locations in which conditions were favorable to the development of such fishing facilities or conveniences. His observations of South Coast settlement activity showed that most shore facilities remained concentrated in the vicinity 32 of Fortune Bay, especially in the communities of Fortune and Grand Bank. The popularity of this location was undoubtedly due to the advantages of the presence of a summer glut cod fishery, and the early commencement and late conclusion of fishing on less concentrated stock. Further to the we3t of this portion of Fortune Bay, for hydrographical and topo­ graphical reasons to be discussed in Chapter 3, the cod do not move inshore in such great numbers in the summer months, a migration which had always been the mainstay of both the resident and fishing ship economies of the English and French. The number of stages on the north shore of the bay, primari­ ly at St. Jacques, was found to be not the installations of year-round settlers, but of residents of Fortune and Grand Bank who engaged in a form of marine transhumance, repairing in the fall to their "... several temporary Stages and Hutts ... for the benefit of the Winter Fishery" (Cook, in Head 1976:161) . The exploitation of the winter fishery was not extensive at the time, however, and not all harbors of the north shore of Fortune Bay mentioned by Cook were the sites of either seasonal or year-round settlement. Those few harbors of the western shore of the Burin Peninsula deep enough to accomo­ date a fishing ship were overcrowded in the spring, and the north shore of Fortune Bay with its bold, deeply indented coastline and deep water, offered good protection if a rela­ tively poor summer fishery. The transatlantic vessels could be layed-up in these north shore havens for the summer months while the actual fishing was conducted from boats based in Fortune and Grand Bank (Head 1976:162). Harbour Breton, for example, served only as a summer anchorage for migratory 33

fishing ships. Speaking of fishing operations in Grand Bank, Cook remarks; "... to this place and Fortune, resort the crews of fishing ships who lay their ships up in Hbr. Breton" (Cook 1794:6). And of Jersey Harbour, though he found it to be well situated and equipped as a shore fishery base, he noted its use only as a summer lay-up berth for vessels from the Channel Islands. "...in this harbour are several con­ venient places for erecting many stages, and good beach room. Jerseymen generally lay their ships up in this harbour and cure their fish at Fortune and Grand Bank" (1794:11). With the exception of some unused stages at Pass Island and a small operation at Hermitage Cove, Cook records no settlement or installation of any kind from Fortune Bay to Burgeo. He does, however, comment upon the suitability of several locations and charts the location of a previously unknown fishing bank lying between the Ramea and Penguin Islands; "... abounding with very large cod and at a time when they were very scarce on every other part of the coast" (Cook in Whitely 1975:21). Cook found a bit more activity on the western extremity of the South Coast, especially at Port Aux Basques which had been earlier reported in 1734 as the site of a French fishing station manned from Cape Breton (Head 1976:163). Yet, the surveyor's statistics for the en­ tire coast from Hermitage Bay to Cape Ray at the third quart­ er of the 18th century, showed fewer than forty fishing boats maintained by a summer population of less than 200, only half of which remained throughout the winter. The percentage of year-round inhabitants demonstrates at least a partial con­ tinued reliance upon an extended summer fishery. If it is not clear exactly when, or if, year-round fishing takes place 34 in the eighteenth century, it is probable that the summer season was being lengthened at either or both ends. Croften, in a 1797 report on the activity on coasts seldom visited by naval vessels, reports winter fishing on the eastern portion of the South Coast; "... the District of Fortune Bay, com­ prehending the Bay of Despair hold(s) out peculiar advantages by the cod fishing continuing all the Year, particularly in the Bay Despair, where it has never been known to fail, and nothing but the inclemency of the Season at times, prevents fish being caught all the winter" (Great Britain Colonial Office, C.O. 194/40: ff.22v-23). THE ENVIRONMENT

(The fisherman) thought of recent weather, and gales, currents, food supplies, and other domestic arrange­ ments, from the point of view of a twenty pound cod; was, in fact, for an hour a cod himself.

Rudyard Kipling Captains Courageous

In this chapter is presented a description of the physi­ cal environment of the South Coast. Not every aspect of the environment is discussed, only those characteristics which have previously influenced or continue to affect the manner in which the people of the Coast make their living. 'Ef­ fective environment', therefore, is in reference to such nat­ ural features as can be recognized by the ethnographer to be important to a particular adaptation. Clearly, minerals unmined and undersea oil untapped, though part of the total physical environment, would not yet fall in the category of 'effective'. Vayda and Rappaport (1968) have argued for the relevance of what they term ethno-ecological investigation, maintain­ ing that the people's perception or cognition of their en­ vironment is a critical part of the process which results in physical behavior, the manner in which they make use of

35 36

that environment. The organization of work is necessarily dependent upon workers' notions of what they have to work with. The perception of environment presented here was not ob­ tained strictly through formal semantic analysis, but has been extracted from observed behavior of fishermen as well as through recorded interviews. The following, then, is an approximation of the perceived environment of contempor­ ary Ramea fishermen and of the preceeding generation. Both versions were sufficiently congruent to be presented as one, the explanation of the similarity being the constancy of the effective environment. This is not to deny the variability through time of aspects of the total natural environment which may be exploited according to the changing technology and knowledge of the inhabitants; but in the case of the South Coast, unlike most of Newfoundland, the essential na­ ture of the inshore fishery has been altered very little by technological innovation. This will be demonstrated in the review of historical fisheries in Chapters 4 and 5. The men­ tal map of today's fisherman, though more expansive in terms of territory than that of his great great grandfather, is probably not so detailed. Yet, if the results of a two and three generation comparison is any indication, and mindful of the fact that technological change in the inshore fishery was practically nonexistent until the end of the 19th Centu­ ry, contemporary fishermen and their South Coast ancestors would probably share a great deal in their views of the ma­ rine environment. My purpose at this point in the thesis, therefore, is to attempt an understanding of the fisherman's perception of 37

economically significant aspects of the South Coast physical environment, the manner in which he defines the fishing grounds. Before a discussion of work organization, values, and their relationship to the fishing enterprise, it is first necessary to isolate the fisherman's 'givens' in the South Coast economic equation.

Effective Environment

Land

Throughout the Northern North Atlantic maritime fringe, fishermen of seacoast communities have to varying degree supplemented cash earnings derived from fishing with income obtained through small scale farming and other land based subsistence pursuits. In comparison with settlement along the North American seaboard and even the northernmost of the European fishing communities whose climate is yet favored by remnants of the Gulf Stream, preindustrial Newfoundland adap­ tations, as a whole, have been remarkable in their near to­ tal dependence upon the exploitation of the resources of the sea and relative inattention to those of the land, farming in particular. Commercial farming has been conducted with most success in the Codroy Valley on the southwestern portion of the is­ land, and has made more modest progress in scattered loca­ tions of limited extend on all shores other than the north­ ern reaches of the Great Northern Peninsula and the South Coast west of the Burin Peninsula (Putnam and Putnam 1970: 38

100). Prior to confederation with Canada, the combination of subsistence gardening with the keeping of small numbers of sheep, horses, and cattle was found throughout most of the Island. Only in the last quarter century has this prac­ tice diminished in importance subsequent to the improvement in cash income made possible by the growing availability of full time and supplemental wage work in addition to sub­ stantial government transfer payments. But even before the economic benefits of Confederation were realized, and during the century and a half in which the Island's economic structure most closely resembled that of a peasantry, family based agriculture was insufficient to provide minimal sustenance to households. The cultivation of gardens afforded scant protection from the fluctuations of the international salt cod market, or from the instabili­ ty of the primary productive process itself. Nineteenth cen­ tury observers of the colony placed the blame for the chron­ ic poverty of the inhabitants on the lack of agricultural ac­ tivity. The livyers were poor, it was felt, because they were fishermen only, and not fishermen-farmers. If cottage agriculture was not conducted on a scale that allowed for self-sufficiency, it does seem that on some coasts this activity constituted an important source of sup­ plementary income. Speaking of the Northeast Coast, Britan maintains; "Subsistence production supplied remaining needs, kept requirements for cash low, and provided a reserve of flexibility, which, especially in poor seasons, was essen­ tial for survival" (1974:36). And both Faris and Britan note that although the composition of fishing crews serves as the most important criterion of membership in named 'crowds' of 39 of extended kin groups, garden land held in common is also recognized by villagers and ethnographers as a significant orienting principle of social organization. Faris uses the term 'general crowd' to refer to "... the occupants of a sin­ gle garden or group of gardens (commonly adjacent), ideally with the same surname ..." (1972:66); while Britan chooses the description 'garden' to distinguish a "... core neigh­ borhood in which several related 'effective crowds' are grouped within common fences" (1974:42). However, this facet of the traditional Newfoundland out- port economic adaptation was practically nonexistent on the South Coast. Not so much for climactic reasons, but because of topography has this region relied so minimally upon pro­ ducts of the soil. With the exception of small alluvial 'bottoms' at the heads of the deeper bays, the terrain below the upland plateau is essentially vertical. From the eleva­ ted 'barrens', sharp cliffs descend 500 to 1000 feet or more to sea level. There being no foreshore, pioneering settlers were limited in their choice of building sites. Small, rough­ ly triangular piles of rubble deposited at the base of cliffs by swift moving streams spilling from the uplands provided some possibilities, as did the somewhat more gentle, yet cir­ cumscribed, slopes presented by occasional fringing islands and lesser promontories. In either case the fishing stages and dwellings constructed at these locations do not appear so much to sit upon the land as they seem to cling to it. The frequent use of counteracting shores of timbers against rock outcroppings for structural support in the absence of a soil foundation gives this observation more than metaphorical sub­ stance. 40

Local perception of land conformation characteristics is summed up by the observation? 'There ain't much level ground.' The fiord-like scenery which is hailed as 'magnificent' by a stranger to the coast, is looked upon by the inhabitants as an obstruction which inhibits the cultivation of gardens, re­ stricts the size of settlements, forces remote location of graveyards, impedes access to game and other plateau re­ sources, hinders overland transportation between communities, and for the fisherman offers little solace or respite from a lee shore. In conversations about the environment of my mid- western home, Islanders have reflected upon their own? 'What's it like where your to? Must be lovely flat. 1 Even recollec­ tions of visits to other parts of Newfoundland, in which the countryside is far from horizontal, are characterized by com­ mentary on the expanses of 'level ground', and the good for­ tune of the people so favored by such surroundings. But it is not just the scarcity of less steep terrain that minimizes agricultural activity. There is also little soil. Of all the shores and hinterlands of Newfoundland, it is the central portion of the South Coast that is most granitic in composition and consequently least susceptible to erosion. Lacking a sedimentary base, only a thin mantle of podzolized soil with moss and scrub vegetation overlays portions of the granite. Where level ground is to be found, the substratum gives poor drainage and bogs and ponds prevail. The tundra­ like appearance of the region was noted by Cook who in 1766 while surveying and sounding White Bear Bay, took the oppor­ tunity to follow the river for some distance in order to ap­ praise the country; " ... a little way inland from the head of the bay, you have a very extensive prospect of the interior 41 part of the country, which appears to be all a barren rock of pretty even height, and watered by a great number of ponds with which the whole country abounds" (Cook 1794:19). If Cook had climbed the headlands directly along the coast, he would have found the upland terrain much the same though of less 'even height'. Some families, not all, undertook the cultivation of small gardens in spite of these difficulties, and like oth­ er Newfoundlanders, made use of the sea (kelp and cod heads) in the formation and enrichment of the soil. But even here the inhabitants were denied the abundance of fertilizer pre­ sented to most coasts in the form of the annual cap1in scull which leaves millions of small fish upon the beaches to be carted away to the gardens. As will be explained further, few of these smelt-like fish are found in the waters of the South Coast, and spawning beaches are also rare. Production of vegetables was low and did not even warrant the construc­ tion of root cellars. What could not be grown locally was provided by merchants or by the seasonal vist in the fall of the 'island boat', a vegetable carrier from Prince Edward Island which for many years made best advantage of the mar­ ket provided by the agricultural deficiencies of the area, and sold in bulk to the families of the Coast. For the same reasons which inhibit agriculture, there are very few stands of timber, and trees are of small size. Wood­ ed areas are found almost exclusively along the fringe of the bays, and seldom extend more than 300 meters inland from the water's edge. It is the less steep slopes that are forested, and those that are bordered by water of reduced salinity. Thus found in greatest numbers at the heads of bays, 'vir' 42

(fir), spruce, and 'witch hazel' (juniper) were sufficiently abundant for local boatbuilding, cutting of shores, and fuel, but were 'unhandy' to the settlements at the face of the Coast and on the island of Ramea. For the earliest livyers, the solution was found in mak­ ing the resource more accessible (at least for boatbuilding and fuel) by moving families at the conclusion of fall fish­ ing, to 'winter houses'. These structures, of less substan­ tial construction than their counterparts in the settlements, were sheltered from winter storms by the timber stands in which they stood. Just as the small wooded coves which served as their sites, these retreats were scattered along the edges and bottoms of the deeper bays. This form of transhumance, however, was not as universal as that reported for other coasts, especially with the intro­ duction of gear and vessel innovations at the turn of the twentieth century which allowed for an extended winter fish­ ery. In later years, the South Coast inshore fishery had no actual conclusion, and some householders would elect to fish inshore longer into the fall, return to the coast ear­ lier in the spring, or take berths on a skiff or schooner fishing the Western Shore and never move their families from the settlements at all. An inshore fisherman's increased earnings from the extended season would (hopefully) cover the cost of Cape Breton coal which was supplied either on credit by the merchant to whom they would sell their fish in the spring, or in a cash transaction by independent coasters. Those men aboard schooners who would be absent from the com­ munity in the early spring months would make similar pro­ visions for their families' fuel. Skiff fishermen, like 43

those on the schooners, would be away from the settlements in the months of the winter fishery, but in their case they made use of the combined labor of the crew and the availa­ bility of the vessel itself in the fall of the year, to cut and transport winter's wood from the bays to their year round homes in the coastal communities. In later years, with the development of a fresh fish market 'on the other side' (North Sydney and Glace Bay), depending upon the suc­ cess of individual seasons, skiff fishermen would use their cash earnings to purchase a load of coal which they them­ selves would transport to their homes on the South Coast in their otherwise empty holds. The substitution of coal for wood was highly valued, both for the extra heat and status that it gave to its users. On­ ly the industrious and perservering fisherman could afford to purchase this fuel or obtain it on credit from merchants. Even then, poor health or misfortune might cause an other­ wise productive man to be 'turned down' (refused credit). Among other things, this would mean no coal for the following winter. The improvident and unlucky would then resort of necessity to the winter house, if only until the fisherman was able to 'get up' (improve) again in the estimation of his merchant. This could be accomplished by economies in fuel and food (caribou and rabbit were available in the in­ terior), but also by woodswork employment which required less capital outlay than fishing. Timber cut during the winter was purchased by the larger merchants for construc­ tion and repair of shore facilities, especially the exten­ sive flakes upon which the fish were dried. 44

Beyond a minimal subsistence exploitation of land re­ sources neither were the men involved in seasonally working away from their home communities at commercial logging or mining, both activities being of considerable economic im­ portance to many other regions of Newfoundland. This is not to say that the resources of the local environment were cap­ able of providing for the entire population of the Coast; they were not. But when the limitations of the South Coast economy stimulated the search for outside employment, the response was in the direction of the sea. At various stages in what will be later described as an occupational develop­ ment cycle, men would leave their settlements to seek out berths aboard bankers, skiffs, langliners, coasters, tankers, (and most recently) Great Lakes freighters. Therefore, at no time in the history of the South Coast were any resources of the land utilized, either for house­ hold needs or commercially, in any approximation of the de­ gree to which they were employed in other regional economies of Newfoundland. Consequently, the exploitative pattern of the coast is singular in that it has been one of near total year-round reliance upon the prosecution of inshore and off­ shore fisheries. The land is valued primarily for its pro­ vision of fresh water and good harbor in proximity to inshore fishing grounds. The location of shelter for homes, fishing conveniences, and vessels, as near as possible to the grounds; has on all coasts of Newfoundland, prior to the development of interior resources, surface transportation networks, and non-fishing related industry (and in spite of all gardening and woods activity) always been of first im­ portance. The South Coast experience has been only more 45 restrictive in that the severity of winter fishing condi­ tions and the extensive use of smaller craft (many singly manned), demanded such a pattern of initial settlement and discouraged any alteration. Mindful of the.attraction of the level ground, timber stands, and game of the deeper re­ cesses of the bays, settler chose only those nooks and cracks of the seacoast wall v»hich afforded at least minimal shelter and put the fishermen within pulling and sailing distance of the grounds. The effective environment is that of the sea which provided almost every man with his livelihood, the fishing grounds.

Sea

It is the productivity of the surrounding sea that has offset Newfoundland's meager land resources and has made settlement economically possible. And, if this can be said of the Island generally, then it is especially true of the South Coast. The stocks of fish which frequent these waters, as elsewhere, are attributable to hydrographic and bathymet­ ric conditions which in combination offer an environment favorable to the commercially harvestable species and the food chain upon which they subsist. The major patterns of the circulation of the earth's wat­ ers hold the key to the location of the most significant re­ gional fisheries of the world; in that it is the movement of cold water from the poles toward the equator (on the east coasts of continental land masses in the northern hemisphere, and on the west coasts in the south) that carry the basic 46 nutrients essential to the sustenance of an intricate ma­ rine ecology of extensive biomass. Where these rivers of cold water within the ocean come into contact with warmer flows, an even greater mixing occurs in which the cold water nutrients are raised to the surface and serve as a food sup­ ply to photoplankton and phytoplankton. The interface on the southwestern portion of the Grand Banks of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current is a classic example of just such a process. These plants and animals form the biotic base of a life chain which at several points supports spe­ cies of commercial and/or subsistence value to man, and whose concentration have stimulated unique human adaptations. Of primary importance to the fisheries of Newfoundland is the presence of the Labrador Current. This movement of very cold water is formed by the confluence of southward polar flows which, due to the coriolis effect of the earth's rota­ tion, tends westward until it is forced to follow the direc­ tion of the Labrador coast. At the northernmost tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, a bifurcation of the current occurs with the main flow continuing along the east coast of the island. A weaker branch enters the Gulf of St. Lawrence via the Strait of Belle Isle and moves to the west along the north shore of the Gulf to contribute later to the Gaspe Current. The eastern segment of the Labrador Current is divided again by the slope of the Grand Banks with a less persistent flow of still cool yet warming water routed through the Avalon Channel and resuming its clockwise tenden­ cy by running westward along the South Coast and to the north through Cabot Strait. 47

The direction, and more importantly the temperature, of the westerly current along the South Coast is affected by seasonal wind patterns. In summer, the prevailing wester­ ly and southwesterly winds create an onshore or northward surface current which is relatively warm due to the influ­ ence in southern waters, of the Gulf Stream and the now warmed northwesterly flow of that portion of the Labrador Current which has circumscribed the Newfoundland Banks. This warm surface movement forces the colder underlaying wa­ ter offshore, and since the 'cold' westward current is here warmer than anywhere else in its clockwise flow around the island, the combined result is that in summer months the coastal water temperature (at least at the surface) is warm­ er than anywhere else in Newfoundland. In winter and early spring, the combination of wind and current, in this case the prevailing northerlies and the same westward and northward current back into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, keeps the South Coast, expecially the central portion, relatively ice-free by containing the ice within the Gulf or driving it directly south along the Nova Scotia coast. Although the North American continental shelf is most ex­ tensive in the vicinity of Newfoundland (the Newfoundland Banks), the central portion of the Island's South Coast is unusual for the extreme depth of inshore waters and concom- mitant scarcity of nearby fishing grounds. The Laurentian Channel leading to the Gulf of St. Lawrence via Cabot Strait, slices deeply into the shelf, as does the tributary Hermi­ tage Trough, which incision is carried very close to land extending from the eastern head of the bay for which it is named, westward to Rose Blanche Bank. Nowhere else do the 48

limits of the shelf or its troughs approach the landmass so closely except in the Straits of Florida and in some of the deeper bays of Newfoundland's Northeast Coast. The average gradient of the continental shelf (measured from shoreline to shelfbreak at 200 meters) at 0°-l' contrasts considerably with the South Coast figures ranging from 26°-34' (Recontre West) to l°-22' (Ramea). Seldom does the 100 fathom curve lie more than a mile offshore. Fishermen of St. Shotts on the Southern Shore would have to steam more than a hundred times that distance to fish as deep, and by comparison, the waters of Belle Isle (Savage Cove) are relatively shallow and of uniform depth, approximately 30 fathoms. And of the water off Cat Harbour on the Northeast Coast, Faris reports; ". . . seldom exceeds a depth of forty fathoms offshore as far as thirty miles in a north, northeasterly, or northwesterly direction ... and thus presents an immense area of essential­ ly shallow water" (1972:28). The grounds of the central South consist of the fringing shelf which lies close-to along the mainland, and the fringe and encompassing shoals of a series of islands and banks ex­ tending thirty nautical miles from Ramea eastward to Watch Rock Bank. These banks and islands are separately named as are the depressions between them utilized for fishing pur­ poses. But the entire chain (unnamed) is also understood to present a contiguous shelf which separates this archipelago from the unproductive depths which lie between it and the mainland, and to the south. Only relatively recently has the word 'fish' been wide­ ly used or understood by the fishermen of the Northwest At­ lantic to have any reference other than that of the most 49 valued and pursued species, the atlantic cod. Abundance a- lone would not have won the cod this distinction if it had not been for the excellent quality of the white fleshed, sun dried fish which gave rise to an international demand and trade for the product which has a history extending as far back as the eighth century (Jenson 1972 :5). The salt cod market still exists but has largely been supplanted in industrialized countries by the demand for frozen fish. The freezing process is amenable to a greater number of edible species than was the case with salting and drying, and in Newfoundland has allowed a concentration of offshore effort on redfish and flounder. The great numbers of codfish on the grounds of the North­ west Atlantic, and no doubt the species resilience to over­ fishing, is attributable to its enormous fecundity. An av­ erage sized female fish liberates many millions of eggs in a single spawning season. The eggs, and later the fry, re­ main near the surface for some time and gradually descend to the depths where they begin a life-long bottom feeding pat­ tern, only occasionally rising to the surface or mid-depths in the seasonal pursuit of caplin or herring. For the most part, they subsist on bottom dwelling shellfish, crabs, lob­ sters, brittle stars, worms, etc. In addition to being known as a voracious feeder, especial­ ly after spawning, the cod is exceptional in its extreme tem­ perature sensitivity. Jenson (1972:16) reports that the fish responds to thermic variation as slight as .05 degree faren- heit. The cod, it seems, is as much moved, or more, by the temperature of the water as by the availability of food. As a result, there is a gradual movement into deeper water with 50 the approach of winter and a shoaling progression with the warming of surface layers in the summer and fall. Even with­ in this clinal pattern there occurs on a daily basis some fluctuation in the depth of fish concentration, perhaps as a result of wind current mixing. Perhaps the most extreme example of the effect of temperature sensitivity in cod is found in the yearly fluctuation of the trap-based summer in­ shore fishery of most coasts of Newfoundland in which the oc­ currence of a surface temperature too high for the fish pre­ vents them from following the spawning caplin into sheltered water where the traps are set. Through a long series of tagging experiments, and by the comparative analyses of variation in otolith and sclerite growth rings, fisheries biologists have concluded that the cod stocks for the Northwest Atlantic do not show a single gene pool, but can be divided into recognizable racial groups with specific spawning grounds and limited range of migration. Because the young cod do not migrate very far, if at all, the size and spacing of growth rings is uniform for the group which in their early years have shared a common environment. On this basis, four major Canadian stocks of cod have been identified as Labrador, Western (Nova Scotia), Bank (Grand Banks), and Gulf (Gulf of St. Lawrence) cod. These major stocks undertake seasonal migrations and as 'school cod' are distinguishable from 'shore cod' or 'local cod' which have a much more limited yearly range (Frost 1938). There seems to be little agreement yet as to the degree of genetic overlap between the migratory and the stationary cod, but there is evidence to support the conclusion that there are local rac­ es, or recognizable groups of cod which do not engage in 51

large migrations and remain near the locality of birth. For several reasons yet to be discussed, the effective environment of the inshore cod fishery of the South Coast differs considerably from that of the rest of Newfouandland. As was mentioned earlier, the combined effect of wind and current in summer on the South Coast, is to warm the wester­ ly flow of the Labrador Current. As a result the water is "... too warm in summer ... for cod to come into shallow areas and be easily caught up in quantity with simple hand- line and trap gears" (Templeman 1966:37-38). The water is not only too warm for cod, but is unsuitable as well to the caplin upon which the cod voraciously feed following their spawning. "On the western part of the south coast and the southern part of the West Coast, by the time the caplin are ready to spawn, conditions are apparently too warm for the regular yearly caplin spawning such as usually occurs on all suitable beaches on the east coast" (Templeman 1948:55). And even if the water wasn't too warm for the caplin, there are also very few suitable beaches on the South Coast due to bold shoreline. Templeman makes reference in the above quotation to a fairly predictable annual 'caplin scull' along most Newfound­ land coasts which bring the cod to shore behind the teeming bait fish and enables inshore fishermen to make substantial catches in a short period of time through the employment of shallow water cod traps. It is the absence on the South Coast, of this shallow water concentration of fish which will be seen in later chapters to be of significance with regard to the local pattern of work organization. 52

Winter fishing is not a possibility for most Newfound­ land inshore fishermen not only because of the ice which restricts or prevents navigation, but also due to a killing subfreezing intermediate level of water which keeps the cod well below 120 fathoms and therefore quite a distance from the shore. The situation is quite different on the South Coast where "... low temperatures do not extend so deep as on the east coast and winter fishing may be carried out at 60-90 fathoms though larger quantities of cod lie below 100 fathom" (Templeman 1966:42). The relative warmth of the coastal waters which deny to the South Coast the profitable summer trap fishery, have otherwise permitted the prosecu­ tion of the only Newfoundland winter inshore fishery. The hydrographic conditions which allow this effort are found to a lesser degree on the eastern portion of the coast, but the greatest concentration of fish are found to the west;

"... located between Rose Blanche and Cape Ray. Off this section of the Southwest Coast a fishing bank of an average depth of 100 fathoms runs along the coast for three miles off Port Aux Basques to twenty miles off Rose Blanche, and still further in an Easterly direction towards St. Pierre Bank. These cod have frequented the Gulf of St. Lawrence in summer and autumn till the ice forms in December, and are waiting off the Rose Blanche coast in deep water (which in this region is comparatively warm) till March or April; during this period they are ripening and they return to the gulf when the ice breaks up" (Thompson 1943 :28).

It is this coast from Rose Blanche to Port Aux Basques still referred to by South Coast residents as the 'Western Shore', 53

that served as a seasonal base for the skiffs, small schoon­ ers, and bankers from the central portion of the Coast. It is the seasonal appearance then of the Gulf cod stock that supports the winter fishery of the Western Shore and its extension along the offshore banks (and to a lesser de­ gree the inshore grounds) of the South Coast. Yet prior to the advent of extensive winter fishing, especially that which was shore based, it was the summer resident stock of cod that provided the only source of income for most families. The composition of this fish population has not been clearly de­ fined, but tagging experiments have shown that "... the sum­ mer movement of some fish, from the winter fishery off Rose Blanche (is) not into the Gulf, but eastwards for some dist­ ance along the Southwest Coast" (Thompson 1943 :29). Thompson also demonstrates that the South Coast resident pop­ ulation of cod is also fed by fish moving eastward from a stock associated with Fortune Bay unrelated to the Gulf stock. To summarize, the effective environment of the South Coast, more so perhaps than any other populated are of the North Atlantic fringe (certainly more so than other regions of Newfoundland), is one in which the economic importance of the sea and its harvest is paramount. Within those waters, a summer resident cod population of multiple origin is pres­ ent which, because of regional hydrographic peculiarities, do not move into shallow water in great concentrations at any time. This local stock is swelled by migrating Gulf cod in the winter and early spring and together are found in only moderately deep water still accessible to inshore fishermen. At the same time of year on the other Newfoundland coasts, 54 the Labrador Current keeps the fish much deeper and conse­ quently further offshore due to the more gentle slope of the island's shelf. And on these coasts severe ice condi­ tions further discourage inshore fishing effort at this time of year. Like all cod, the South Coast variety are tempera­ ture sensitive and change their depth to remain within an acceptable thermic range. However, because of peculiarities of hydrography, there is less seasonal variation in temper­ ature than on other coasts, and the vertical movement of fish is somewhat reduced. The underwater topography of the South Coast characterized by a steep gradient of the fringing shelf and offshore banks, permits this reduced seasonal and daily vertical movement to take place within a zone of minimal lateral expanse. The effective environment of the South Coast consists therefore of the following significant characteristics; 1) almost sole reliance on fishing and marine-related errploy- ment with very little land based subsistence or commercial activity, 2) year-round fishing, 3) absence of any seasonal glut of fish concentrations permitting the use of traps, and 4) fishing ground of suitable depth found within an area of limited lateral expanse.

Perceived Environment

In restricting our usage of the term 'environment' from 'total' to 'effective', and now to 'perceived', one addition­ al restriction is called for. Of all the environmental know­ ledge deemed necessary to the pursuit of this demanding 55 occupation, including the ability to recognize and predict the vicissitudes of wind and wave, none is so fundamental or essential as the accurate perception of the underwater world. This is probably true of fishermen everywhere, the main thing being able to locate fish. The ethnographic record demon­ strates cross culturally the prestige and material benefits which accrue to excellence in this ability; from the fish hearing ability of fishermen of the Malay Peninsula (Firth 1963), to the net boss of a Norwegian herring seiner (Barth 1963) . For a shore based demersal fishery, however, especially one which exploits a nonmigratory or partially migratory stock, this ability to find fish, though still the main thing, is understood more in terms of 'finding the ground'. The South Coast inshore fishery fits this description. Un­ like Kipling's Disko who, in guiding his banking schooner over the Grand Banks in pursuit of the seasonally moving cod, exhibited the sort of behavior more commonly found in a fisherman of pelagic species, the South Coast inshore fish­ erman's mind does not dwell so much or so directly upon the fish, but rather on the grounds it frequents. And the term 'fishing grounds' as here used does not correspond exactly with its more common referent to anyarea in which fishing is carried on, at the surface, mid-depth, or on the bottom. Here it refers only to the bottom. As will be seen, the South Coast hook and line fishery in contradistinction to that of neighboring coasts has his­ torically consisted of very localized effort. Even today the largest and most powerful of the trawl fishing boats do not often fish more than six miles from harbor. The idea is 56

not to go to the fish, but wait for them to come to the gen­ eral vicinity and then to place your gear in the best 'spots'. Aside from the question of territoriality, which such practice brings to mind and which will be examined in another chapter, it should be clear that for the fishermen of this coast 'knowing the ground' is the best guarantee of success. Mindful of this, the following discussion of per­ ceived environment will focus upon that aspect of the fish­ erman's underwater world. The primary distinction made by Ramea fishermen with re­ spect to underwater topography is that between 'bottom' and 'ground'. While 'bottom' is the more generic or inclusive of the two terms and might be used logically, if not in prac­ tice, to signify the entirety of the ocean floor, 'ground' refers only to those sections of the seabed upon which the terrain and depth of water are suitable to the habitation of commercially valuable groundfish species. This is not to say that preferential fishing locations are not recog­ nized for such pelagic species as salmon, mackerel, and herring, as well as for lobster and squid; but with the possible exception of the latter species, these spots are not referred to as 'grounds'. The ramifications of this cognitive similarity are significant though, especially with regard to salmon fishing. For the present, the discussion- will be limited to the perceived environment of the inshore ground fishery. Nor is this an arbitrary restriction, for just as the term 'fish' has for generations of Newfoundland­ ers meant codfish, the 'grounds' to the South Coast fisher­ man is understood to mean the relatively scarce and scattered seabed configurations that attract, shelter, and feed the 57

demersal specie upon which their economy has always relied. Beyond this principal perception of limited productive areas within the expanse of the sea, fishermen further cate­ gorize the grounds by such criteria as physical character­ istics, depth, distance from land, and manner of location. Certainly most important from the perspective of the fish, and therefore to the fishermen as well, is the structure and composition of the ground itself. The various conforma­ tions of productive seabed convolutions are categorized as 'rocks', 'level ground', 'hummocks', 'shoals', and 'edge of ground'. The conformation or overall structure of these surfaces raised from the ocean floor, which afford vary­ ing isothermal layers and current anomalies attractive both to fish and bait will be discussed first. In late spring, before the temperature of the water has been raised significantly following the departure of ice in the Gulf, there is a movement of cod into shallow water fringing the shoreline of the mainland and islands. This movement preceeds the greater concentration of fish on the shoals and level ground in the summer and fall months and seems to be quite variable from year to year depending upon the temperature of the water and the availability of the lumpfish spawn (and later, the caplin) which the fishermen understand to be the primary incentive in this early migra­ tion from the winter depths. Fishing is conducted by hand- line and jigger, and for the same reason that these tech­ niques are currently seldom relied upon in other than a sup­ plementary fashion, the number of fishermen involved is few. In the spring of 1976, which was considered a good year for this type of fishing, only three commercial fishermen took 58

part with the occasional weekend plant worker looking for a 'meal of fish'. The younger open boat fishermen and the longliners continue to use their trawl in deep water along the mainland. There are indications that in former years, especially prior to the advent of winter fishing, this move­ ment of fish 'to the rocks' signaled the beginning of the fishing season. Because all waters adjacent to shoreline do not posess a gradient sufficiently moderate to be termed shallow, or 'rocks', and since kelp beds which serve as pro­ tection for the lumpfish spawn do not uniformly fringe shore­ line waters of suitable depth, named locations or grounds are noted by the fishermen (Nor'east Rock, Inside Copper Island and Good Rock, Eastern End, Nor'west Rock, Nor'east Cove, Turr Hole, etc.). 'Level ground' refers to a relatively large area of flat or gently sloping seabed. On this coast of sharply uplifted landforms and their submarine counterparts, there is very lit­ tle level ground to be found. There are extensive underwater plains of a nearly constant depth of 120-130 fathoms which constitute a fairly uniform shelf from which the islands, banks, and shoals protrude, but this bottom is relatively barren due to depth and surface consistency, and is not con­ sidered to be 'ground' at all. It is referred to as 'the slub' or 'over the edge'. One unusually large area of level ground, by South Coast standards, consists of an expansive underwater table called 'Nard Ground'(Northward Ground) which extends from the back of Ramea Island inside Columbier and Nard Rock and toward Burgeo for a distance of two to three miles. Because such level ground is only productive during a short period in the spring, if and when the caplin are ’in'. 59 and again in late summer and fall when warmer water tempera­ tures bring the cod into the shoals, it is not often utilized by the commercial fishermen. It is more often used by plant workers for recreational fishing, or in recent years, by re­ settled or novitiate fishermen who may not know the marks for the most productive grounds. Yet upon this level ground are perceived a few subtle elevations of limited extent or 'hummocks'. This conformation, though negligible for chart­ ing and navigational purposes, is considered a 'ground' with­ in an area of level ground and, in comparison with the latter, is cognate to the next category of ground to be discussed. 'Shoals' are underwater pinnacles or platforms of limited surface extent which rise up from the deep rather abruptly, and, in contrast to a hummock, from a significantly greater depth. The amount of water covering a shoal is in the vicini­ ty of 5-20 fathoms, and this type of ground is suitable only as a summer or fall fishing location. The feature, therefore, which distinguishes a shoal from a hummock, lies in the depth of the surrounding water. A shoal does not rise up from shoal or level ground itself due to the severity of its gradient. Unlike a 'sunker*, a shoal is not a danger to small craft nav­ igation and always has sufficient water over it for fishing purposes. Note that although sometimes referred to by the fishermen as 'shoals', the sort of conformation known also as 'sunker', especially those of a pinnacle nature, are often given the proper name suffix 'rock' by cartographers (Tomcod Rock, Big Rock, Jimmy Jeans Rock).. Such usage is not com­ pletely unfamiliar to locals, but for them the term 'rock' is usually reserved for small barren islets that lie at least partly awash at all stages of the tide. 60

'Edge of ground', if not a designation peculiar to this coast, is certainly one of considerable import in the in­ vestigation of the perceived environment of South Coast fish­ ermen. An edge of ground is the relatively abrupt change in depth which surrounds many shoals, level ground, and shore­ line gradients. Perhaps the explanation first offered to me says it best; 'An edge of ground is clifty’. The expression 'over the edge' introduced earlier can be better appreciated in this light. Actually, the edge of ground consists of a wide scope of depth within a comparatively small horizontal range. Of all the ground conformations perceived by the fish ermen, it is this one that is most eagerly sought out regard­ less of type of gear, and with the possible exception of a short period of time in the late summer when few fish are caught (but those that are can be fished anywhere on top of the shoals) in all seasons. Not only is the overall structure of the grounds signifi­ cant with respect to fish concentrations, but also the sub­ strata characteristics of these conformations in that it must be of a nature to attract the benthos or bottom living ani­ mals upon which the cod feeds. Fishermen recognize and grade variations in characteristics of the ground surface, but gen­ erally verbalize only two primary categories; 'good bottom' and 'slubby bottom'. 'Good bottom' sometimes referred to as 'rocky bottom', is usually composed of a combination of grav­ el and small rock. A sounding lead armed with tallow or but­ ter at one time was standard equipment aboard most fishing boats. Used to ascertain the depth of water over a potential fishing ground, it would also retrieve a sample of the ocean floor, showing the presence of mud, sand, gravel, etc. Since 61 little exploratory fishing is conducted at present, concen­ tration of effort being in the exploitation of known, named, and marked grounds; the lead is not any longer used, and con­ firmation of bottom characteristics (and position) is obtained through the incidental piece of rock, vegetation, or animal life that comes to the surface with the hauling of the gear. 'If you are pullin' up suckers with little rocks stuck to 'em then you know that you are on good bottom. But if your gear brings up long white strands and wrinkles, don't expect much fish because you're on broken ground, mostly clay and mud. Sometimes there are fish on the mud, but they're scattered, small, and slinky, without much fish to 'em'. As in past years, 'slubby bottom', muddy in composition, is equated with the barren depths. In this sense it is a commentary not only on the surface consistency of the ground, but on its conformation as well. This has been changed some­ what in recent years as Canadian and foreign draggers have, through repeated sweeping of shoals and banks just outside of Ramea, altered the formerly productive bottom to a consisten­ cy somewhat 'slubbier' then previously noted. This unhappy situation has been avoided on the extreme southwest and west coasts of Newfoundland where strong lobbying of merchants and near shore fishing interests have persuaded the federal gov­ ernment to proscribe to Canadian draggers those grounds with­ in twelve miles of the shore. In the vicinity of Ramea, how­ ever, the earlier three mile limit obtains for draggers over 65 feet, of all national registry. Stories are twice told of the invasion of draggers in the early sprrng months of recent years, and the damage that they do not only to trawl gear set in the area that they sweep, but to the grounds themselves. 62

If the surface consistency of these grounds and others were to be further damaged by draggers, or if a greater fishing effort was expanded by hook and line fishermen on the more distant banks, the perceptual near equation of slubby bottom with the submarine peneplain might, in time, be altered. For those who have fished most of their lives from the small places along the mainland, and for the fishermen today who concentrate their efforts, especially in the most productive winter months, along the edge of ground 'under the land' (close to the mainland shore, in the lee of the cliffs), the equation stands. A further distinction which seems to have held more sig­ nificance in the age of sail and along the mainland settle­ ments is that of 'handy ground'and 'offer ground'. Handy ground is that which lies closest to the land and would be most likely fished by small boats or dories under oar or sail. Offer ground fishing required a larger vessel which could risk a night or two at sea. The historical and concurrent adaptations of punt and barque fishing match these specifi­ cations nicely and will be mentioned in detail later. My acquaintence with the terms, other than seeing them occasion­ ally on charts in the context of a proper name, has been through interviews with retired fishermen, especially those from resettled communities along the mainland. For them, the handy ground consists of the shoals and the edge of ground or narrow strip of bottom that rims the coastline. Offer grounds are those that lie some miles offshore (Pass Island Bank, River Bank, Penguin Islands, Watch Bank, etc.). I would suggest that the introduction of motorized vessels on the coast, first motor dories, then boats, and now longliners, 63 through their increased range, blurred this earlier distinc­ tion. This is further confused by the relocation of fishermen from the mainland to Ramea which itself is situated off from the land. A reversal in perspective is in evidence with re­ gard to grounds fished both prior to resettlement and at present. Those along the land that were formerly handy are no longer so, and those offshore which were once considered 'offer' are as nearby (or nearly so) than those along the land. In sharp contrast to the apparent atrophy of this cate­ gorization of grounds is the historical and contemporary im­ portance of the system of marks. 'Marked grounds' are those of limited extent such as edge of ground, shoals, and hum­ mocks, which can be located through conscious routinized vis­ ual triangulation of 'marks' or specific distinguishable landforms or shore construction. Visual triangulation con­ sists of lining-up two or more pairs of stationary objects (objects on shore or the shoreline itself) with one another to give two intersecting lines of position. The observer's position, or fix, is at the point of intersection and is the only location from which the landmarks can be sighted in this particular spatial relationship to one another. The notion of unmarked ground would be understood by fish­ ermen, but is not verbalized. Rather, they would describe a fishing location that does not require the use of marks as 'level ground' or 'in among the rocks'. In the former case, marks are not needed because of the expanse of the ground and its lack of variation in conformation. The latter, though likely to posess a gradient, is located so close to the shore­ line that instead of marks, distinguishing features directly 64

opposite on shore suffice. Propinquity to the shore itself would preclude, in most instances, triangulation. In defining marked grounds as those located through con­ scious routinized visual triangulation of specific marks, my purpose is to distinguish this system of fishing from a more general use of observed spatial relationships for navigation­ al purposes. This general triangulation may be unconscious in the sense that the fisherman unreflectingly and nearly continuously monitors the relative position of landforms to mentally chart his location. To do this, he would be using any and all landforms in the process rather than only spe­ cific marks. This he is able to do anywhere within the gen­ eral area of his geographic familiarity regardless of position or heading. By routinization of triangulation, I refer to the practice of selection and memorization of special land­ marks and their relationship to one another, from the many possibilities available to the fisherman. Such individual­ ized routinization of marking the grounds has its counter­ part in community-wide routinization which occurs as individ­ ual systems of marks are handed down from one generation to the next. Thus all fishermen do not have unique marks to i- dentify the same known shoal or edge of ground. The more significant and well known the spot, the more likely that all fishermen are lining up the same paired marks in setting out their gear. These distinctions are important because although we all use conscious and unconscious visual triangulation in 'navi­ gating' a shore, and fishermen and seafarers of all cultures use it to varying degree at sea, this conscious and routinized system of using the angular relationship between specific 65 marks to find fishing grounds is of considerable signifi­ cance to any understanding of adaptive strategies of South Coast fishermen. The system is perhaps more accurately con­ sidered a response to the perceived environment than as an element of that perception; but it has been introduced at this point in the discussion because it serves as a classifi­ cation of the grounds and for the further insight it gives as to the fisherman's need for a precise system of position finding over fishing grounds that are perceived as quite limited in area. In emphasizing the 'hunting' nature of fishing occupations, Andersen and Wadel (1972) have pointed out that; "Decisions in fishing are rarely taken on the basis of detailed, pre­ determined, or programmed, information. Moreover, because fishing requires highly specific information which is con­ stantly changing and only obtainable at the actual fishing grounds, and because of the necessity to take quick decisions on the basis of this information, fishing cannot be directed from ashore" (1972:154). Clearly, the authors are implicitly referring to fisheries of a non-stationary nature, excluding consideration of of those which make use of traps, weirs, or seasonally anchored nets. With this in mind, I would suggest that the generalization, to a degree, holds true for the South Coast of Newfoundland. Yet a difference exists which is sig­ nificant to the present discussion. The perception of im­ mobile fishing grounds of limited extent, especially those designated 'edge of ground', combined with the relatively stationary nature of trawl fishing technique (especially moored trawl), has resulted in the employment of a fishing strategy which, in comparison to those of other hook and line 66 or 'active' fishing methods, is fairly detailed, predeter­ mined, and programmed. It is the perception of limited ground along with the shared and programmed nature of the use of marks which in conjunction with the nature of the common property resource that leads to a high level of competition. From this examination of verbal and behavioral clues to the perceived marine environment of the South Coast fisherman, several partly overlapping dichotomies can be recognized which reflect the peculiar or distinctive nature of the ef­ fective environment of this region of Newfoundland. A cen­ tral element of the fisherman's perception of his workaday environment is the restriction of variability in his response to the common property nature of the fishing grounds. The perception is not one of gradual slopes and a shading of bottom characteristics. It is one of sharpest distinction. A fisherman is either 'on the ground' or 'over the edge', 'on the edge' or 'overboard', 'on good bottom' or 'in the slub'. HANDLINE

One day I had a very good day an didn't tell a soul how much I had or where I was to; but the next morning somebody was already on the spot. Well, I didn't say a word to him then or fish on the shoal. I just slew around and went somewhere else. Later that evening I saw him ashore and asked him how was the fish where I was to yesterday. He said that he got nara fish; and I said, 'Then you got enough.' handline fisherman

I was standing on the Muddy Hole community slip talking with a motor dory fisherman who had just returned from the ground later than the others because his trawl had been sev­ ered by some longliner fishermen who had also set their gear off the back of Deer Island. He couldn’t get over to the plant stage in Ship Cove before dinner, and so had his dory secured to the slip with a tarp covering his catch which lay gutted just forward of the midship room. A neighbor, not a fisherman himself, strolled down to the vicinity of the slip and stared at the dory for some time. Her owner took not of this and watched carefully as the plant worker then stepped aboard and lifted a corner of the tarp. 'Now that's some­ thing I haven't seen

67 before,' he said to me visibly upset. He shook his head and continued, ’Wasn’t too long ago you would get forked (fish­ forked) for doing something like that. When I was a boy my father wouldn't even let me touch the deckboards until he was ready to start forking the fish onto the stage.' The cultural anthropologist, especially in his role as ethnographer, makes his primary contribution to social sci­ ence by providing description and explanation of sociocultur­ al phenomena based upon firsthand investigation. Historical treatment, though not proscribed, is limited due to discipli­ nary methodology and timeless theoretical orientations (func­ tionalism, structuralism). My historical concentration in this and the following two chapters is justified, however, in that the focus or problem of the ethnography is one that in­ evitably calls for an analysis of values. This is the idea­ tional domain and as such is more resistant to change than other levels of sociocultural systems. If my purpose had been to better understand fishing technology, crew formation, or even kinship, a diachronic approach, though still important, would not have been as necessary. In this case, it was nec­ essary to reconstruct previous adaptations (especially within the lifetimes of informants) to get a feeling for the condi­ tions which shaped the values of the men and women who com­ prise the population of Ramea today. Mindful of the changes that have occured in the last twenty years (confederation with Canada, modern fish plant, trawler fleet), it is apparent that the effects of modernization are only now beginning to surface at some levels. In many respects the middle aged and older men, regardless of current occupation, still behave as fisher­ men, and 'belong' not to the fish plant nor even to Ramea. 69

To understand them, one must first appreciate where they came from (geographically and experientially). If a value pattern is considered to be in part a 'survival' (this assumption being made in my research design), then it would have neces­ sarily been of great significance to the overall adaptations of the past, or to use Steward's term, part of the 'culture core'. Therefore a historical investigation should center about those features of the sociocultural system most closely related to economic pursuits. Following that logic, I exam­ ine the inshore and offshore historical fisheries of the South Coast from the perspective of a changing technology a- gainst the backdrop of a fairly constant effective environ­ ment. In fishing, technology refers principally to gear and vessel types - which shall serve as my chapter titles and subheadings. But as Dalton points out, technology embraces more than just the tools of production, it subsumes the "... knowledge of production or acquisition processes" (1974: 462). Therefore, the system of fishing marks as used in con­ junction with specific types of gear will also be discussed.

Gear

From the first days of European activity in the waters off Newfoundland, until the last quarter of the nineteenth cent­ ury, the predominant type of fishing gear throughout the is­ land had been that of the handline. The South Coast version was quite simple and relatively inexpensive consisting of single lines weighted at the end and culminating in a number of baited hooks. The lines themselves were of one or 70

several spliced 'banklines', thirty fathom lengths of five pound, three-strand, steam tarred cotton or hemp. The weight which carried the line and the 'gear' (hooks) to the bottom was, both in name and composition, lead. Triangular or tap­ ering in shape, the 'lead' was 'run' by the fishermen them­ selves using a brown paper mold surrounded by sand. The size of the lead varied with its use, a shoalwater lead being ap­ proximately two pounds, and one for deepwater handlining a- bout twice that weight. The elongated shape of the lead and a length of marled line, or 'strop', at one or both of its ends, would prevent the baited hooks and their connecting lines from streaming directly up into and fouling the 'cod- line' (three strand line) as the gear is dropped to the bot­ tom. From the lower end of the lead and connecting strop ex­ tend two lines of unequal length, 'nozzles' or 'snappers' which are formed by the removal of one strand from codline. Finally, a 6-7 inch length of even lighter line ('ging') is tied around the flattened head of the hook with a crown knot and braided with itself to the point of attachment to the nozzle at a swivel. The handline was secured at its other end to a wooden framework or 'reel', qround which the line would be tightly wound and stored at the conclusion of a day's fishing. To fish a handline, a fisherman would first position his boat over the ground and secure it there by means of a killick or grapnel. But if the location of the fishing ground or craft was not so accurately known, and the current not too severe, the boat might be allowed to 'drive' (drift) until such time as the frequency of landing would lead the fisher­ man to heave the killick over the side and 'come to* (anchor). 71

Hooks would be 'jigged' (hooked) with available bait (herring, squid, caplin, clam), put overboard, and the line unreeled un­ til the lead struck the bottom. The slack and a bit more line would be hauled back (this distance known as a 'setting') so that the baited hooks would be just off the bottom, and the line would then be held in hand rested along the gunwhale to await a well-hooked cod to 'breathe down', or a less eager one to 'pluck'. In the latter case especially, the hook would be set by a jerk of the line and the long haul to the surface begun. The line was rapidly retreived hand over hand across the gunwhale which was protected by a 'verk', a curved and grooved piece of hardwood jammed between the rising and the interior plank. Depending upon its size and how well it was hooked, the fish would either be pulled directly into the boat by the line, or gaffed. Removed from the fish, the hook would be rebaited and the procedure repeated throughout the day. In this manner, one shoal or several might be fished in a single day which would begin well before dawn and conclude in the afternoon.

Punt

As the inshore fishing operations of the large companies and planters were reduced in size and were replaced or trans­ formed into smaller scale individual and family concerns, there occured a corresponding diminishing in the size of at least some of the primary fishing craft. Whether this design and construction development involved a scaling down of the dimensions of the company and planter-owned fishing boat, or 72 consisted of the fishing use and enlargement of former aux­ iliary harbor craft, is not clear. In spite of the recog­ nition by older informants of a distinct class or type of small inshore craft of fairly uniform characteristics, local terminology, in its generality and variability, offers few clues as to possible derivation. Most older men refer to the pre-engine and pre-dory open fishing vessels as 'punts', a generic designation formerly applied in British maritime lexicon to open auxiliary small craft of various design and employment, e.g. ferries and lighters (deKerchove 1961:618). Reference to 'big punts' made by some informants in their descriptions of inshore boats of average size (14 foot keel), is further indication that the evolution was one of scaling up of the hull form of harbor rowing craft used as tenders to the offshore ves­ sels on their moorings or at anchor. But a punt is known by other names as well. One individual explained to me that the terminological confusion was due only to regional diversity and that 'punt' was used primarily by communities to the east of Francois. Coppett fishermen, however, knew the same craft as 'boats', and he recalls one fisherman of that com­ munity who called them 'rodneys'. I found that the term 'boat' was more often used by young­ er men who had only heard of and never actually saw these sailing and rowing craft, or was resorted to by my older in­ formants as I questioned them further concerning their recol­ lection of punts. They found that the best, or at least most economical way of describing this type of vessel was in point­ ing out that they were boats rather than dories; that they had a 'boat shape' (displacement hull) and sat 'in the water' 73

instead of 'on top of it' as would a flat bottomed construc­ tion. I would suggest that the designation 'boat' as applied to displacement hulled small craft, is of recent vintage, and is a term which owes its ascendency to modern usage ('motor­ boat') and the near total replacement of punts by dories as the predominant South Coast inshore fishing vessel of the twentieth century. It would seem that for most of the coast, prior to the introduction of dories, the inshore craft were known as 'punts' and only retrospectively as 'boats'. The South Coast punt was a small, open, displacement hulled craft, generally of fourteen to eighteen foot keel, powered by oar or sail, and employed primarily for inshore fishing but also as a harbor tender and for short distance transpor­ tation. Construction was of fir carvel planking over 'chopped timbers' (sawn frames) of spruce. The keel and stem were of birch, and the former deep enough (about four inches) to mini­ mize leeway when sailing on the wind. Some punts, but not many, were fitted with centerboards which improved considerab­ ly their windward ability. The rudder was shipped on a square or vertical 'counter' (transom). Athwartship support was pro­ vided by several 'tawts' (thwarts) which extended across the boat and divided the interior into several named compartments or 'room's. 'Bulkheedins' (bulkheads) or athwartship verti­ cal partitions were employed underneath the abbreviated ver­ sions of the second and third tawts from forward to form an enclosure for fish. This 'midship room' (actually located a bit forward of midships) was divided by a centerline partition and covered by 'deck boards' for the protection of the fish from the direct rays of the sun. The boards, not of uniform dimension, were inscribed or painted in a diamond pattern 74

(several variations) which enabled the fishermen to replace them over the midship room in the only order in which they would fit. The hull itself was unpainted except for tar ap­ plied to the exterior bottom to fill the seams. The sail plan, though not recognized as such by fishermen, was that of a ketch with two unstayed and removable masts. The 'foremast1, stepped in the keel through a forward tawt, was of greatest height and circumference, and supported a high-peaked loose footed spritsail. The smaller mast stepped aft was fitted with another square-headed sail that was also set with a 'spread' (sprit), but in this latter case was also equipped with a boom to facilitate sheeting over the stern. This 'driver' assembly was used both for sailing and to steady the vessel while at anchor and fishing. The foresail was used only for motive purposes under suitable conditions. The loose footed spritsail rig was convenient for fishing in that the sail was not lowered into the punt where it would take up room, but furled around the mast. It was also a safe rig in that a simple pull of a line would release the sprit from the peak, collapsing the head and leach of the sail, and reducing the effective sail area by over fifty percent. The advantage of this quick reefing system becomes even more ob­ vious when it is realized that the punts were oftentimes sailed singlehandedly by men who generally could not swim. As a former fisherman of Grey River once told me; 'It's no trouble to pull the sprit and run goosewing before a big black puff'. A masthead jib was also carried from a 'jib boom', this and all other sails being constructed of duck. When conditions were not suitable for sailing, too little or too much wind, a pair of long oars or 'sweeps’ would 75 provide the means of propulsion. These sweeps, chopped out of fir, were very long in comparison to contemporary dory oars, or 'paddles', and at fourteen feet they sometimes e- qualed the length of the punt's keel. A survival, no doubt, of the long oars of the ship's boat used in the migratory fishery, and more recently of the large merchant and planter vessels, each sweep was manned individually by a single fish­ erman. The after oarsman would work from the port side and his partner from starboard. The foreward man would 'puli' or row in the conventional manner while the other would face forward and 'shuff', pushing the loom of his sweep away from him on the power stroke. This system of rowing is still in use on the South Coast and corresponds remarkably to a 17th century account of rowing aboard a migratory fishing ship's boat in Newfoundland. "The boats master he rows at the stern, against the other two, who row one side; he belays against them, and so not only rows, but steers the boat (Poynter as cited in Head 1976:3). When a fisherman maneuvered a punt or one of the larger vessels singlehandedly by oar, he would have to overlap the looms of the two sweeps inboard so that the weight of the in­ dividual oars would be more balanced on the gunwhale and would not be so heavy as to impair efficiency. This meant that the fisherman would have to cross his arms to grasp the starboard sweep with his right hand (when facing aft) and vice versa. This 'crosshanded' approach to rowing (or shuffing) has subse­ quently given its name to almost every singlehanded endeavor. For example; a schooner fisherman who made his berth forward in the narrow bunks of the foc'sle, and did not share it with another man as did those fishermen who slept aft in the wider 76 berths of the cabin, is said to have slept 'crosshanded'. Even single beds ashore have taken this nomenclature, and I once heard it said of a man who was experiencing marital problems, that he was 'probably sleeping crosshanded these days.'

Barque

As with punts, the size and rig of nearshore handlining vessels of the 19th and early 20th centuries seems not to have been uniform. Yet, a type of fishing craft intermedi­ ate in size between a punt and a schooner was recognized loc­ ally and known as a 'barque'. This designation is usually understood to refer to a three to four masted vessel in which the mizzen or aftermost mast is fore-and-aft rigged while all others carry squaresail yards. But in its South Coast application, the term resembles colonial usuage and is not a rigging specification. "In the early 17th century and indeed to perhaps as late as the mid­ nineteenth century, vessel type names were based more on the construction and hull form than on rig. Furthermore, we must realize that the employment of a vessel often determined her designation regardless of construction, form, or rig" (Baker 1973:10). As will be shown, the South Coast fishing barque bears a resemblence to the description offered by Chapelle; "Barks were square-sterned carriers, usually flush decked, and ... had no special rig, but was a shipbuilder name for a hull type" (1936:15). It is possible too that the designation 77 came to be used as a reference of enlargement in recognition of the offshore capability of this vessel type in comparison to the punt. "The name (barque) is very loosely applied in colonial records, and is often used in place of 'ship' or 'vessel(Chapelle 1936:15). But if its name gives rise to some speculation, the deri­ vation of the design of barques seems quite clearly to cor­ respond to a pattern reported for the shallops of the Amer­ ican colonies, a type of vessel which also appears in New­ foundland records. A shallop is a now obsolete term of ref­ erence to a fairly nondescript type of general purpose or fishing craft of open or partially-decked construction pro­ pelled by oars or sail (deKerchove 1961:713). Chapelle sug­ gests that the term was used broadly to encompass "... ordi­ nary ships boats ..." and the late development of fully decked two-masters in the New England States. Baker offers the fullest description:

At first entirely open, the typical New England fishing shallop was, by the last quarter of the seventeenth century, fully sheathed on the inside and partially decked. There was a cuddy forward to shelter the crew, and although small and cramped, it had a fireplace for cooking and to provide some heat. Also decked over were the fish holds between the 'rooms', open spaces bounded by transverse bulkheads in which the crew stood while fishing. Water could slop into the rooms but the bulkheads re­ stricted its flow fore and aft. Covers were sometimes fitted to these rooms when a shallop was not actively engaged in fish­ ing (1975:50). 78

This account matches closely the recollection of my informants concerning the South Coast barque. In construction and form it was similar to the already described punt having also a square stern and straight stem, but was supplied with a flush deck that covered a hull cavity divided by three bulkheads. Four openings in the deck gave access to these rooms or 'places' (steering place, after standing room, for­ ward standing room, foc'sle). The aftermost opening was oc­ cupied by the helmsman while the midships rooms were used for fishing and the stowage of the catch (capacity of approximate­ ly 7-10 quintals). A small 'booby hatch' gave access to the foc'sle or 'cuddy' which provided minimal accomodations for sleeping and a small fireplace. The sail plan of earlier versions consisted of two or three masts supporting a foresail, mainsail, and occasionally a driver, all being loose footed and set by means of sprits. The driver, if shipped, sheeted to a pair of 'irons' project­ ing aft from the counter. A jib was set from the jib-boom (bowsprit), and on some boats a 'jumbo' or forestaysail was carried inside of this. More recent constructions were rigged with boom and gaff, and if fitted to the driver, elim­ inated the need for irons. As with punts, the length of barques varied, for the most part between 25-30 feet overall. Those of larger size seemed to have been more popular in the first quarter of the twenti­ eth century, as the type evolved into the dory-carrying 'skiff' in adaptation to technological advances in fishing gear and propulsion. As evidence of the transition, barques (especial­ ly the larger ones) are retrospectively referred to as 'hand- line skiffs'. 79

Barques were sometimes employed in fishing the handy grounds, smaller ones (15 foot keel) being used to fish rodes in much the same fashion as punts. But they may al­ so have been an answer to overcrowding in the deepwater in­ shore fishery which saw, at least at the turn of the century, an almost unbroken string of fishing activity along the fring­ ing edge of ground from one community's fishing territory to the next. The larger vessels, crewed by two or three men, al­ so enabled a segment of the population to continue deepwater handlining on offshore banks in those months of the year that the inshore deep edges were least productive (summer and fall). This nearshore fishery, especially in the eastern communities, would have eased the overcrowding on the few handy grounds suitable for shoalwater fishing. Fishermen from Richards Harbour and Muddy Hole handlined from barques on Pass Island Bank while settlements west of them to Cape LaHune sent their barques to the grounds in the vicinity of Watch Rock and Penguin Islands. The latter fleet would take refuge from storms in a small and not too well protected har­ bor at Penguin Islands. One informant recalls his father tel­ ling him of seeing forty barques moored there at one time. Ramea barques fished Queer Hole twelve miles distant, a range which closely matched that of the mainland community barques. Twice weekly trips to the offer grounds were common for the barques, departing on Monday and Thursday mornings and return­ ing on Wednesday and Saturday nights to offload fish and take bait from shore nets for the next trip. The two trip work week gave the fishermen a few weeknight hours home and allowed them to keep the Sabbath with their families. When fishing, the barques were anchored over the banks for the duration of 80 the trip, the catch being split and salted aboard. The fireplace (cut-away bucket bedded with ashes and clay) would be brought on deck for brewing tea and stewing fish, the standard supplement to the bread and pork buns provided by wives and mothers. The barques also exploited seasonal fisheries at both ex­ tremes of the South Coast. In summer, boats from settlements to the east would sail to the 'back' of Micquelin to take ad­ vantage of the westernmost extent of concentrations of cod feeding on the annual caplin scull. And after Christmas, while most South Coast barques, like punts, were resting on shore, fishermen from a few harbors took their vessels up on the Western Shore for several months of winter fishing, rely­ ing upon the hospitality of friends on the extreme western reaches of the coast for lodging and the provision of stage and store facilities for their salt fish.

Shoalwater Handlining

Within the region of the central South Coast, shoalwater handlining was most often employed by the fishermen of Ramea whose fringing and offlying grounds were more extensive and of a more gentle slope than those fished by the mainland com­ munities, especially those to the east. During those summer months in which the cod would move in­ to shallower water, ten to thirty fathoms, and a shoalwater handline was employed, fishermen would range widely over the handy and offer banks and shoals relying upon their memory to direct them to specific locations or spots of fishing 81

grounds. By bringing pairs of landmarks into line (Black Rock for Eastern End), or into a specified relative position to one another (Nor'west light just open by Iron Island), fishermen would visually triangulate until their location matched that of a previously known and 'marked' shoal, rock, or hummock. The boat would 'come to', and by sounding and 'tailing off' (slacking away) the anchor rode, a man could position himself directly over the ground. Edges of shoals or 'cliffs' facing the tide were thought to be the best loca­ tions as the disturbed flow of water in these areas would car­ ry up food from the bottom for the small bait fish which, in turn, would attract larger prey. So critical was the precise location of the punts in these 'berths', that occasionally a second anchor would be used astern to prevent any swinging due to wind or tide. Once a productive ground was located and the boat made fast to it, all that remained for the hand- liner was to make as large a catch as possible by attracting nearby fish to his freshly baited gear. A choice of bait was not often available to the South Coast fisherman, and for most months of the year he would rely upon the herring that 'meshed' the previous night in his nets made fast to the shore or swinging at anchor off the land. In fall mornings, before the day's fishing began, squid could be jigged in the harbor or near the land, and if plentiful enough, even on the grounds themselves. Caplin were seined for a week or so in the late spring of those years in which they made their appearance on the coast. And, if no other bait was available, clams could be dug for this purpose. It was the herring, however, that served as the primary bait. On those mornings that the nets produced great numbers 82 of baitfish, only the 'pips' or viscerals were used on the hooks, this being considered the 'finest kind' of bait. If squid were being used, they were not cut 'junky' (chunky), but in many thin slices, the underwater motion of which was thought to be more attractive to the cod. In any case, hooks were frequently 'freshened' by the replacement of new bait for old. Discarded remnants were not, however, thrown over­ board, but were kept in the punt until the fisherman had left the ground. Such material thrown overboard at the fishing site, it was feared, would either 'tow' (attract) the fish downtide and away from the boat's location, 'bait the ground' in feeding the very fish being sought by the hook, or 'spoil the ground' in littering it with bait which would attract worms and frighten fish. For these same reasons was the day's catch not dressed until the stage head had been reached. Although these marked grounds were far more productive than the overall surface of the banks, they were not equal­ ly so, and the daily horizontal movement of cod over the shoals and hummocks of the summer grounds might temporarily favor one location over another. Each fisherman, therefore, had to posess the knowledge of several locations within his community's fishing territory to enable him to search out the wandering fish. But the shoal grounds were a common property resource and were not unlimited in number; and, in addition to the already mentioned ephemeral productive vari­ ability, some locations in particular were recognized as bet­ ter than others due to a record of long term productivity. Considering that each man was similarly equipped for fishing with minimal differentiation in the quantity or quality of gear and craft, only through the expansion of an individual's 83 knowledge of the grounds (and by denying this information to competitors) could he improve his own landings, both absolute­ ly and relative to the success of others. The first tactic in this zero sum game was to be close mouthed concerning the marks which identify favored locations, or as a positive measure, to pass on misinformation or 'tell lies ’ . Although it seems that this ploy was used primarily and most effectively in its negative guise, stories still circulate of purposeful deception and false marks. Nor were verbal clues, even when truthfully disclosed, al­ ways of much help in the location of nearby shoals. Propin­ quity to land offered a greater number of easily identifiable landmarks which could be used in the marking of these grounds. A father and sons might share the same marks, but most fisher- ermen in a community would likely have their own varying opin­ ions as how to best locate the closer and well known grounds. Some marks simply could not be communicated verbally in that the parts of the land noted by the fishermen were not named or had only private names. And the relative positioning of the marks (they were not always directly aligned) could not always be specified with enough accuracy to be of much value to anyone other than the man who had long 'marked' them. For some of the handier shoals, the fishermen had more of a men­ tal snapshot of the surrounding landmarks to guide him than that of a set of instructions; 'No, I can't tell you what I used for Muddy Hole shoal. I only knowed when I was over it. You see, its close enough to the land that I only have to glance at it (the land) to know where I'm to.' This uncon­ scious, or at least nonspecific triangulation of marks for many nearby shoals further restricted the extent of community 84

shared knowledge of grounds. Fishermen did not ask one a- nother for marks not only because they would not expect a straight answer for a competitor, but because for much of the shoalwater ground,they had to see the land with their own eyes to 'know it' for fishing purposes. For the most part, a fisherman would have to rely upon the directions given to him by his father and observed as a youngster, and those modifications and additions which followed as a result of his own fishing experience. As will be seen in a later chapter, a fisherman's motiva­ tion in the early involvement of his sons in the fishery was primarily an economic one. However, depending upon several factors, one of the most important being that of the degree of interest shown by the boy in the operation, this appren­ ticeship also served as the means by which the essential foundation of a new fisherman's occupational knowledge could be transmitted, the location of the grounds. A retired fish­ erman of Ramea recalls his early days; 'He took me in the punt with him when I was only young. I used to get wonderful seasick then. Most days I wasn't even good for fishing, just laying down in the bow waiting for it to be over. He didn't care so much, just as long as I was out there. He knew that you got to suffer so much before you're good for the water, and this is how a boy would be broke in. But whenever we moved to another shoal, my father would call out to me to sit up and pay attention as he showed me the marks on the land and the names of the hills and scrapes he used to find the ground. I wasn't much interested in all this at the time, but he would keep after me telling me that the day would come when he wouldn't be with me and I'd have to know the marks myself.' 85

Grounds new to the community, of course, could be and were discovered both by accident and as a result of purposeful ex­ ploration by sounding. And it was the location of a new ground that would be the most carefully guarded secret of an inshore fisherman. Such discoveries were rare, however, and fishermen considered it to be more profitable to spend as many hours of the day actually engaged in fishing with hooks on the bottom, rather than in moving from one known spot to another 'chasing the fish'. To spend time searching for un­ known grounds was even less promising an investment consider­ ing that it would only be a matter of time before one’s com­ petitors benefited from the discovery as well. It seems that most new grounds were found as a result of handlining while driving over the surface of the more extensive banks during those times in which the overall scarcity of fish gave no advantage to the usual practice of coming to over a known fishing location. From an individual (cf. community) point of view, however, new ground could be added to a fisherman's unwritten list through attentiveness to the fishing positions of other boats. Distant observation was of little value here in that it would be necessary to approach close enough to line up at least two pairs of distant landmarks in obtaining a fix on the compet­ itor, and hence, of the fishing spot. This could be achieved while sailing or rowing past, ostensibly on the way to one's own ground. Just as unobtrusively, the fisherman under scru­ tiny could counter by tailing off on his rode until his ob­ served and noted location would be, in fact, some distance from the actual shoal. Of course, those spots closest to the greatest concentration of fishing activity were well enough 86

known that such a ruse would be unnecessary, and the tailing off tactic was more likely employed in less frequented areas on the periphery of the known grounds. It was the more dis­ tant and therefore defensible locations that were the object of even greater secrecy and evasive behavior. I was told of one handliner who had discovered a shoal some distance 'out­ side' of Ramea, and who would haul in his anchor and sail away if he saw anybody approaching close enough to mark his private ground. It is reported that one one occasion upon discovering a punt stealing up to his location and not far away, he quickly departed his shoa1 lycutting away his rode and anchor rather than to risk the time it would take to haul them back in. Grounds over which individuals exercised such sole proprietorship through the retention of exclusive know­ ledge of the marks, were often identified by the names of their discoverers and long time users (Keepin1 Ground, Jimmy Jeans Rock), even after the locations became common knowledge. Such grounds that carry personal names are found furthest from harbor. Another piece of information which would be of value to the inshore fisherman was that of the temporary location of con­ centrations of fish, those shoals which were most productive at the present time. This could only be determined in hind­ sight by the volume of fish recently caught and the relative success and failure of the dispersed fishermen. To add this information to his knowledge of the grounds, a fisherman would first have to observe daily the positions of his individual competitors upon the known grounds (or at least their general location), and also the amount of fish landed by them indi­ vidually that day. By knowing who caught most, and on what 87 shoal or part of the grounds, a man would be able to search first the next day those same locations or adjacent ones that he is able to find. Unlike the measures or countermeasures previously described by which a fisherman might attenpt to keep secret his precise location on a shoal not yet part of community knowledge, there was very little that a man could do to disguise either his presence on a well established spot, or the quantity of his daily landings. Through a re­ duction of freeboard due to the weight of the fish, each punt would 'show her fish' to all who cared to see. And from long familiarity with the loading characteristics of each boat, competitors had little difficulty in estimating quite accurately the number of fish caught by each man. If any doubt still remained, a neighbor's fish could easily be counted (although surreptitiously) as they were forked from the midship room of the punt to the stage head. In most cases this manner of establishing the quantity of a fellow fisherman's catch had an additional function which will also be discussed. I was made aware of one instance in which the counting of fish was the primary means by which relative success could be judged. Southwest Island and Harbour Island were two contigu­ ous settlements which along with Ship Cove constituted, and were later assimilated into, the community of Ramea. Only a narrow reach and small harbor separated the two, and although they considered themselves (and were considered by others) to be separate communities, they share much the same fishing territory. Consequently, they were rivals, a situation which existed nowhere else between settlements on the coast. The Harbour Island men were known to climb to the top of a small 88 hill which obstructed Southwest Island's view of their own harbor, to observe and count the landings of that community's fishermen, as they forked them from their boats. Because of the distance between the settlements, only the movement of the fishfork and not the fish themselves could be distinguished. Aware that they were being observed, the Southwest Island men would fork several fish at a stroke so as to give the impres­ sion to onlookers of less fish than had actually been caught. The potential community divisiveness that might arise from the intense competititve atmosphere surrounding shoalwater handlining was alleviated somewhat (or at least controlled) by means of certain conventions or cultural rules, all of which were grounded in the ideological principle that the competi­ tive nature of the economic contest not be allowed to surface, either verbally or in behavior. To ignore this unstated dic­ tum by overt 'covetousness' was to pose a serious threat to a small community in that such behavior would be not only a display of callous disregard of community opinion, but would also threaten to disrupt a delicate system of competitive re­ straint by giving visible reminder of an essential conflict of interest. For example, no fisherman would come-to on a shoal which had been successfully fished by another on the previous day unless that latter individual had already chosen a different location. To do otherwise would be to 'forelay' one's neigh­ bor in a demonstration of unbridled ambition. Nor would such restraint be justified on the basis of any notion of ephemeral usufructury rights. In fact, it should be stressed here that as a general principle of variable application, especially with regard to shoalwater handlining, 'No man owns the water,' 89

The fisherman who did well on Jimmy Jeans Rock one morning would not likely be interfered with for the duration of his activity there (perhaps several days) not because he had any rights regarding the location, but because it would be too covetous to forelay him. By the same principle, fishermen would seldom come-to on a piece of ground already occupied and being fished by another boat, not fish an adjacent area which might be felt by either party to be too close to the scene of operation of the first man. A Western Cul de Sac fisherman recalls; 'If you'dgo off in the morning and see somebody on that shoal off Aviron Rock, you wouldn't go there, you'd go try somewhere else. You wouldn't go where buddy was to. He wouldn't like that.' The dislike of company in handlining is associated with the perception of a limited number of available cod in a given area and the previously mentioned concept of 'towing the fish'. Having another boat nearby can be more of a threat than one tied alongside in that the bait of the intruder might attract or 'tow' the fish in that direction and away from the location of the fisherman first to anchor there. The most propitious location for a very agressive competitor would be directly downtide and just far enough away from his rival so as not to present too brazen a challenge, yet still benefit from the fish chasing scraps of bait moving downtide of his neighbor. It is also felt that cod are attracted by the movement of their fellows and that the desertion of a feeding spot by one or more fish could easily signal the oth­ ers to follow in the same direction. A slowing of activity of the first fisherman and his observation of the success of the intruder might lead that individual to angily, but 90 wordlessly, haul in his killick and search for another po­ sition having been effectively chased from his former ground. This efficient and not too subtle tactic seems to have been used with community approval as a defensive response to the forelaying action of the first fisherman to anchor on the ground that day, who in any other light might be recognized as the aggrieved party. Therefore would no man tempt his neighbor to fish in his vicinity by giving any sign of present success. Although the punt might not be prevented from showing her fish, at least deckboards might be kept closed and no fish boated while un­ der observation by a passing fisherman, even if this meant ignoring one that was plucking or already hooked. I made an observation of this sort of behavior one spring morning as in search of a hummock off the back of the Island I sailed past one of my best informants already anchored over White Rock shoal. This fisherman had been a great help in my fieldwork and was also one of my closer friends. Because we were both handlining at this time of year, we would get together at the community slip each evening to compare notes as to weath­ er, tide, and the location of fish. He had provided me with hints as to the technique of shoalwater handlining and even went so far as to give me his marks for some of the better known and more easily located handy grounds. The unseeming generosity of these latter disclosures was explained to his surprised fellows as an act of scientific cooperation toward the ethnographer, and one of little consequence anyway a? I would not be fishing very hard or very long. On this particular morning, having had little luck in the vicinity of 'columby' (Ramea Columbier), I decided to try the 91 shoals in the vicinity of Southeast Rock. My fisherman friend had corre-to on a hummock off Northwest Point and as I ap­ proached him from the northwest and downtide, neither could he see nor hear me (I was under sail) until I was less than fif­ ty yards distant from his position. I had been observing him for some time and could see, first by the frequent and rapid movement of his arms, and later by the fish that he was boat­ ing, that he was on a very good spot indeed. As soon as I was noticed, the activity aboard his boat slowed abruptly, and as I greeted him on passing, had ceased entirely. I asked him if he was having any luck, a direct verbal expression of curiosity expected and allowed of only so marginal a fisher­ man as me, to which he replied with no enthusiasm, 'A scat­ tered one.' As I continued on my way, I observed over my shoulder a continued lack of industry until at some distance from his boat I could once again make out a flurry of activi­ ty. It was also common practice for each man to tally his day's catch by counting the fish as they were caught, dressed, or forked to the stage head at the conclusion of the day's fish­ ing. It was considered intolerably aggressive for another man or woman to show any visible interest in this latter procedure.

They would throw their fish up on the stage head and they would carry them in the stage and throw them up on the splittin' table, gut 'em and split 'em, wash 'em in a tub and salt 'em in a pen in the stage. And I've seen it hundreds of times - not hundreds of times, but a good many times - if they saw you watchin', like you was stood up watchin', while he was throwin* his fish up - he's think you'd be countin' his fish, see. 'Cause he'd never tell you how they got just so much and 92

so many. Ah yes, if he'd see anybody stood up watchin1 as he'd heave up his fish, he'd think you'd be countin'. Perhaps next morning he's think you could be there (on the grounds where he had made his previous day's catch) be­ fore him. This is what it was all about. They didn't want you to know just how well they did. Similarly, so as not to give the appearance of covetous­ ness, no direct inquiry would be risked concerning the vol­ ume of another man's catch. In the evening public gather­ ings of men, however, at the stages, slips, and wharves, the conversation would eventually, and in their own time, tend to the day's fishing, and the information supplied in these com­ parative counts would sometimes be volunteered. Mindful of the earlier discussion, it would follow that fishermen would publicly proclaim a lesser catch than in fact was realized. This appears to be the general case although I was given examples of individuals who being of a boastful nature would on occasion pad their day's total so that they might top the stated catches of their fellows and claim the fleeting title, at least for that day, of 'highliner'. This acclaim of the community, though begrudgingly bestowed and not to the champion's face, was valued highly, and prior to the diminishment of the credit system was even more visible than the material reward of the catch. Consistently success­ ful men were described as 'leading fishermen' and 'fish kil­ lers', titles in recognition of long term skill rather than of luck. All men did not equally share in their enthusiasm for this honor, or at least in the skill required to disguise their interest. A most admired fisherman would be, and is today, one who quietly earns the respect of his fellows 93 through regular above average productivity accomplished with­ out visible interference in the fishing efforts of others. His opposite would be the pretentious individual who, having been 'beaten' (outfished) could not mask his displeasure. 'My uncle was a real fishdog. He was drowned a dozen times; he didn't care just so long as his eyes was out o' water. He was one that would never tell what he had caught, unless he had the most fish. If he didn't do best, then he was too black to speak to.' The attitude of most fishermen in the handline era is summed up in the remarks of this islander; 'They was covetous in those times - Oh my God yes - they was so contrary they wouldn't talk to one another.' In spite of the sometimes heard philosophy that; 'Each man will get what fish he's got cornin' to him.' it seems that most fishermen, regardless of outward appearances, took pride in a good day's work and felt some jealousy over the other man's success. 'If you was out for a living and buddy cornin' in every day with half a boat­ load of fish - and you gettxn' nothin' - it was tormentin', you know? I mean it makes you feel bad, why I can't get no fish. This is what it was all about.' It seems, however, that the infrequent occurrence of brag­ ging coincided with little actual difference in fishing suc­ cess, and that the extent of the exaggeration was minimal. The consistent braggart, it was expected, would add only a few fictive fish over the already announced highest tally of the other fishermen, thus giving himself the honors without undue risk of disclaimer. Yet some men were still 'found out'. This fate befell a man who gave more substance to his embel­ lishments be retreiving the smaller unsaleable fish discarded 94

by others before the dressing and curing process. Although he had been self proclaimed highliner practically every fish­ ing day in one winter's season, he was fully five quintals below his neighbor's total catch after the culling at settling up time in the fall. If a man should have an exceptionally good day relative to that of his peers, usually as a result of the productivity of a more distant and secretive fishing location, it was then that glory would be sacrificed to discretion in hopes that at least one more day of undistrubed fishing might be had. I am told that some fishermen having experienced such a windfall, would try to avoid the already mentioned evening get-together in the stages or wharf, and the accompanying pressure, how­ ever obtuse, to divulge information. Only when a concentra­ tion of fish had been 'caught up' or the fisherman abandoned a specific location, and even then only after an interval of time, could he afford the luxury of neighborly reflection upon his success. And here too, only within the confines of a moral code which frowns upon the material or verbal demonstra­ tion of the fruits of competition. 'Lies' whether they be in the form of exaggeration or understatement, were accepted and even expected so long as they were not so blatant as to give public notice of the contentious nature of the explotative pattern and its permeation of the social structure of the com­ munity. 95

Deepwater Handlining

Prior to the advent of winter fishing, shoalwater hand- lining technique was solely employed in the late spring and from the middle or late summer months to the end of October or early November. At the conclusion of the season, the shore punts would be turned 'bottom up' and the fishermen and their families would leave the coastal settlements for their winter houses where they would remain until April or even May. The early spring months signaled an end to the severe and almost continuous winter storms, and even the worst harbors for icing were clear again and permitted fish­ ing activity. Local cod stocks at this time of year were to be found deeper than in the fall at the conclusion of fish­ ing, but not so deep or so distant as on other coasts, and their numbers were considerably swelled by the presence of migratory Gulf stock not yet having returned north via Cabot Strait to spawn. If a comparison can be made to the summer glut of caplin feeding cod on most Newfoundland shores, it was during these early spring months that the South Coast saw its best fishing. To exploit this concentration of fish required the development of a modification of the earlier shoalwater handline. Deepwater inshore fishing occured throughout the South Coast, and not only during the early spring months. The rel­ ative constancy of lower thermoclines allowed at least some fish to remain at 75-100 fathoms year-round. But the under­ water and surface topography of the region varied to a degree that permitted deepwater fishing to be pursued more intensive­ ly in the easternmost communities. 96

From Ramea to Cape la Hune, there are found in addition to those underwater features more characteristic of the re­ gion as a whole, more numerous offlying seamounts, rocks, and shoals than exist from Cul de Sac West to the eastward. On this latter stretch of coast too, the fringing edge of ground is much closer to the shore and of steeper gradient, for many settlements being almost the only inshore fishing ground a- vailable to resident fishermen regardless of season. This characteristic can be seen to be the result of the bolder and more precipitous nature of the coastline in the vicinity of Hermitage Bay. The relative scarcity of shoalwater can be viewed as an ad­ vantage to the fishermen of the 'eastern shore1 (a Ramea term) in that it put the deepwater fishing grounds within easy reach of unmechanized punts and dories. This nearness to shore also afforded the small boats protection from wind and sea from wind and sea from northerly quadrants in that the high cliffs provided a lee of 'lunner' which allowed them to fish under conditions which prevented the Ramea shore fishermen from even considering the commencement of fishing activity from those relatively flat and unprotected offlying islands. If it should 'come to pitch a starm of wind,' the eastern shore men had only a short way to 'buck' (proceed to windward, es­ pecially under oar), or row downwind; whereas the Ramea fish­ ermen would be caught several miles from land with little lee at any compass heading. As a result of this micro-environmental diversity within this region, deepwater handlining was employed differentially both in extent, gear design, and technique. The easternmost communities used the method for most months of the fishing 97 year while Ramea and western mainland settlements relied upon it less heavily. When these latter fishermen did fish deep with handline, there was usually little modification of their shoalwater gear (usually the addition of only another line to give greater depth with no increase in the number of hooks). The method was also much the same as used for shoalwater hand- lining, i.e. coming-to on various spots in search of fish con­ centrations. From Cul de Sac West eastward, however, deep- water handlining was essentially different from shoalwater fishing. To begin with, the perception of the ground itself was different. The water being much deeper, such subtle bottom conformal variations as were known in shoalwater as 'hummocks', 'rocks' or 'shoals', even if found as frequently as in the west, would be very difficult to locate with any degree of ac­ curacy. This problem would have been compounded by the re­ quirement of maintaining the position of the punts over these projections in up to 100 fathoms of water. Rather, deepwater fishermen understood the ground at these depths to consist of a rapidly decreasing slope away from the land terminating in a level expanse which, for the most part, is unsuitable for fishing. That portion of the slope which is of good bottom characteristic (not slubby) and at a depth which is maximally productive for most months of the year (80-90 fathoms) is known as the 'edge' and extends in an irregular narrow band roughly approximating the shoreline configuation. Inshore deepwater handlining (as well as offshore effort on the deep­ er slopes of the banks) was concentrated upon these edges of ground. 98

It seems that the first handlining at these greater depths mimicked the island wide shoalwater pattern of coming-to on a killick. Unlike shoalwater handlining, however, there was very little or no shifting between fishing locations along the inshore edge of ground, each man having his own marked ground where he along would anchor for fishing and from which sur­ rounding area he could exclude any of his fellows from anchor­ ing. Although fishing locations would most often be in 'three lines of water1 (90 fathoms) for most of the year, other po­ sitions shoreward of this edge of ground were fished in summer and fall. A 'breast mark' found directly in from the ground on the land noted the axes of these several locations and was used in conjunction with other marks both up and down the shore to give a fix at various depths corresponding to dis­ tance from the landwash. South Coast fishermen, however, were in need of a killick of larger size than that normally carried aboard a punt, con­ sidering the depth of water over the fishing grounds and the spring weather conditions. The weight of these more cumber­ some anchors precluded their daily retreival and thus were dropped in position over the edge of ground in early spring not to be recovered (if at all) until later in the year. This limitation of relatively permanent mooring, and the at least seasonally usufructory individual tenancy of fishing ground that it encouraged were no doubt reinforced by this perception of the fishing grounds as a rim of nearly equal productivity and quite limited area. A daily shifting pat­ tern of fishing activity under these conditions and technical limitations would obviously not increase but rather diminish the volume of individual and community landings. In light of 99 the limited extent and concentrated nature of the deepwater grounds, the potential for conflict would have been greater than that already described for shoalwater handlining. With the possible exception of shore fastened herring net placement, inshore deepwater handlining seems to be the situational or­ igin of the concept of individual territoriality o£ fishing grounds, a notion that in later years would be amplified and modified to correspond to technological developments. If the westward and eastward, or 'up' and 'down' coast movement of a craft anchored on the edge of ground did not prove too great a problem in the maintenance of position over the ground ( the current and the edge of ground both running approximately parallel to the shoreline), any movement 'in and off' the land resulted in a substantial alteration of depth and would result in a man's gear being either 'drowned' (too deep) or in too shoal. At first, pairs of permanently positioned and buoyed Tcillicks were used to steady the amount of 'in and off' movement of a deepwater handlining fisherman. This arrangement was further modified to allow for a greater range of controlled fishing depth, especially where wind con­ ditions or current anomolies due to headlands, bays, and ir­ regular ground configuations recommended a mooring system that would allow for ease of adjustment of position over the edge. A 'rode' is a term not so much used on the South Coast to­ day which most generally refers to a line or rope connecting a vessel to its ground tackle or anchor. A 'fleet of rodes1 consisted of two large killicks, one positioned in shoal and the other deep (30 to 130 fathoms), set in a line perpendic­ ular to the shoreline, and connected together by a 350-500 100 fathom length of line which lies not along the bottom, but near the surface being supported at intervals (every 10-12 fathoms) by several buoys attached to lengths of line ex­ tending up to the surface, thereby permitting the passage of even large vessels without interfering with the connect­ ing line. Each of the buoys and attached lines serves, in effect, as a separate rode or anchor line in waters of vary­ ing depth. One buoy, the ’mark buoy' was of a distinctive color and was located approximately in the middle of the rode and directly over the edge of ground in about 90 fathoms of water. A fisherman might pick up his rode at the mark buoy and either by visual triangulation or sounding, determine if the arc of the fleet of rodes had placed him in water too deep or shoal. Based on that determination, the fisherman could raise the connecting line and move himself in or off to correspond with the proper depth, and adjustment that might be made repeatedly during the day according to changing wind and tide conditions. TRAWL

Bultow

The deployment of long lines of baited hooks along the ocean floor in lieu of vertical handlines was first developed in the eighteenth century by the Dutch and adopted soon after by the French, the first to use the new method extensively in the Northwest Atlantic fisheries. The Americans modified its use for the schooner based bank fishery in the 1850's, and the Canadians and Newfoundland fleets made use of the tech­ nique in the latter part of that century (Jensen 1972:116). Know initially by the term 'bultow', the gear consisted of a number of baited hooks attached to short lengths of line ('suds' or 'gingens'), each of which was secured at intervals of about 40"-42" to a fifty fathom length of tarred cotton or hemp line of more substantial size ('groundline'). These 'bank lines', in turn, were fastened to one another in series and stored when not in use in cut down barrels or 'tubs'. When fishing, the lines from several tubs would be connected to one another to form a 'string' and would lie along the ocean bed, secured to the bottom at their extremities by an­ chors, themselves connected to 'byelines' (buoylines) attached to buoys at the surface. These buoys or 'kegs' marked the location of the ends of a string and gave access to the groundline for retrieval.

101 102

The 'trawl' as it was later known by North American fish­ ermen, was 'set' and 'hauled back' from a number of two-man dories carried by each schooner,and from which the actual fishing took place. Two basic methods for the offshore em­ ployment of trawl were used; 'moored' and 'flying set'. 'Moored trawl' was the system most frequently used by banking schooners on trips undertaken in summer and fall months when weather conditions were not so severe as to pre­ clude the anchoring of the vessel over the fishing grounds. Just as was the practice in the offshore handline fishery, a schooner would 'make its berth', or come to anchor on a heavy fiber rode ('cable'). But instead of handlines being fished from the deck of the schooner or from her dories, themselves anchored daily in the vicinity of the larger vessel, each dory would make its own 'berth' in setting out an amount of gear away from the schooner on a prescribed course in radial fash­ ion. The trawl would be baited only initially aboard the schooner, and after being allowed to fish for a period of time, would be hauled to the surface at one end of the string by means of a slabline and passed over the gunwhales of the dory near the stem. One fisherman would pull the dory along underneath the raised groundline by hauling the gear over a roller inserted in the forward portion of the gunwhale (hence the term 'underrunning' trawl). This man would remove the hooked fish and 'slat off' remnants of old bait while his partner or 'dory mate' would rebait the hooks as they passed over the opposite side and returned to the bottom. 'Running' the entire length of gear in this manner, the dory would then return to the centrally positioned schooner to dress and salt the fish, eat, and sleep while the trawl fished again. 103

Depending upon weather conditions and the availability of fish, the routine was repeated several times daily until eith­ er the bait supply had been exhausted, or a decrease in land­ ings indicated the movement of fish, prompting the decision to make a new berth elsewhere. But for the Western Shore winter fishery, the system of moored trawl could not be used. Frequent and severe storms forced the schooners to seek the shelter of bays and harbors of the extreme Southwest Coast, and to moor a vessel or gear on the banks would be to risk loss of life or property. In­ stead, the trawl was baited into the tubs aboard the schooner while in harbor or on the way to or from the grounds, to be set and retrieved each day that weather would permit fishing to be conducted at all. Once the schooner had reached the ground, the dories would be lowered to the water and tied off the quarters (stern) from which they would be towed by the larger vessel while on a course perpendicular to the one. the dories would make while setting their gear. The purpose of the tow was to separate the dories a berth apart to prevent them from interfering with one another, a function met in the previously described method by the dories' radial palcement around the anchored schooner. As the tow was underway, each dory in turn would throw out their first keg without releas­ ing the towline until that byeline was almost exhausted. Then, as that dory would 'let go' of the tow, its opposite number on the other quarter would throw out its first keg. The process was repeated until all dories had been loosed approximately 100 fathoms apart. Once on its own, each dory would be rowed on courses parallel to one another having been instructed in this heading by the skipper of the schooner. As one man 104

rowed out the course, his partner standing aft and facing forward, would 'heave out' the gear by deftly reaching into the baited tubs and flinging bights of groundline, suds, and hooks to starboard. The method is termed 'flying set' because the gear is 'set' or put overboard as the dory is moving through the water. At the end of the string, the second anch­ or, byeline, and keg would be thrown over the side, and the men would await the arrival of their schooner which would sail up to each of the dories and take the men aboard for a 'mug up' or short meal, and a brief rest. After the gear had been permitted to fish a short while, the dories were released again at their respective 'first ends' where the keg, byeline, and anchor would be retrieved and the process of 'hauling back' the gear begun. The two fishermen in dory would spell one a- nother at the more strenuous task of pulling in the ground- line and removing the fish, while the other seated aft would coil the line, suds, and now bare hooks into the tubs to be rebaited later that evening or early next morning for another set. After picking up the dories for the second time, this time taking them aboard, the schooner would steer for harbor and a night's anchorage, the men dressing the fish on the way in. Gear conflicts are an ineluctable fact in the technological evolution of any fishery, but the innovations in fishing gear introduced to the Northwest Atlantic inshore and bank fisher­ ies of the latter half of the 19th century led to a great deal of local disagreement and even formal legislative action. And, as is often the case, many of the disputes of which we have record consist of the complaints of inshore fishermen against offshore fishing practices. No doubt this was 105 partly due to the fact that local disagreements between in­ shore fishermen were usually resolved by menas of the appli­ cation of informal sanctions with no need of recourse to high­ er authority. But offshore vessels were more likely to ex­ periment with new techniques, thereby creating difficulties in instances where the two fisheries were coterminus. The owners of the larger craft were more receptive to technologi­ cal advance than inshoreman in that the greater capital out­ lay could be more easily assumed, and because of a lessened or nonexistent sense of responsibility toward either the con­ servation of stocks or in protection of the grounds which they frequented. The mobility of the offshore vessels gave them the capability of moving on to undisturbed grounds and unde­ pleted fish populations. This was certainly the case in Newfoundland. As a result of the complaints of inshore fishermen of the French islands of St. Pierre and Micquelon (located only a short distance off the Burin Peninsula), authorities would not let the mi­ gratory bankers use bultows within territorial waters. Thus barred from fishing in their own waters, yet desirous of re­ maining near shore due to the ease of obtaining bait (so im­ portant with fishing by bultow), and the inshore concentra­ tions ofcaplin feeding cod, the French banking skippers set their gear closer to the Newfoundland coast. By 1849, the fishery protection officer of the colony who concentrated his cruises in those areas of greatest French activity (St. Pierre and the Straits of Belle Isle) was receiving numerous complaints from inshore fishermen of the South Coast, not ov­ er French fishing in Newfoundland waters, but in their use of the bultow (Journal of the Legislative Council 1849:128,187). 106

Ten years later, the dispute had not been resolved although the French banking skippers fishing the East Coast of New­ foundland, of their own accord agreed to ban the use of bul- tows because of a noticeable decrease in productivity of tra­ ditional fishing areas (Journal of the Legislative Council 1859:175). At the same time, however, a limited number of Newfoundlanders on the Burin Peninsula began to set bultow gear inshore and arguments against its use were more frequent­ ly heard. The perception of the behavior of cod, 'towing fish', was obviously a factor in the dissatisfaction of handliners with the use of bultow. It was pointed out by them that a fish once hooked on a bultow and not immediately brought to the surface (as is done in handlining), is likely to twist the hook free of its mouth and escape. The handliners further maintained that a wounded fish in this state would somehow com­ municate his experience to his fellows, if only by means of his rapid departure, and frighten them away from the grounds as well, thereby damaging the chances of handliners fishing in the area. This charge was met by proponents of the new fishing method by resorting to the same ethnoichthyethological tenet, in defense of the use of bultows. They claimed that numbers of hooked fish along the bottom, by their struggles attracted other cod to the ground. But that logic did not serve the bultow cause too well when fishermen pointed out that the gear was being set on the edges of ground, for the most part parallel to the shoreline, and were by these arguments, preventing the shoreward movement of cod by acting as bar­ riers, prejudicing the chances of the handliners awaiting the fish in shoal water (Journal of the Legislative Council I860: 107

232-7). Another objection to the use of bultows was based not upon the controversy over differential access to the stocks, but upon evidence that breeding fish were being taken in large numbers by the new gear, and fears that the resource might be rapidly depleted. The fishermen's theory as to the selecti­ vity of the bultow is revealed in a fisheries report on the western Hermitage Bay community of Pass Island; "But here as elsewhere the complaint of bultows as killing the mother fish; this is accounted for as their being the largest fish, and they do not rise to take the hook and line, but for the bait of bultows being on the ground they take it" (Journal of the Legislative Council 1872:178). In spite of general agreement as to the harmful effects of the gear in this latter respect upon the fishery, its greater efficiency persuaded more fishermen to adopt the meth­ od. As one fisherman put it; "We know it does harm, but other people use it, we do too" (Journal of the Legislative Council 1971:224). It is interesting to note that the fishery offi­ cers comment repeatedly in these years upon the fact that the spread of the use of bultows and cod seines was not uniform a- long the coast, and that although there existed no formal legislation against its use, several communities seem to have had no difficulty in controlling the methods of local resource exploitation. This type of local resource management through enactment of community based territorial rights is discussed later, but a nineteenth century incident, the recollection of which has survived at least three generations, might be related here. A retired fisherman of Deer Island told a story passed on to 108 him by his father who at the time of the occurence was a young boy. A skiff belonging to Burgeo had sailed down to Deer Island and set out some lines of trawl* off the back of that island. Several of the resident fishermen observing this, and for motives which are not entirely clear but undoubtedly combine elements both of gear conflict and community territor­ iality, sailed out in a punt that evening and hauled back the gear taking it with them to one of their stageheads. A com­ plaint was filed with the authorities in Burgeo and a subse­ quent magesterial decision found them guilty of interfering with another man's legal right to fish, and stipulated a fine. The following accounts of a fishery officer's displeasure with the lack of legal protection to handliners in their argu­ ment with the use of bultows, make mention of a case which sounds very much as though it might be the one stemming from the Deer Island incident:

The bultow is in general use, except at Little St. Lawrence and Burgeo, where the fishermen will not allow it. At the lat­ ter place a case was to be brought before the judge or Circuit, relative to some men who had taken up a bultow set by a fishermen. The use of the bultow is no doubt, perfectly legal, though very de­ structive to the fishery (Journal of the Legislative Council 1872: 182).

I entertain no doubts of the illegality of their proceedings; but it seem hard that a community whose very existence depends on the fishery should not be al­ lowed to make local laws for their pro­ tection (Journal of the Legislative Council 1872:197). 109

But local traditions were in force, if only informally sanctioned, as the Deer Island incident and fishery re­ ports for the entire coast indicate. In fact, so effective were these local restrictions that more than one informant re­ calls them as legally sanctioned proscriptions. Based upon oldest informants' recollections, inshore oppo­ sition to the use of trawl extended into the early years of the twentieth century with Western Shore handliners concerned over the widespread use of gear by schooners engaged in the winter fishery on the nearby 'offer' banks. Here again, the handline fishermen worried that the volume of bait being spread on these banks would tow away the cod from shore where their smaller boats would not allow them to follow. However, on the South Coast during this period, the transi­ tion to the predominate use of trawl seems to have been less traumatic, and by 1915-1920, the gear was in common use throughout the communities. A contributing factor to the lack of conflict in comparison to that documented for the 19th cen­ tury, may have been the seasonal involvement of fishermen in the Ramea area in the winter bank fishery. Many of the fish­ ermen of the central portion of the South Coast gained famili­ arity with the gear as a result of direct participation in the Western Shore fishery. Those otherwise inshore fishermen who were so fortunate as to secure a winter's berth aboard one of the merchant's schooners had the opportunity to use the gear in dory themselves. And because the trawl at this time was of cotton construction and short-lived, the gear, even after on­ ly one season's use, was unsuitable for the strain of a gurdy, and was sold at the end of the voyage to members of the crew. Experimentation then followed inshore from handline skiffs, at 110 first without abandoning traditional fishing techniques. Once on the ground, a barque or handline skiff would set out a small string of gear, the last end being secured to the boat's grapnel. The skiff would ride to this anchor as well and handlining was conducted onboard in the usual fashion. At the end of the day, the trawl would be retrieved, once again, from the deck of the boat.

Moored Trawl

Just as the technology had been borrowed from the schooner fishery (and in many cases, the actual gear itself), the in­ shore use of trawl mirrored both varieties of offshore appli­ cation . In much the same fashion as a schooner at anchor on the banks, settlements along the coast sheltered dories which fished moored gear on the fringing edge of ground. But be­ cause of the different characteristics of the inshore environ­ ment, some alterations in the employment of the gear were re­ quired. The most basic inshore restriction bearing upon the use of trawl was that of the limited extent of ground. Unlike the gradual sloping offshore shelves fished by the bankers, the South Coast inshore gradient was so steep as to be perceived to be an 'edge'. Consequently, strings of gear could not be set at any or every compass heading with similar prospects of success. The ideal location would be one in which the axis of the gear (groundline) would parallel the direction of the 'edge' (perpendicular to the slope) and be positioned at the Ill optimum depth for the season. Such a placement, however, would have posed several difficulties, both technical and managerial. Because the direction of current is predominately along the shore (east to west except in the bays), a craft under- running moored trawl set in line with the flow would distort the placement of the groundline, or 'haul the gear out of shape' in two planes. If the gear were run downtide or down­ wind, the freshly baited portion of the groundline takes the strain of the attached dory as it is carried effortlessly to leeward or downtide along the trawl. The resulting tension causes the groundline to lie tightly along the knobs and de­ pressions of the bottom instead of loosely conforming to the uneven configuration of the ground. Consequently, a number of hooks are suspended over the bottom instead of on it, and are unavailable to the groundfeeding cod. The surplus of groundline at the leeward end of the string as a result of the stretching of the gear is also a problem in that it over­ runs its own anchor and forms a bight, snarling itself, the anchor, and the slabline. The only precautionary measure a- vailable to a fisherman to avoid putting his gear 'out of shape' in terms of accumulated slack, was to alternate the direction of haul and to 'chop the gear' or cut off excess length to leeward to be reattached to the other end with the next run. But hauling in alternate directions in an area of fairly constant and sometimes considerable current, meant an uphill battle for the crosshanded inshore fisherman who, un­ like his offshore counterpart, seldom had a dory mate to help with the strain and rebait the hooks as he removed the fish. 112

Moored gear set 'up and down' the shore also presented the problem of keeping the gear on the edge. Winds on or off the land and current anomolies caused an arcing or 'bowing' of the groundline from the original axis between anchors. Es­ pecially on the steepest gradients, this would mean that the majority of the hooks might be 'drowned', or off the edge en­ tirely and on the slub with little chance of catching fish. Such placement of gear would have also created social dif­ ficulties in the allocation and management of fishing space. There simply would not have been enough room for a series placement of strings of moored trawl along the single edge. With an average string of moored gear consisting of twelve fifty fathom banklines, more than one-half nautical mile would have been required for each man's gear, far in excess of the approximate 100 yards between handline rode berths. And not all fishermen were able to acquire trawl in early years, relying instead upon the traditional and less expensive meth­ od of handlining from fleets of rodes. As mentioned earlier, these fleets were positioned in and off the land over sections of the handy ground concerning which fishing territory usufruc- tory rights were exercised. Individual slices of the inshore edge had therefore been spoken for before the introduction of trawl, and an 'up and down' orientation of moored gear would, in addition to posing technical difficulties, have interfered with existing fishing rights. Instead, the inshore deployment of moored trawl was modeled upon the earlier proprietary system of deepwater handlining. The gear was set 'in and off' the land in the same manner as were positioned fleets of handlining rodes. Trawl would be set out from the land across the edge of ground, using a 113 breast mark on the hills to guide the placement of the string in relation to the shoreline and to the equipment of other fishermen. As with a fleet of rodes, a shoal anchor would be placed in approximately fifty fathoms and the offer end in about 120 fathoms of water. The rig itself did not differ too much from that used aboard the schooners. Pairs of 'chopped' buoys replaced kegs, and a 'strop' was fitted to the 'dory anchors' used to hold the gear to the bottom. And for inshore moored trawl, both first and last fifty fathom lengths of the ground- line were constructed of double bankline hitched together to protect the string from being parted through chafing as it would swing along the rocky bottom with the tide. Moored gear as used by schooners did not require such anti-chafing measures as it was retreived and reset each time the vessel made a new berth and was therefore not so graat a length of time on the bottom as inshore trawl. Nor was the composition or configuration of the offshore banks so rough or precipi­ tous as that found immediately along the South Coast. The amount of gear used by the inshore fisherman depended upon not only his credit standing with the merchant, but the gradient of his section of the handy ground. The number of lines employed varied from six to twelve, with the shortest strings being found in the eastern communities where, as a Richard's Harbour man put it; 'There was no edge to it - it was all deep water.' In these settlements, a single doryman might fish two strings so that the combined total number of lines might give him a catch approximating that of fishermen further up the coast. So closely set were these parallel lines of moored trawl, that even the configurations of the 114

gear had to be carefully matched. Each trawl had to be of the same length with end placement (buoys) directly opposite ad­ joining gear both up and down the coast. This insured that the lines would swing in identical arcs due to the current. Snarls were further discouraged by the practice of fishermen hauling their respective gear at the same time, again to in­ sure equal arcs.

Row Dory

Subsequent to the inshore conversion to trawl, there oc- cured a fairly widespread adoption of the use of the row dory, a type of primary inshore fishing craft of a design quite un­ like that of the traditional South Coast punt. Once again, the innovation was introduced to shore fishermen as a result of their firsthand familiarity with the fishing methods of the New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland banking fleets. The dory is a flat bottomed, nearly double ended craft of wide plank lapstrake construction over widely spaced 'bins' (pairs) of 'growed' or 'locked' 'timbers' (frames). 'Tawts' (thwarts) are fitted over each bin of timber for strength and as a platform for rowing, which was accomplished by pairs of 'paddles' (oars), more manageable than the sweeps previously used in punts. A loose footed spritsail and mast were some­ times carried, the latter being stepped through the second tawt from forward (no standing rigging). But because of.the flat bottom and the lack of keel or centerboard, dories were not considered to be good sailors, making too much leeway on any point of sail other than off the wind or perhaps on a 115

beam reach with a midship room full of fish. When under sail, steering was by a single paddle braced against the lee­ ward thole pin, no rudder being fitted. Dories were obtained either through local merchants, who in turn purchased them from Shelbourne and Lunenburg manufac­ turers, suppliers to the offshore fleets, or from local craftsmen in each harbor. The Shelbourne built dory seems to have been the model for most local construction although there was no need to be so precise in its replication since the in­ shore dories were not ’broken down' (equipment and tawts re­ moved) and nested one in the other as were those used aboard the schooners. The 'flan' or angle of the sides of the dor­ ies (determined by the angle of the timbers) were not uniform for all craft in South Coast construction, and in length of bottom, many were less than the schooner standard of fifteen feet. The reduction in size allowed the inshore dories to be handled more easily by crosshanded fishermen. The essential design characteristic of any dory, which in the perception of the South Coast fisherman distinguishes the type from the earlier inshore craft, is found in the flat bottom and absence of centerboard or keel. In comparison, a punt or 'boat',having a rounded hull, has a greater draft than a dory, which at the same displacement does not sit so deep in the water. As one informant described the difference; 'A boat sits in the water, but a dory sits on the water.1 With the introduction of moored gear to inshore fishing, the advantages of this quality of the schooner dory became,appar­ ent. When underrunning moored trawl, the fishing craft is, in effect, pulled along underneath the gear as the groundline is passed over the gunwhales at an angle to centerline of from 116

45°to 90°. This range is limited by a combination of 'run­ ning sticks' inserted into the opposite roller hole and for­ ward thole pin hole. These vertical guides constrain the movement of the freshly baited groundline, so that it is not lost over the stem or tend so far aft so as to pass di­ rectly over the interior of the dory where it would inevitab­ ly 'hook up' and hamper the fishing operation. Therefore, a craft used for fishing moored trawl is not pulled in line with the direction of the haul, but at an angle. A punt, sitting deeper in the water and presenting a vertically faced keel, offered considerable resistance to this crabbing motion, and in a strong current created a twisting force which was dif­ ficult to handle. The dory, on the other hand, with no keel and shallow draft, moved easily in any direction by compari­ son, and put less strain on the trawl, making the fisherman's job easier and reducing the likelihood of hauling the gear out of shape. Because of this advantage, the dory completely replaced the punt as the primary inshore fishing craft in those eastern communities that relied heavily upon the use of moored gear. Only in Deer Island and Ramea did punts survive the transition from handline to trawl, and from sail to engine. In Deer Is­ land, the strength of the current flowing out of White Bear Bay discouraged the use of moored trawl for reasons already discussed, and in Ramea, where the handy ground was at a greater distance from harbor, the superior sailing ability of the punt continued to be a considerable asset. In these com­ munities, the predominate use of trawl was by the flying set method. 117

Motor Dory

Gasoline engines were introduced to the Coast at the con­ clusion of the 1920's, not long after trawl had replaced hand- line as the primary fishing technique. Although there seems not to have been much controversy concerning this innovation, the advantages being immediately apparent, engines, like gear, were expensive and the transition to mechanized proppulsion did not occur overnight. At first the more prosperous inshore fishermen installed the one cylinder 'make and break' model in their punts, which then became known as 'motorboats'. In the eastern settlements the conversion of punts also took place, but were overshadowed by a form of mechanization which was talking a different direction. While fishing on jigger in summers of Micquelon Head, the skiff fishermen of the South Coast became familiar with the large motorized 'gran dories' of the French inshore fishermen of Micquelon Town and St. Pierre. A few of these dories were purchased by merchant families and skiff fishermen, and follow­ ing their successful use on the South Coast, were copied by local craftsmen with some modification. The most obvious alteration was the reduction of the ex­ treme sheer of the French design to correspond more to the already familiar profile of the banking dory. Similarly, the stems of the Newfoundland versions were not so raked as those of the French dories. Practical alterations excluded the fitting of false bottoms as the South Coast motor dories were seldom hauled up on the beach ( they are hauled up each night at Micquelon Town). For this same reason, the 'pull up' or hinged shaft retracting into a recessed box in the hull was 118 not always provided in the Newfoundland version. The origi­ nal dories from St. Pierre were of 18 foot bottoms, but the size of the motor dories built along the South Coast varied greatly from a 15 foot bottom not much bigger than a row dory, to the impressive 21 foot bottom dories with a length 'on top' of nearly thirty feet. The construction was similar to that of the row dories although there was provided consider­ ably more bins of timbers to give strength. The motor dories were rigged with jib, foresail, and driver. The motor dory seemed to be an obvious replacement for the smaller decked handline skiffs which proved to be very clum­ sy in the use of trawl. The dories could be fished by a crew of the same size (two men), and the traditional exploitative pattern did not have to be modified. The dory could be fished both on the handy ground and on the offlying banks. It could even be taken on the Western Shore in winter for that seasonal fishery. Although this latter practice was not too often followed by motordory fishermen, some of the men made the an­ nual trip, bunking for the duration of the fishery in quart­ ers supplied by area fish buyers. In one spring at least, the range of the winter fishery was even extended by the motor dories. In order to gain a few more weeks of fishing after the cod had returned into the Gulf, South Coast motor dories were loaded onto flat cars at Port Aux Basques and carried on the provincial railway to Port Aux Port. As the cod moved further north, the dorymen steamed home to the South Coast at the end of the season. 119

Flying Set

The flying set method of fishing with trawl was used in­ shore at least as early as moored gear, but for reasons al­ ready discussed, almost exclusively by a few fishermen of communities to the west of Fox Island. Only as winter inshore fishing became common on the South Coast, and larger dories were acquired, did. the method become widely practiced throughout the length of the Coast, and then, in the eastern communities only as a seasonal and spatial complement to the use of moored gear. With the following modifications or exceptions, the in­ shore use of trawl by flying set was almost identical to that already described for schooner based dory fishing. One of the most significant differences was found in the variant rela­ tionship of the placement of the gear with respect to the general tendency of the ground. Because the inshore edge, and to a lesser extent the offlying grounds, were much steeper than the banks frequented by the schooners, shore based trawl fishermen could not very easily flying set parallel to one a- nother and expect their gear to be at the same optimum depth. Unless, of course, the trawl was set off from the shore as was moored gear, in which case only a few lines could be set (six to twelve), and only part of the gear fishing at most advantageous depth in the vicinity of the edge. To cross the edge in this manner, a fisherman would be more disposed to moor his trawl so that he might at least haul it more than once a day and benefit as well by fish being towed to his section of the ground by this comparatively fixed or permanent technique. 120

Rather, flying set trawl was best employed along the edge rather than across it, the former orientation not leading to the technical difficulties previously described for a similar deployment of moored gear. With flying set trawl, there was no possibility of its being hauled out of shape and pulled off the edge of the ground by repeated raising and lowering of the groundline. The trawl was set each day anew and hauled back in a matter of hours or directly the following morning in the case of a 'night set'. The gear was still affected by the current as it settled to the bottom, but this interval of time in which the fisherman exercised no control over the movement of the trawl was minimized through the at­ tachment of rocks to the groundline at intervals which served to sink the assembly more rapidly. And, for the most part, the direction of current paralleled the major edges of ground and did not therefore laterally distort the 'setting' or place­ ment of the trawl, only requiring that attention be paid to the speed of the dory over the bottom so that the gear is not stretched too tightly over the seabed or so loosely that bights are formed which might snarl one another. Where occasional cross currents did sweep the gear away from its axis of descent, a correcting allowance could be made by positioning the dory a compensating distance uptide of the usual setting location. Therefore, with the flying set method, trawl could technical­ ly be set along any edge of ground. Yet there still existed problems of spatial management. Strings of moored trawl extended out from shore and across the edge of the handy ground, parallel to one another and separated only by the distance of a 'berth', for nearly the entire length of the Coast. Consequently, there was very 121 little room for gear to be flying set 'with the edge' (along the edge) without risking interference with the permanently anchored trawl. If a flying set fisherman did happen to set across moored gear, the two strings would seldom be badly entangled, certainly nothing resembling the mess created by two 'lots' of gear being snarled 'hook for hook' when they are set parallel to and on top of one another. But it would be a nuisance to the fisherman of the moored gear who would have to haul up the added weight of the interloper's groundline as his own was raised to the surface. Rather than simply pass the dory underneath both lines, the perturned fisherman might cut the other's line and retie it underneath his own groundline to return the favor of a difficult haul and to give mute but unmistakeable notice of his displeasure at this intrusion. That this sort of incident did not occur too often is due to the spatial and seasonal separation of these two employments of trawl. In spring months when improving weather allowed the reset­ ting of moored gear, most fishermen returned to this method of fishing rather than continue to flying set in pairs as had been done over the winter. Moored gear was preferred by many as it permitted a man to fish singly or with his own boys who received either no share or only a fraction of the catch. Trawl fixed in this fashion was also considered superior in that the everpresent bait was thought to be a source of at­ traction to the fish. Fishermen lacking an inshore berth or preferring to fish further offshore, did not compete for space with their neighbors, but concentrated their efforts on the intermediate grounds, three to four miles to the 'southard' (Cue Soc Bank, Watch Bank, Halfway Bank), or steamed and 122 pulled to the more distant 'inshore' banks extending from Watch Rock to Southern Bank. At these locations, fewer strings of moored trawl were to be found, and the greater area and less severe slope of the grounds enabled fishermen to set their trawls with the edge and in approximately the same depth. Motor dories were ideally suited in size and power for the trip and surpassed in number the concentration of barques and handline skiffs that earlier fished the same waters. Undecked and of smaller size than the skiffs, dories did not remain offshore for more than a single 'set', return­ ing to land each night to process the fish and rebait. Cape LaHune dory fishermen, however, extended their sojourns off­ shore even longer than their predecessors, remaining fishing in the vicinity of Penguin Islands for a week at a time. The major harbor of that island group became more than a shelter from storms and was used as a seasonal fishing station where the men would lightly salt their fish and sleep in roughly built stages. Fox Island fishermen followed a similar pat­ tern in both spring and fall, basing themselves in Eastern Harbor at the eastern end of Great Island of the Ramea group, and fishing the then more accessible grounds of Southeast Rocks and Southern Bank. This practice of more extensive exploitation of the offer banks is explained only in part by fishermen's accounts of .the sometimes greater abundance of cod, which in those years supposedly did not come to shore in such concentrations as are evidenced by contemporary fishing success 'under the land'. The crowding of the handy ground and the potential for gear conflict between the two uses of trawl were definite­ ly factors which encouraged flying set fishermen to extend 123

their range in recognition of the prior and sustained terri­ torial rights of those who moored their gear along the shore. Such conflict was also avoided by the seasonal use of the two techniques. With the exceptions of herring seining in the 19th century, and the early and limited use of moored gear in winter house codfishing in Bay deVieux, year round inshore fishing did not begin until the introduction of trawl and the adoption of the flying set method of use. Moored gear, like the earlier and homologous deepwater handline rode, was not fished in the winter months. In the latter case, fishermen explain that handlines are too clumsy in cold weath­ er because of the need to keep fingers nimble enough to bait hooks. And, a man is too easily chilled by this type of fish­ ing which does not require constant activity or movement of the limbs. In the case of moored gear, difficulty in bait­ ing the hooks was still a problem, but the major obstacle was that the weather was simply too severe to warrant the risk of an entire string of gear which might, due to a pro­ longed storm, be 'carried away', parted, or simply 'beat up' to the point at which it is no longer serviceable. And, in addition to the potential loss of capital equipment, the use of moored gear in winter offered less of a guarantee of return on investment in labor than the fishermen normally enjoyed. A lull between storms might allow the baiting of the trawl, but more likely than not it would be blowing so hard the next morning that the string could not be underrun, and any fish caught would be rotten, eaten by worms, or otherwise unfit for processing by the next break in the weather. But with the flying set technique, a forecast of only one day of moderate weather was sufficient for the baiting of 124

trawl on the preceeding night or even in the morning in the relative comfort of a heated stage. The gear was set and retreived the same day ('day set'), and the number of lines fished could be adjusted according to the state of the weath­ er. Wool mitts were worn during the fishing and the constant movement of the arms in the hauling and coiling of the ground- line prevented the numbing of those limbs. As for the lower extremities, one fisherman explained; 'When you're up to the tops of your boots in fish, you don't feel no chill in your feet.' For the harbor which was open sufficiently to the sea and did not have to cope with the presence of ice, winter fishing could be carried out by means of row or motor dory. But for those settlements situated in quiet coves or riverine bays in which the salinity of the water was reduced to the point at which ice more readily formed, some adjustments to the usual practice were made. Tubs of gear were still baited in the stages at the bottoms of the harbor, but were transported by 'slide' (sled) or on the back of fishermen to the edge of the ice and open water at the mouth of the bay or entrance to the harbor. There the tubs would be loaded into row dories which had been pulled over the ice and into the 'leads' from the landwash where they were turned 'bottom up' each night. Fish­ ermen with smaller motor dories would remove their engines for the winter and use them in the same manner as row dories. Because the handy ground was emptied of moored gear in these months, the winter dory fishermen were able to use fly­ ing set trawl in this area, for the most part without re­ striction or consideration of individual territorial claims. Just as was true of fishing flying set on the offer grounds 125 in other season; 'You could go where you like, nobody owned the ground.' Rights to berths exercised in the spring were not put into force in winter for several reasons. Not all moored gear fishermen 'went at it' in the colder months be­ cause of physical immaturity or advancing age. And accord­ ing to local understanding of territorial fishing rights, only continuous usage prevents the reversion of a section of ground or a shoreside net attachment to the commons, giving all equal access to the resource. Usufructory designations were further confused at this time of year by the seasonal and temporary pairing of younger and middle aged men for the more rigorous winter fishing, who in spring months might have separate and widely spaced territories of their own. Also, because of the predominate use of row dories in the winter inshore fishery, the direction of wind (if up or down the coast) became a very important factor in determining the favored location for the setting of gear. All other considerations being equal, an attempt would generally be made to 'buck' or pull into the wind in the morning with a light dory in order to be able to run to leeward with a midship place filled with fish at the end of a day's work. In those communities in which the competition for winter fishing spaces was most extreme, there did exist a system by which each dory's crew would fish a single section of ground which had been selected earlier in the season. But here too, if a dory should not fish on any given day, that spot could be used by another crew in their absence, at least for a single set. The arrangement was by no means as definite or clear cut as for that of moored trawl, and it was in this method of flying set winter fishing that competition and 126

'covetousness' was most pronounced. Not only because of the desirability of setting to windward of the harbor entrance, but for precisely the same reasons that were earlier cited as contributing to conflict in the shoalwater handline fish­ ery. That is; 1) all grounds were not equally productive, (and its corollary) 2) fish were not equally distributed ov­ er the grounds, 3) the location of the consistently best grounds was common knowledge, and 4) the continuous evalua­ tion ofqphemerally most productive grounds could be made by comparison of daily landings, coupled with awareness of the current fishing locations of other dories. And most import­ antly, 5) nobody owned the ground. What made the winter in­ shore fishery even more competitive than that of shoalwater handlining, was that in the former case, available ground was much more limited. Not all the strategies previously discussed for handling could be used by the flying set fishermen. Underestimation of the quantity of catch was still practiced, but it was much more difficult to be secretive as to fishing locations. No longer were small knobs being fished at some distance from the settlements, but rather a portion of a continuous edge of ground lying close to land and to either side of the harbor. Every man knew where his neighbors fished that day, and was capable of finding the same location himself. Therefore, the only real dvantage to be gained consisted in arriving on the ground earlier than one's competitors so as to be able to set in the most favored area. Once again, as in handlining, it was not considered 'fair play' to set directly over a piece of ground successfully fished by another on the previous day. But it was common 127 practice to set as close as possible to this location with­ out undue risk of being accused of covetousness. A Cul de Sac East man summarizes' the tactic which was employed in each community; 'If somebody got more fish than what I got that day, I wouldn't go right in his spot 'cause he'd be coming back there; but I'd be as close to his spot as I could get.' And the first string of gear to be set out in an area was felt to have a better chance of success in accoradance with the belief that fish would be towed toward it and caught be­ fore competing lines sink to the bottom. To set earlier than one's fellows, therefore, was prompted by the same motivation which had led earlier South Coast fishermen to haul their her­ ring nets before dawn so as to be the first to 'take hold' of their handline rodes in the morning. Even those who fished moored gear took notice that;'The first to haul always seemed to get the most fish.' Of course there was also the noneconomic (in the substan­ tive sense) motivation for early rising, a concern for the approval of one's peers. If an overzealous 'highliner' did not receive community approbation, a 'slack man' was the ob­ ject of joking and ridicule. A former fisherman now employed by the fish plant recalls his father's attitude toward early departure, one that he shared with the other fishermen of Cul de Sac West; 'He didn't want nobody to see that he was late in the mornings, I tell you. They used to talk about that, see. They used to talk that such a one didn't come out until late this morning, what was wrong with he - couldn't get up or something. Like that. You know what a fisherman is like.' The efforts expended in getting on the ground first, how­ ever, were stimulated by more than the need for self-esteem 128

or peer group approval. There simply was not enough ground along shore for the number of dories and quantity of gear being fished. The length of each community's 'edge' was limited by contiguous fishing territories of adjacent set­ tlements, and its width was narrowed by an extreme gradient. As a fisherman from one of the more crowded eastern harbors explained; 'You see, the way it was, there was only a small lot of ground. Twasn't like it is here (speaking of Ramea). You can go all around this bloody island and set gear. But back home it was different. I wouldn't say we had two miles along the shore. You had to be up early to get a good set. Otherwise, the ground was all took up and you had to set off in the mud. There wasn't enough ground, that's all.' What was more critical than being up early, was being up earlier, a tactic which, although not unheard of in the handline and moored trawl fisheries, reached its zenith and was practiced to the extreme by the flying set fishermen. It is interesting to note that only in reference to this latter fishery is the descriptive term 'forelay' used. To 'forelay' another fisherman is to goto unusual lengths in an attempt to be the first upon the ground in order to set most ad­ vantageously. The adjective 'unusual' is not merely the eth­ nographer's evaluation, but is reflective of the emic per­ ception of this behavior in comparison to the normal limits of competitive action in other fisheries. As the following accounts demonstrate:

In the mornings when me and my father would get up, many times h e ’s say to me, 'makin' too much racket boy'. I've seen him take his boots and put them on over the mat so's not to make any noise. And I'd be stampin’ 129 mine on over the canvas. And he's say 'too much noise boy, the other fellows goin' to hear.'

More than one morning, I've had my break­ fast in the dark so that nobody wouldn't see you’s were up. We'd only have the light from the fire to toast our bread and warm the butter on the fender.

One old fellow would get up in the morning and instead of heaving a bucket of coal in the stove, he'd heave a bucket of water. That's what he done. He didn't want nobody to see him go out. He wanted to steal out by his ownself.

When I got up and got down to the stage the old man would have all the windows darkened. It's the first thing he'd do before he'd start a fire, so nobody would see us bait up.

There was only a small lot of ground for all these dories, and that's the reason they'd get up in the morning and row out out of the harbor afore they'd start their engines out by the point. I done it myself.

You had to be careful not to rattle the oars around in the dory. We used to shuff the oars down in the water first thing to wet the marlin so they wouldn't creak in the tole pins when you rowed out. ORGANIZATION OF WORK

South Coast economy in the historical period followed a fairly consistent theme based upon variations in hook and line fishing technology applied to a relatively con­ stant perceived environment. The relationship of man to land (in this case, fishing grounds) was described in pre­ vious chapters, and now the relationship between (and a- mong) units of labor and capital will be examined. A discussion of the organization of work on the South Cast may appropriately be focused on the structure of the cash economy (fishing) to the relative neglect of subsistence production activities. It has already been demonstrated that horticultural pursuits in particular were not of a scale that led either to joint ownership and use of land or cooperative gardening activity (cf. Faris 1972:66-7 and Firestone 1967:107). The significance of the economic contribution of women in this regard was therefore diminished although the shore- side processing of the fish was, as on other coasts, partly the responsibility of wives and daughters of fishermen. But on the South Coast this distaff involvement in the curing of fish did not require the formation of large 'shore crowds' (Faris 1972:67). Because there occured no glut of summer cod, but a nearly constant year round supply of fish in smal­ ler increments, women did not have to team up to process the fish immediately from the stagehead while their husbands, sons,

130 131

and brothers quickly returned to the grounds to make the most of a short season. Rather, the throating, gutting, heading, splitting, salting, and washing of the fish were men's work, with only the curing or tending of the drying fish left to the women. Each wife was capable of handling her own husband's catch unassisted. Many were even able to cure additional quintals of 'schooner fish' as a supplement to the household income. In fact, the shoreside responsibility of South Coast women with regard to the fish was so diffuse that prior to the introduction of trawl, they would sometimes accompany their husbands or fathers to the grounds to assist in the actual fishing. Wives of offshore fishermen, having no cod of their own to cure, would contract with the banking schooner cap­ tains to 'make' (cure) as many quintals of company-owned fish as their individual cpabilities, and that of their children, would allow. Here too, as in the curing of shore fish, there was not any incentive to form levels of cooperation beyond that of the nuclear family. With respect to crews, there have been various arrange­ ments of M)o r in the South Coast fisheries. But though these crews ranged in size from the lone inshore doryman to the 28 man complement of a large banker, there existed similari­ ties of structure that enables this analysis to develop a theme of regional patterned work organization. As will be shown, the central elements of this pattern consist of; 1) the extreme mobility of labor due to the modular nature both of crew structure and short term capital equipment (gear), and 2) the discouragement of intermediate levels of long term capitalization (skiffs). 132

Crews

The first thing that can be said of the organization of fishing labor (crews) on the South Coast, is that it was generally of small scale. Not until the development of off­ shore fishing effort in the last two to three decades of this historical period, did crews form which were much larger than the one, two, or occasionally three 'hands' of an inshore or nearshore fishing craft. The typical crew of the handline era was that of a single man fishing out of his own punt as­ sisted at times by younger sons. The frequency of this crew structure on the South Coast, and its peculiarity in compar­ ison to the organization of fishing groups of other areas of Newfoundland, led fishery inspection officers of the 19th century to make repeated note of it in the course of their patrols. In 1851, Captain Ramsay of H.M.S. Alarm observed of Harbour Breton in Hermitage Bay that; "Small punts with one man and a boy are employed for the fishing at the entrance of the harbour" (Journal of the Legislative Assembly 1851:108). Twenty years later, one officer reports for Burgeo that; "The fishing is done with very small boats, with a man or a man and a boy in each boat..." (Journal of the Legislative Assem­ bly 1872:197). The 1876 observation of Captain Lloyd of H.M.S. Bullfinch also attests to the small scale of the South Coast fishery although his conslusions are questionable; "On the Western Portion of the South Coast, for instance, I noticed a great want of enterprise in the fishing ... they go about their business in a half-hearted sort of way; their boats are small and ill-found; their plant (planters?) generally 133

indifferent, and the very hands in the boat are often mere children" (Journal of the Legislative Assembly 1877:327). No doubt the comparison being made by Lloyd was to the frant­ ic activity of the summer glut fishery of the Burin Penin­ sula, Placentia Bay, and Southern Shore, where the Bullfinch had just visited in its clockwise tour of the Island's fish­ eries . On the central portion of the South Coast, where handlin­ ing was the exclusive fishing technique, there was no require­ ment of joint effort in the handling of gear. Each man, un­ assisted, tended one or two lines from the gunwhales of his punt or barque. And in view of the fact that the perceived environment was one of limited fish concentrations over spa­ tially restrictive grounds, the most efficient productive unit (hence ideal crew) was felt to be that of a crosshanded fisherman. Temporary pairing of fishermen other than that of fathers and dependent sons was occasioned only in that season of the year in which weather conditions prescribed two strong backs to the sweeps. The same atomistic structure of inshore crews followed the introduction of trawl in the 20th century. Gear employed in a manner which mimicked earlier deepwater handlining tech­ nique (moored), still required only individual effort. The other method of deployment of trawl (flying set) did modify the composition of some crews, in that gear set in this fashion was more easily fished by two hands; but it did not alter the basic structure of the fishery. With the exception of the largest motor dories that fished the offshore banks for most of the year, the pairing was again only seasonal, in winter months. With the advance of 'moderate' weather, each 134

man feturned to his own row or mtor dory to underrun moored trawl, or to go flying set crosshanded. The year round use of motor dory and flying set trawl by two hands was a favored combination of father and son crews in later years, a pair­ ing which had traditionally fished together in the handline era. Also, the nearly simultaneous technological replacement of sail by engine, and handline by trawl, seemed to offset one another in terms of their effect on the composition of in­ shore crews. There was a trade off, so to speak, between the efficiency of mechanized propulsion and the labor requirement of the new gear. With a gasoline engine in a punt or dory, a fisherman did not have to be so concerned about having anoth­ er fully grown man aboard for his contribution in strength for rowing. However, the use of flying set trawl was facili­ tated by the presence of an extra hand. If any conclusions can be drawn from these observations in the absence of much data, it can be assumed that the introduction of trawl and engine enabled an inshore fisherman to fish longer into the fall or even throughout the winter, with a younger son in­ stead of another adult fisherman. It also put some offshore banks within the range of the fair weather crosshanded dory- man. The organization of skiff crews was a bit different than that of the smaller inshore craft or larger fishing schooners. The size of the crew varied according to the number of dor­ ies fished (a function of vessel size, available crew, and prospects of fish), but consisted generally of a core of two to four agnatically related individuals (usually fathers and sons) who were capable of sailing the vessel and fishing at least one dory. Depending upon the size of the skiff, 135 location of fishing activity (migratory or local), and a- mount of fish 'on the go', additional men were taken on as well. The largest two-dory boats that fished a great deal of time away from their own harbors usually carried six men. Smaller skiffs employing only one dory and fishing local waters carried a crew of three. The organization of work and division of catch aboard early skiffs was initially structured by a 'shareman' sys­ tem which corresponded in part to the arrangement of work groups in the small boat and schooner fishery as well. Its discussion within the context of the skiff fishery is due on­ ly to its greatest visibility in this particular organiza­ tion of work. Skiff crews consisted of a combination of full share and shareman fishermen. A man on 'full share' was an individual who contributed not only his labor to the operation, but provided his share of the fishing gear and the shoreside labor of his wife and family as well. A 'shareman', on the other hand, offered only his labor to the work group. He did not 'find' any gear at all other than his own clothing and personal items, and was not responsi­ ble for shoreside processing of the fish beyond his own in­ volvement in that activity when living in the skipper/own­ er's home between trips. A shareman was also defined by the fact that he did not 'keep himself' but received room and board from his skipper whether he be on board the skiff or in port. The 'skipper' might not necessarily be the titular cap­ tain of the skiff, but would invariably be one of the full share fishermen who, in most cases, were part owners of the vessel. Each shareman's skipper not only 'found' (provided) 136

this individual's food and lodging (when not on board the skiff), but also fitted him out with his share of the fish­ ing gear, and cured his portion of the catch. The skipper's reward for this extra burden was one-half of what would have been the shareman's earnings if he had been a full share fisherman himself. Consequently, the shareman was left with the other half of this full share. The position of shareman bore close resemblance to that of an immature and dependent son, and indeed it was the father/son relationship upon which most inshore skipper/share- man arrangements were based. And, it is likely that the phrase 'fishing on half your hand', referring to the position of a shareman receiving only a half share, is derived from the fact that inshore fishermen were frequently so young that in terms of labor contribution they were not the equiv­ alent of a mature fisherman or 'hand'. Sharemen aboard skiffs were not often so young as their inshore counterparts, as winter dory fishing demanded both endurance and experience. Recruitment was from the families of owners as well as from the ranks of older inshore share­ men, unmarried young men of 16-25 years of age who had left their own fathers' dories to see more of the world, but with nothing more than their fishing experience to recommend them to an owner of a skiff. Upon marriage, a shareman not only required a greater per­ centage of the skiff's earnings to support his family, but could offer the fish processing services of his wife as compensation for his receipt of a full share. Owners', how­ ever, were usually capable of making the fish by the efforts of their own families, and additional units of shoreside labor were not necessary or desired. Therefore, only those married sharemen remained on board skiffs who felt that they might 'do better' on half share on a particular boat rather than fishing inshore or aboard schooners. Most did not re­ main, except possibly one or two of the skipper's own sons whose full share could be justified both economically and psychologically by the gradual and eventual retirement of the elderly couple and the need for succession in the management of fishing and supervision of household. Because the majority of skiff fishermen were sharemen and had no material stake in the venture, they were free to move from vessel to vessel in hopes of finding a more productive skipper ('fish killer') or at least one with a reputation for good treatment of his crew. The mobility of sharemen was somewhat restricted in the days of the saltfish trade, how­ ever, in that the cured fish were collected and tallied only once or twice a year by merchants at which time crew shares were calculated and dispensed. A mid-voyage departure of a shareman in a poor season might be frowned upon by a skip­ per who had not yet realized a profit on his investment of the 'keep' of the young man. And to leave for any reason before the conclusion of an average or good voyage, made the calculation of the shareman's part to date subject to the estimation of the skipper. Since fishermen did not ex­ pect any error in this estimation of compensation to be in their favor, almost all chose to wait until 'settling-up time' to make any contemplated changes in vessel affiliation. The mobility of the skiff fisherman was increased in later years following the replacement of the shareman system by one in which all crew members received equal shares and did 138 not look to owners or part owners for the provision of fish­ ing gear or their keep.

Shares

The capital expenditures of the South Coast fisherman were quite basic and not extensive. The 19th century fisher­ man required only a handline, herring net, and a punt to wrest a living from the sea. Even the largest item of capi­ tal equipment, the punt, though essential, was not viewed as a particularly valuable piece of property or one difficult to obtain. In taking inventory of the estates of older or de­ ceased fishermen, I was told repeatedly that; 'He didn't have nothin', just his old punt and the woman.' Inshore boats and gear, because of their minimal value and short-lived utility, were not often considered part of the inheritance. The heir's reward was understood to consist primarily of the house. In­ formants' response to questions of inheritance were usually phrased as; 'The youngest gets the house,' the disposition of other goods hardly meriting comment. Only if some amount of money remained within the estate of the last surviving spouse would there be an equal division among all sons and daughters (most applicable to small merchants). If the fa­ ther died before his youngest son was of fishing age, the house, though under the effective control of the mother or older sibling, would be said to belong to the boy. But nets, lines, and boat or dory would not be reserved in like manner for the future use of that principal heir. They could be claimed by any son who had been fishing with the father at 139 the time of the death. Even after the replacement of handline by trawl, fishing gear could be individually owned, and only the adolescent shareman did not posess a couple tubs of trawl and a herring net or two. For men fishing inshore or on skiffs, there was almost an organizational merging of the units of labor and capital represented by an adult fisherman and his gear. With the exception of skiff sharemen positions prior to the 1930's, and schooner berths, each man provided his own portion of the total gear complement of any craft in which he might fish. Each man could recognize and was responsible for the maintenance of his own trawl, and for this purpose individ­ ual lines were marked by identifying knots or strips of flan­ nelette. Fishermen would 'find' their own hooks and suds and 'shack' (refurbish) their own lines. Shacking gear is the periodic process of testing and renewing sud lines and sharpening and replacing hooks on lines of trawl. And, if a few lines of gear were lost in a day's fishing, they were replaced by the owner who sustained the entire loss. Only if a considerable portion of a man's trawl was left on the bottom, would his dory mate or skiff crew assist in the pur­ chase of new gear. But this example of group indemnity ap­ plied only in unusual circumstances and normally the re­ sponsibility for maintenance and loss fell solely upon indi­ viduals. The frequency of gear loss was so great that indi-' vidual losses were generally averaged out among the entire crew during the course of a venture. Yet, losses were rec­ ognized as individual misfortunes and responsibilities. One further indication of the close association between individu­ al fishermen and their trawl is the use of term 'gear' to 140 refer to the male sexual organs. Ownership of inshore fishing craft was also individual. Punts and dories were always the property of single fisher­ men. Even between fathers and sons, the only instance of long term joint fishing effort in which the property rela­ tionship between the two households is usually characterized as, 'We were all one1, were fishing boats individually owned. For most fishermen, sole ownership corresponded to the pre­ dominant form of inshore operations, crosshanded, or with immature and dependent sons. But when adults paired off for winter inshore fishing using one or the other dories belong­ ing to the two, there was no system of reimbursement to the ower of the selected boat for purposes of capital deprecia­ tion. Only at spring refit would both fishermen share in the cost of some tar or paint for the punt or dory used. If a motor dory had been jointly used, the owner would still not receive any portion of the catch for the wear and tear of this considerably more expensive item of capital equipment. Here the purchase of gasoline and oil, as with paint, was considered to be an operational expense for which both men shared responsibility. But if the engine needed parts or replacement, the cost would be borne entirely by the owner. As with the previously mentioned catastrophic loss of gear, a fishing partner may choose to help the boat owner with the repair or expense of replacement. With the exception of occasional sibling partnerships, the largest fisherman owned craft, skiffs, were, like punts and dories, items of individually owned capital equipment. There is no question but that the capital risk entailed in skiff ownership was compensated by the return to vessel owners of 141

the half shares of their sharemen. But the justification for the withholding of the half share was based not upon the shareman's lack of ownership in the skiff, but by reas­ on of the fact that such individual's keep, fishing gear, and curing services, were provided by another. A manifesta­ tion of this surface logic can be seen in the practice of nonowning fishermen on full share providing a shareman to the crew and receiving that individual's half share. But the underlying basis' or submerged logic of the shareman system surfaces when it is realized that the opportunity to rea­ lize the economic benefits of sponsorship of sharemen to a skiff crew was normallythe perogative of the vessel owner(s). Both skippers and crews were aware that this was the source of owners' surplus even if the justification was not always clear. By the 1930's, only ten to twenty years since skiffs be­ gan to use trawl and carry dories, the system of division of shares aboard skiffs was altered by a combination of out­ side influence and a local change in the structure of pro­ cessing fish. In this decade, the growing percentage of total landings attributable to the company-owned banking fleets led to an expansion of the processing capability of the firms themselves. At the same time, to protect their Southern European markets which were very sensitive with re­ spect to the quality of dried cod, the South Coast merchants began to collect a percentage of fish in salt bulk from pri­ vately owned or operated inshore craft and skiffs vhich had previously dealt only in dried fish. This most critical phase of processing could then be undertaken on company flakes manned by supervised hourly employees. 142

During this same period, South Coast fishermen working on skiffs seasonally operating on the Western Shore and in the vicinity of Cape Breton, became aware of a new system of di­ vision of shares in use aboard Nova Scotia skiffs, called 'fishing on the fifth'. Under this arrangement, no longer were crews divided among individuals on full or half shares. All fishermen were compensated equally, and the return to the owner consisted of his full share as a fisherman plus 20% of the gross stock before expenses (hence, 'on the fifth'). Each man then 'kept himself' by sharing the operating expen­ ses of the voyage and 'finding' his own trawl. The fish could be sold in an uncured state, either in Newfoundland or 'on the other side' (N. Sydney), and there remained no ob­ stacle to the replacement of the former shareman system on the basis of the shareman's inability to provide shoreside labor for the curing of the fish. The only advantage remain­ ing to the shareman under the original system was protection in the event of the total failure of a voyage in which case that fisherman would not find himself in debt for his portion of the grub and supplies. Apparently, the probability of this dismal a failure was sufficiently remote that it was not often considered in individual deliberations of former share­ men whether or not to fish 'on the fifth'. And it was essen­ tially upon their decision alone that the format of the di­ vision of shares was decided. Owner/skippers of skiffs were reluctant to agree to the new system but posessed little bar­ gaining power in what was largely a seller's market for labor. As a former shareman explained; 'What could they (the skip­ pers) do? They had to go along with it 'cause there was hun­ dreds of skiffs belonging to the other side what were looking 143

for Newfoundlanders to crew 'em. You could get a chance anywhere.' Because the Nova Scotia skippers and their mer­ chants were quite willing to advance a man a couple tubs of trawl against his future earnings, there was no difficulty for a former shareman to gain the necessary fit out to join a skiff crew fishing on the fifth. The South Coast skiff owners fishing on the Western Shore and Nova Scotia waters adjusted very quickly to the new division of shares and con­ tinued to fish under this apportionment when operating both 'to the west'ard' and in the vicinity of their own harbors. The share system of South Coast skiffs which did not so regularly (or at all) fish on the Western Shore or out of Nova Scotia ports, underwent a similar but not identical re­ adjustment . These fishermen were aware of the inroads of the 'on the fifth' system in the larger and more migratory skiffs, and many of the men had fished under the new arrange­ ment on other vessels. But in the case of the Ramea skiff fishermen, in particular, the 20% allotted for the skiff (the owner/skipper) was felt to be too much, and skippers were forced to accept no more than 5 to 10% of the gross stock for the skiff's share in order to attract or hold a crew. Former crewmen explained that no percentage had ever been taken for the skiff under the shareman system, and that it wasn't considered right for an owner to make more than any other man just because he happened to own the boat. The only visible return to major capital in the skiff fishery dur­ ing the shareman ear, with which I am familiar, consisted of the occasional practice of 'fishing lines' for the skiff. The fish taken off an extra line or two of trawl were earmarked (actually throat-marked) for the owner for the purpose of 144

offsetting an unusual expense (premature replacement of sails or assisting in the payment of the construction loan to the merchant ) . Of course, there was the more substantial, yet hid­ den return to capital in the form of half shares. With the replacement of the shareman system by 'fishing on the fifth' or a smaller percentage return to vessel owners on the South Coast, those funds which had always amounted to a return to major capital could not longer be confused with the amount due to the provisioner of vessel and crew, and supplier of shore facilities and labor. All fishermen received a full share and were responsible for the provision of their own food and trawl. And since the fish were sold to merchants either in salt bulk or fresh, the drying of the fish was no longer the responsibility of the owner and his family. The 5-20% of the gross stock allotted for the skiff owner in ad­ dition to his own share as a crewmember was then unmistakeab- ly a return to capital. Even the terminology was clear on this point. The percentage was the amount 'taken for the skiff'. When I pointed out to informants that fishermen on the larger mainland skiffs and those based on the Western Shore and Nova Scotia seemed to be satisfied with the new system, I was told that it was different in Ramea because in that community all the crews were composed of fishermen that 'belonged to the place1. Francois skiff owners, they main­ tained, could take more for their boats because they obtained their men from many settlements up and down the coast who would probably not fish on that skiff for any longer than a single season anyway. Ramea skippers did, in fact, rely sole­ ly upon island labor resources for their crews, and were 145

apparently constrained in the extraction of so high a per­ centage of the product of the labor of their friends and rel­ atives . But the reason for the dissatisfaction of Ramea crews with this switch to 'fishing on the fifth' lies deeper than affec­ tive constraints on the extraction of a return to capital. That this was a factor is not in doubt, but as a result of this redefinition of shares, there existed a potential for economic inequality between the two skiff fisheries that gave more substance to local fishermen complaints that twenty per­ cent was too much to take for the skiff. Calculation of loss to skiff owners as a result of the replacement of the share­ man system by fishing on the fifth demonstrates that the mag­ nitude of percentage loss, both of skipper/owner's total in­ come and of income accruing to ownership alone (due to share­ men 's half shares or 'skiff shares') is a function of, and varies inversely to, the proportion of full share fishermen to sharemen in any skiff crew. That proportion was deter­ mined primarily by the size of crew. While six men general­ ly formed the crew of migratory two-dory boats, the Ramea skiffs were smaller, both in size and in number of dories carried, because of their exploitation of local fishing grounds and relatively late participation in extensive mi­ gratory fishing. Three hands were carried aboard skiffs fishing only a single dory, and two-dory boats that did fish locally managed without the sixth hand who, on the migra­ tory skiffs, functioned as cook and spare fisherman. A comparison of owner/skipper income made between typically manned migratory and locally fishing skiffs under both sys­ tems of division of shares may be instructive. The loss of 146 income of migratory skipper/owners as a result of adoption of 'fishing on the fifth' amounts to 21.66% or 25% of stock (depending upon calculation of return to ownership alone, or of ownership and fishing labor combined). Small skiff own­ ers, on the other hand, would suffer a 13.33 - 20% reduction in their portion of the catch, considerably less than their migratory counterpart. And if a calculation is made of a percentage return to capital that would result in a compar- ible percentage loss of income to small skiff owners, that figure would be 8.33 - 11.67%. The resemblance of this lat­ ter figure to the usual 10% taken for Ramea skiffs is sig­ nificant. It shows that owners were not constrained in their efforts to adopt the 'on the fifth' arrangement after the demise of the shareman system only because of affective ties, but due to the perception by fishermen that a 20% allotment to capital would not adequately reimburse the crew (or pena­ lize the owner) in light of alterations in the economic structure of the fishery. DOMESTIC GROUP

The following description and analysis of the domestic group of Newfoundland's South coast is based upon informants' recollections of a cultural pattern that has been altered in several respects since the middle of the present century. This ethnohistorical course has been chosen to provide a regional basis for comparison to the ethnographic and eth­ nohistorical descriptions of traditional adaptations of oth­ er Newfoundland shores. The period described extends from the mid-nineteenth cent­ ury decline in the indentured wage system of the large Eng­ lish and Jersey fishing and mercantile firms that accompanied and stimulated the settlement of the Coast, to the mid-twen­ tieth century industrialization of the catching and process­ ing sectors of the fishing economy. During the interval of nearly one hundred years, or approximately two-thirds of the history of South Coast outport settlement, a cultural pattern evolved that was rooted in an organization of work character­ ized by short term familial and nonfamilial recruitment. It is the reflection of this adaptation within the structure and organization of the domestic group that constitutes the subject matter of the present discussion.

147 148

Regional Patterns

That the variety of Newfoundland culture as found along the South coast is somehow different in comparison to that of other areas of the Province, has been hinted at but not fully described or explained by ethnographers in the course of their development of other themes. For example, in the context of his discussion of the socio-cultural implications of widespread occurence of industrial disease within some communities of the Burin Peninsula, Leyton observes that the wives of dead or dying miners are little comforted by the fragmentary structure of kin and community; "... nor will her widowhood by buttressed by the support of the community, for the denuded kinship system of Newfoundland's South Coast creates households which are largely isolated from one anoth­ er" (1975:16). Chiaramonte, in some prefatory remarks to an analysis of South Coast contractual relationships, illustrates a similar pattern of household isolation and kinship insig­ nificance. In Deep Harbour, brothers and neighbors share no confidences in a millieu in which it is the shared opinion that; "A man doesn't have a friend here" (1970:12-13). Such accounts stand in sharp contrast to the ethnographic record for other coasts of the Island. From the Great North­ ern Peninsula to the Southern Shore are described adaptations structured about households of closely cooperative and econom­ ically interdependent agnatic kinsmen. Firestone finds that; "...the major feature of social structure in the Straits (of Belle Isle) is the patrilocal extended family" (1967:45) in which brothers continue to fish together until their own sons are of age. And in Savage Cove; "If a man dies leaving no 149 sons big enough to work his share, his brothers see that his wife and children are not in want" (1967:55). Of Northern Harbour on the Northeast Coast, Schwartz remarks; "Both trap crews and schooner crews, as well as contemporary longliner crews, have tended to form partly around an agnatic core. Thus a man will fish with some of his sons until retirement age, at which point the sons may continue to fish together until they, in turn, form crews with their own sons" (1974: 79). Britan, studying another northeastern community, St. Brendans, makes the same ethnohistorical observation; "Vil­ lages showed many similarities in their fishing adaptations, and economic activities all fit into a common pattern. Pro­ duction was organized around extended agnatic groupings" (1974:24). "The locus of social organization in the fishing was found in the 'crowd' ... an extended family ... whose in­ fluence permeated the economic and social life of the island" (1974:41). "The patrilocal extended family, or 'crowd' was made up of a man and his married and unmarried sons, or a group of brothers, who formed a common economic enterprise in fishing, agriculture, lumbering and consumption" (1974:42). Similarly, for Cat Harbour, Faris describes 'effective crowds' of predominately agnatic kinsmen which, as in other Northeast Coast settlements, constitute the primary productive unit (1972:65-67). Nemec too finds evidence of this terminology and its referent in the pre-World War II social structure of St. Shotts; "...clusters of viri-patrilocal nuclear house­ holds, each comprising an extended family, were recognized as discrete units and were referred to as 'crowds'" (1972:13). And for another community of the Southern Shore, he speaks of; "... entire male sibling sets representing patrilocal, 150 patrilineal extended families ... agnatic based crews ..." (1973:20). Perhaps Britan's encapsulation of the relation­ ship between economy and social structure can be said to be descriptive of these other coasts as well; "Its economy was organized around the family, not the individual" (Britan 1974:60). What is shared by the settlements of these coasts, in ad­ dition to a social structure marked by the presence of 'crowds' formed about cores of agnatic kinsmen, is an ex­ ploitative pattern which hinges upon the provision by these groups of the labor and capital requirements of the inshore cod trap and Labrador fisheries. Briefly, these requirements consisted of the joint effort of a trap skiff crew of approx­ imately four to five men who would 'tuck' (empty) and mend large stationary net traps set just off the shore in perm­ anent berths which were inherited patrilineally or drawn for by lot (Firestone 1967:89-92). The purchase and maintenance of equipment for this type of fishing entailed considerable capital outlay which could be more easily borne by a number of men, and which constituted a form of relatively impartible inheritance (Faris 1972:89). The manning and investment re­ quirements of the schooners used to transport Northeast Coast fishermen and their families to the seasonal Labrador trap fishery were equally selective in favor of long term coopera­ tive groups of kinsmen. 151

Fish, Boats, and Crews

It is at the level of exploitative pattern that the South Coast cultural configuration diverges most from the more characteristic Newfoundland adaptation. Local environmental and technological parameters, and corresponding elements of work organization were described in preceeding chapters. They are summarized here to highlight these regional differ­ ences and to outline the economic foundations upon which South Coast social structure was based. The primary resource of that economy has been, and contin­ ues to be, the fishery. This near total reliance, unexceeded in any other region of Newfoundland, exists not only because of the paucity of commercial or even subsistence quantitites of timber and agricultural land, but due to the advantages of a relatively ice free year round navigation season and winter concentrations of cod. Unlike the migratory stocks that range from inshore to off- lying banks of the Northeast Coast, Avalon, and Northern Pen­ insulas, the local cod populations of the South Coast do not desert inshore waters in winter and spring months. The fish remain close to land throughout the year, even in winter at a moderate depth (90-100 fathoms) as a result of the warming action of a remnant of the Labrador Current. This flow of water, warmed in its clockwise circumscription of the Grand Banks, recurves and flows westward along the South Coast pre­ venting the formation of a cold intermediate thermic level that on other coasts forces the cod to seek winter depths in excess of 140 fathoms which can be attained only at some dist­ ance from shore. At the same time, the force of the current 152 restricts the movement of drift ice out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence or allows it to proceed only in the direction of Cape Breton. It is this same hydrographic condition, reinforced by a warm northward flowing surface current generated by prevail­ ing wind patterns, that in summer months warms South Coast inshore waters to the point at which surface tenperatures are unsuitable for the beach spawning of caplin. The annual shoreward migration of this smelt-like bait fish leads vora­ cious post spawning cod to most Newfoundland and Labrador shores in such numbers that allows for a profitable, if spor­ adic, trap fishery. The submarine topography of the South Coast is also unique in that deep water extends very close to land, the hundred fathom curve seldom being more than a mile offshore, and in some locations no more than a stone's throw from the 'landwash' (foreshore). The combined effect of these environmental limitations, or constraints, is that cod are available to South Coast fishermen year round, in only moderately deep water near to shore, but in rather limited concentrations. The technological and work organizational response to these characteristics of the primary resource base has been the development of both inshore and offshore fishing capabil­ ities structured about the use of hook and line rather than net or trap. Inshore sailing and rowing punts, barques, and handline skiffs were employed up to about 1920, in which one or two hands (three at most in a large skiff) fished by means of handline. This method of fishing in which each man would tend one or two lines from the gunwhale of his craft required no joint effort, and in view of the fact that the perceived 153 environment was one of limited fish concentrations over spa­ tially restricted but dispersed grounds, the most efficient productive unit (hence ideal crew) was felt to be that of a lone fisherman. Only in winter months when weather conditions prescribed prescribed two strong backs to the sweeps, would a temporary pairing of adult men take place. For most of the fishing year in which wind and sea did not prevent a man from handling the two large sweeps by himself, he would fish singly or with one of his adolescent sons. The introduction of the engine and trawl did not modify inshore work organiza­ tion significantly. The gear was either used in a manner that mimicked earlier deepwater handlining technique, or in a fash­ ion in which the advantages of a two-man crew for fishing were offset by the greater year round mobility presented to the engine equipped crosshanded fisherman. The size of offshore vessel crews varied between the 3-5 men of a one or two dory skiff, to the 28 men of the largest twelve dory schooners of the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia banking fleets. Recruitment to skiffs was, in part, familial, a core crew being formed of two or more agnatic kinsmen (fa­ thers and sons, or brothers). But the remainder of skiff crewmen as well as the schooner complements were taken on a more temporary basis, the extent of maximal commitment being that of only a single voyage. Posessing either no gear at all (a shareman) or only his portion of the total number of lines to be fished by the vessel, each offshore fisherman, as his inshore counterpart, had great mobility. Presented with a 'better chance' on another skiff or schooner, or de­ siring to return to inshore fishing, a fisherman had only to gather together his few personal belongings, and in some 154 cases, a tub or two of trawl. If the position vacated was not just as readily filled by another individual, the boat could continue to fish just as before. And except for a few instances of joint ownership of skiffs, neither did there ex­ ist any system of relatively indivisible rights with respect to major items of capital equipment. Schooners were owned solely by merchants, and inshore punts and dories were of a size that did not require joint ownership. Either all profit accrued to a single merchant who owned all shares (schooners), or not provision at all was made for a return to capital (in­ shore craft). Therefore, the exploitative pattern of the South Coast with respect to environment and technology was one which did not encourage, and in fact discouraged, long term association of units of labor and capital. A fisherman and his gear formed what was essentially a modular productive unit, a char­ acteristic of local work organization that is reflected in the structure of the domestic group.

Developmental Cycle of the Domestic Group

Due to the age patterned involvement of nearly every male in both the inshore and offshore fisheries, an examination of the domestic group can be profitably approached through a model which considers the cyclical nature of the developmental process of this unit of social organization. The importance of this particular temporal perspective has not been lost on previous investigators of Newfoundland culture. Both Faris (1972) and Nemec (1972) make use of the concept, and most 155 analysts of outport social organization deal with the eventu­ al fissioning of productive teams of advanced age in the es­ tablishment of structural replicates of younger constituency. But in the following presentation of the development cycle of the South Coast domestic group it will become obvious that what occurs is not a similar process of fission of corporate groups, but a serial replacement of siblings in the constitu­ tion of familial crews. A boy's introduction to a working life afloat came at an early age, a youth of eight or nine being considered (at least by his father) to be of sufficient size and agility to be trusted aboard a dory or skiff in late spring and summer months. In fine weather he would be taken to the handy ground for a day's handlining or jigging, and although he would fill no permanently structured crew position nor be assigned any essential tasks, the experience consisted of more than a childhood lark. For the father it marked a significant step in the commencement or continuity of years of relative pros­ perity; for the son a period of preparation for future as­ sumption of economic responsibility. It was play in ernest. If inexperience or seasickness limited the boy's ability or desire to take part in the day's work, a single handline would nevertheless be baited and set for him to fish. And as fishing and semanship skills were achieved he would be expect­ ed to cut bait, tend dory painters, bait trawl and assume oth­ er accessory functions. To encourage a young fisherman to become 'interested' in the work, a personality trait believed to be a substantial as­ set toward the achievement of success within a competitive oc­ cupation, he was permitted to claim (if only temporarily) the 156

fruits of his individual labors. If handlining, the throats of the fish caught by the boy were slashed to distinguish them from the rest of the catch and to allow a separate day's tal­ ly at the stagehead, visible and numerical proof both of his ability and of his contribution. When fishing trawl, an ad­ ditional line or two would occasionally be set at the end of a string of gear. The fish taken from these would belong to the boy and were similarly marked. From the practice is de­ rived the term 'cut-throat' referring to a very young fisher­ man. In some instances the tails of the same fish would be notched at the splitting table so that there might be a cum­ ulative record of a boy's summer achievement. But the exer­ cise was one that returned to the young worker more honor than substance. Even should the boy's fish be tallied sep­ arately at the end of the season, the entire catch would be credited to the account of the father. The youth may or may not be given the privilege of 'taking up' or consuming the value of his portion of the catch. If allowed, however, he was restricted to purchases of such necessaries of personal clothing that would have been otherwise provided by his fath­ er. Or, with the proceeds of the fish, he might be permitted to make some useful gift to the household, some flour perhaps, or a sack of potatoes. One fisherman recalls his days as cut-throat; 'Well, my brother and me wanted some fish, so he cut a notch in the tails of the fish we caught. This is when we got big enough to want to buy something. We got all the fish we caught then (laughing) but we couldn't spend in on anything we wanted. No sir, we'd get a piece of clothes or something like that; and if we had anything left, then 157 we'd get a barrel of coal or something like that. It was the same thing as if I hadn't got nothing for my fish. Nothing wrong with it though. It was the same thing at Christmas time; you wanted a few dollars to spend on presents, he'd give you that.' Following this period of casual and intermittent assistance to the father, a son would eventually be removed from school and his mother's supervision to fish full time. Although the age of the boy at the time of this transition was determined in part by several intrinsic factors (strength, maturity, in­ terest), situational variables also affected the father's de­ cision as to when to take the boy 'in dory'. The following account demonstrates; 'I was only eight when my father car­ ried me in dory. My mother didn't want me to go. I can re­ member that. But my brother had left to go on the schooners and my father needed somebody. He wan't much good crosshand­ ed. Had a weak arm. I remember that I was only big enough to row with one paddle and that I used to pull just on that one side, his weak side. I suppose I was a little help.' 'Was fourteen when I first went at it. My father was fish­ ing with Charlie Young in motor dory then, but fish was scarce on the shore and Charlie got a chance on a dragger. He went on that same day and my father was left with tubs of baited gear. I went with him the next morning to set it out and stayed with him then until I left for the Lakes myself.' Such an arrangement was not disagreeable to a schoolboy anxious to join the ranks of men. But likely not yet in his teens, the youth would not always be expected to take a man's share of the day's work. Even adolescents might be left a- shore in winter months when weather conditions required the 158

strength, endurance, and experience of seasoned hands, there­ by occasioning the temporary pairing of otherwise unassisted adult men of the community. Gradually, the'boy would assume year round responsibility as his father's coworker or dory mate. However, with this graduation to the working world of men came no regular or proportionate reward. A father would con­ tinue to'keep'his working son, providing food, clothing, and shelter, beyond which compensation a young man would have to trust to the generosity of his parents. Not until he had at­ tained the age of twenty one (and in later years; eighteen) would a man be given 'half his hand' or 'half share', a per­ centage calculation based upon the total fishing return in the amount of one half of a full and equal share. In the case of a two-man crew, this would consist of one quarter of the joint landings. Remaining with his father, a man could not expect a full share until marriage. At the time of that union, should the son bring his wife to his father's home until the completion of his own house (which construction began before or immediate­ ly following the marriage), a division of households was ef­ fected even in the absence of a physical separation of resi­ dence. Although still fishing together, a father and mar­ ried son would then 'find' their gear separately and 'deal to' their merchant(s) individually concerning their respective ac­ counts. Similarly, the wives would 'take up' (purchase), stock, and prepare foodstuffs separately. In many instances the division of hearth was evidenced by the provision of two distinct eating tables. Each family 'kept itself', an eco­ nomic apportionment and social organizational principle quite 159 unlike that reported for Savage Cove where; "In the past there were many extended families that had no household accounts. There was but the company account and to this were charged all the food, clothing and other articles purchased by the father for the group, as well as the fishing supplies" (Firestone 1967:48). Only in the case of the youngest or only son would this bifurcation of jointly fishing households not take place. The ideal pattern of inheritance was that of ultimogeniture, the youngest son, regardless of marital status, being expect­ ed to continue fishing with the father until the death or re­ tirement of that senior partner. And it was a partnership in that there occured no division of shares at any age, the younger couple gradually assuming responsibility and authori­ ty formerly held by the husband's parents. Reflecting the minimal size, importance, and value of gardens, land, and fishing equipment, the youngest son's reward was understood to consist primarily of the house. Informants' response to questions of inheritance were invariably phrased as; 'The youngest gets the house', the disposition of other goods hard­ ly meriting comment. Only if some money remained to the es­ tate would there by an equal division among all surviving sons and daughters. If the father died before his youngest son was of fishing age, the house, though under the effective control of the surviving spouse, would be said to belong to the boy. Fishing gear and the most substantial item of cap­ ital equipment, the boat or dory, would not, however, be re­ served in like manner for the future use of that principle heir. It could be claimed by any son that had been fishing with the father at the time of that senior partner's death. 160

Most boys and even some youngest sons did not fish so long with their fathers, the large size of families usually providing in serial fashion several juvenile male fishing assistants, each in turn replacing the next older brother until the youngest was taken in dory. The recollection of a fisherman from Cape La Hune is typical for others of the Coast; 'I'll tell you what we used to do - that is our fam­ ily - when the boys were growing up. When a boy would be getting up big enough for to take a share, he'd move on somewhere else. You'd left then, that's it, and another one would take over. Like with the poor old man, he had four or five sons see, and when one son got old enough, eighteen or twenty years old, he'd used to left the old man and a younger brother would start out.' Depending upon the maturity of the displaced boy and the age profile of his younger brothers, several solutions might be employed in response to the problem posed by the limited capability of inshore craft, gear, and grounds to efficiently utilize additional units of labor. If the sons were closely spaced in years the opportunity might warrant the construction and use of another boat or dory. In this craft the older, physically capable yet immature, youth would fish with his younger and less experienced brother while the father would carry in dory an even younger son who might have otherwise had a year or two more ashore. Or the displaced boy might be strong enough to handle a boat on his own and would fish an additional string of moored gear, or handline from his father's rode. Another arrangement in the event of a somewhat premature re­ placement of sons consisted of the practice of younger boys 161 being taken on as ^Bremen by relatives or neighbors in their own or nearby communities. This was sometimes the fate of a middle son whose slightly older brother was only just begin­ ning to be of substantial help to their father, who would be reluctant to replace with an inexperienced cut-throat, a now valuable assistant so soon after the period of his appren­ ticeship. An adult fisherman would be anxious for the help having either no sons of his own or only sons who had grown and left him (the responsibility of the youngest son was not always met or could be postponed for several years). Because of his need of assistance, the adult fisherman would be will­ ing to compensate the boy, or the boy's father, with a half share of the catch. Here the youth would be in much the same economic position as he had held (or would have held) while fishing with his father. Although the half share might be given a bit earlier than in his natal household, if under­ age, his credit (or fish) would be transferred to his father's account. Except for this transfer of credit, the arrangement was quite similar to that of the domestic group. The boy would take all his meals at the house of his new skipper and in many instances slept there as well even if his own house was only across the path. His parents would continue to find his clothes and incidentals. These inshore sharemen sometimes even continued to fish with childless skippers for an extend­ ed period of time beyond adolescence as would a youngest son, but with a more definite share in the partnership. And, if the younger man remained with the couple until their death, the house would be his. The practice of using inshore sharemen was even more com­ mon in instances in whididue to the death of one or both 162

parents, or extreme poverty of a couple, children were 'put out' or informally adopted by relatives, friends, or strang­ ers. Lacking the economic support of a corporate extended family, a young widow was especially hard pressed to provide minimal care for a number of children through government as­ sistance. A widower of the same age was more capable of clothing and feeding the children but still required assist­ ance in the management of the household. This latter dif­ ficulty could sometimes be met through the employment of a housekeeper or 'servant girl' who, for little more than her own keep, would attend to the domestic responsibilities of the home. Perhaps a widow herself, this arrangement often became more permanent by marriage. In either case, the sur­ viving parent or destitute couple could arrange for the child­ ren to be raised under their own surname by other families of the Coast. As painful and embarrasing a decision as it ap­ pears to have been to 'put out' one or more children, there was little difficulty in finding foster homes, especially for the boys, who, it was felt, would suffer less than their sis­ ters as a result of maternal separation, and were, or would soon become an economic asset to the foster family. Once a- gain the opportunity was presented to a childless couple to acquire both a future fishing assistant and, potentially, a source of comfort in later years. At the conclusion of the nineteenth century and in the first few decades of the twentieth, a combination of several technological innovations (trawl, engines) created problems of inshore grounds overcrowding. At the same time, these im­ provements in fishing gear and propulsion contributed to the increased availability of 'chances', or positions, on offshore 163

and hearshore vessels made possible by the development of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia's banking fleets. As a result, older boys and young men, displaced from their fathers' boats (and households) without the experience,capital, or credit to fish locally crosshanded, were more likely to look beyond the community for employment. No longer were outside opportuni­ ties limited only to summer coasting, winter schooner fish­ ing, and shipping on foreign going three masters. But wheth­ er a berth was located aboard these vessels or on one of the growing number of bankers and skiffs, the opportunity offered in each case the advantage of travel and an income potential far greater than the half share or no share available to them in their home communities. And positions aboard schooners from 'the other side' (Nova Scotia) and the 'Boston States' (New England) paid off more promptly and in cash, doubly at­ tractive in a predominately credit economy. This motivation and the age structure of Newfoundland recruits to American fishing schooners is commented upon by the Gloucester collect­ or of customs; "For some years there has been a larger imma- gration of male adults coming from the Province to engage in the fisheries of Gloucester. They are mostly young men and unmarried ... the prompt settlement and payment in cash for their fares obtained instead of payment in goods, & c., which is the usual manner of payment to fishermen at other places ... conspire to draw the ambitious young seamen from the Pro­ vinces" (Goode 1887:14). Some remained, but for many the im­ migration was not of a permanent nature. "A great many fish­ ermen are every year shipped by American vessels in their provincial seaports, and a considerable portion of these men, though yearly making up a part of the crews of our fishing 164 fleet, never became residents of the United States" (Goode 1887:17). The pull of external sources of income and adventure com­ bined with the push of uncompensated inshore fishing created a pattern of temporary and seasonal outside employment. The economic factor is summed up in the remarks of this fisher­ man; 'A young man left 'cause he wasn't gettin' nothin' out of it anyway; so he'd go on his own livelihood and make money for himself. If you wanted to leave earlier, the old man wouldn't let you go. Not until you got up to age.' A practice of necessity became a structural pattern rein­ forced by a positive cultural value. The replacement in dory by a younger brother was not regretted by the older boy who was usually quite anxious to leave home and 'beat about' or 'knock around' for a period of years. Many youths (even youngest sons) would leave their fathers before it became nec­ essary and in spite of protestations. A man, formerly of Cape La Hune, recalls his departure; 'No, that's what he didn't want to see me go. But it was no good for him to try to keep me home; I was goin' and that was it. He knew it. He had beat about some himself. There was a crowd goin' up on the Western Shore that winter and they wanted me to come with 'em. I wasn't gettin' nothin' with the old man, only what he had a mind to give me. No, I was tired of it; wanted a change.' Even the working careers of sons of skiff owners were no ex­ ception to the pattern. As one recalls; 'I got my first dol­ lar when I went on a three mast schooner to Oporto. I wanted a change. He didn't want me to leave, but I was going to leave anyway. It was time to leave, I wasn't seein' nara dol­ lar. On the schooner I got $35 a month. I thought it was so 165

grand that I stayed at it for two years straight.' Although the reduction in the age requirement from twenty- one to eighteen for the claiming of a half share was undoubt­ edly a patterned response to counteract the attraction of in­ creasing opportunities in offshore fishing in the second quarter of the century, no informant can recall any instance of an early half share or a full share being given to entice a young man to remain in dory with his father. A retired fisherman/woodsman from Grey River explains; 'In River we mostly built boats - punts and those big skiffs - and if a boy would help his father he wouldn't get nothin'. It was the same for fishing. Well, there was nothin' to give, cer­ tainly; so he'd have to leave his father if he wanted to get somethin'. A stranger would have to give the boy somethin' to get him to come fish with him, but a man would never give his own boy a share to keep him fishin' with him (the father) instead of leavin' him. No sir. He'd sooner go crosshanded. Although it seems that at one time a father crould claim the earnings of an adolescent son working away (the transfer of fish or credit being facilitated in this instance by a boy's employment on a skiff or schooner owned by the same merchant as was 'dealed to' by the father), it appears not to have occured too often, at least within memory of older in­ formants. As a rule, no claim would be made against such earnings on the principle that the boy was keeping himself, and if not contributing regularly to the household, was not constituting a drain while away at sea either. He would be expected to make occasional gifts to his parents, however, and to help out with the purchase of coal or food when home between berths or seasons. 166

No fortunes were made in these years of 'knocking around', but the savings attributable to minimal financial responsibil­ ity and the better price of fish 'on the other side', enabled single or recently married men to purchase dories (locally built or from Nova Scotia), engines, trawl, the necessary cap­ ital for the establishment of an inshore fishing operation. The difficulty of obtaining a motor dory from the returns of the inshore fishery alone is expressed by this fisherman; 'You'd have to try to save up for a motor dory in those times - no credit. Well, what used to happen then, if you'd catch fish enough, and if they (merchant) owed you enough, they'd get a dory for you - that's the only way. There was no money to give out. My father used to go on the coasters though, and even fished out of Gloucester one year. That's how he got a dollar in his pocket.' The practice of funding inshore fishing equipment through offshore earnings seems not to have been peculiar to Newfoundland. Speaking of the nearby 'French Islands', Christian suggests that; "The St. Pierre sailor on a schooner was probably a younger man who regarded the job as a way to earn enough money to buy his own dory’’ (1969:15). The opportunity for greater earnings and the subsequent ac­ cumulation or improvement of inshore dories and gear led even youngest sons to leave their homes for a time; 'I was the only son so I never did much beatin' about. I didn't want to leave my father crosshanded. But I did get in one year on a Gaultois schooner. Had a very good year too. I was able to buy myself a motor dory which we then fished in together after that until he died.' At first fishing at home with the equipment only at seasonal intervals while awaiting the fit out of offshore vessels, most men would eventually give up beating about and 167

settle down to fishing once again year round 'out of harbor'. Marriage and children had a great deal to do with an indi­ vidual's deliberation concerning a return to shorefishing. But if the decision was postponed for several years after the establishment of a family, the coming of age of a man's sons was a strong inducement to fish inshore. By making use of a temporary domestic labor force, past debts could be re­ paid and perhaps even a surplus achieved. An apocryphal story is that of a father who, having put his boys out when they were young, attempts to get them back in their adolescence so that he may 'get something out of them'. Another twice-told tale related to illustrate the harshness of local merchants, also reveals a glimpse of the economic viability of this stage of the domestic developmental cycle.

There was Uncle Billy Green. Now he was a man who lived in Eastern Cue d'Soc and I don't know how many sons he had. He had a lot of children though, nine or ten of 'em in family. He used to deal to Mr. Webb. Well by and by he got his family and when they was all small he couldn't get nothin' (from the merchant). No credit see, cause they was so many. So he went up this time to settle-up in September, and because he had this big crowd Mr. Webb wouldn't give him nothin'. Turned off, certainly? and he had to go back with empty hands. Now they was so bad off at this time that they had made knives out of galvanized hoops - they was bad enough for that. So he went up this time to settle-up and Bil­ ly Webb wouldn't let him have nothin' to carry down to his family. And when he was walkin' out of the shop (he said)'Ahhh Billy, I'll see the day yet when I'll let you have some flour.' So after his sons got qrowed up and he got goin' - I mean he got a bit ahead - 168

there was a winter when the ocean froze up. Wasn't a sup of water to see nowhere over the ocean. Now them people in them places down there like Eastern Cue d'Soc when they got far enough ahead, they could buy in their winter's grub from the merchant, from Billy Webb. Not on credit, see. His (Billy Green's) boys had got up and he was far enough ahead to buy in enough so that they wouldn't have to come up to Recontre 'cause that was six miles. So the ocean froze up that time and nobody couldn't get nothin' (no freight moving along the coast). The people (in Recontre) ate up all the flour that the merchant had an needed more. And do you know that's when Billy Webb came down to Cue d'Soc to get some flour from this man what told him he'd see the day that he'd let him have some.' There were very few instances of fishermen of the 'older race' who continued to 'beat about' for the greatest part of their working lives. Two cases I am familiar with involve foreign going seamen, one an unmarried skipper and the other a childless deckhand. I am unaware of any cases in which a fisherman would return to 'knocking about' after his sons had grown and left him. Even if the youngest son chose not to remain fishing with the father out of harbor, that man might be able to find a partner in a young shareman or a boy being 'put out', themselves looking for a skipper. To summarize, the social organization of the South Coast was one in which there existed very little economic inter­ dependence of households, agnatically related or otherwise. The exploitative pattern was predominately one of singlehanded or two-man inshore fishing and company owned offshore bankers. Unlike the inshore trap or Labrador migratory fisheries of the 169

Northeast Coast, Northern Peninsula, and Southern Shore, the economic system did not encourage the use of family owned, relatively impartible capital equipment, not did it require long term labor commitment to any productive unit. With the exception of agnatic core crews of larger skiffs and inshore pairing of fathers and youngest sons, each crew consisted of men fishing singly or in occasional partnerships with related or unrelated household heads. Only during that interval be­ tween the childhood recreation of a 'cut-throat' and the eventual departure of a young man eager to strike out on his own, could a father take advantage of the labor contribution of his sons. Both the ease of obtaining and replacing gear, and the nonproportional return to the cooperative use of such capital equipment, made it unnecessary and unprofitable for older sons to fish jointly among themselves or with their father. And once brothers returned to fish out of harbor crosshanded or with their own sons, the economic relation­ ship between them, as between all fishermen, was marked by the competitive nature of an open access fishery of limited extent. To return once again to the comparison drawn earlier, it has been shown that the developmental cycle of South Coast work organization is quite unlike that described for other coasts. What is important to realize is that for most tra­ ditional Newfoundland fisheries, regardless of the age com­ position of the productive unit, the structure of crews was nearly identical and that most men fished within the organi­ zational framework of agnatic groupoing their entire working lives, either as junior or senior partners. On the South Coast, the crew structures were numerous and were themselves 170 altered though the development of individual fishing careers. A multiplicity of arrangements were found from crosshanded inshore dory fishing, to a father and son team, the more temporary association of 'strangers' or nonrelatives, and the ephemeral composition of offshore crews. This type of work organization did not require long term cooperation among siblings, neighbors, and even fathers and sons. Partnerships were relatively brief and fragile. Es­ sentially, each man fished on his own account regardless of who he might be in dory with at the time. To rever$ Britan's earlier statement concerning the relationship between economy and social organization on the Northeast Coast, the South Coast economy was organized around the individual and not the family* In this perspective, all men, and their house­ holds, were crosshanded. MERCHANT RELATIONS

To the Trawler Fishermen of Ramea

Although I have not been here, I have been following very closely what has been happening in the fishing industry in Newfoundland, and in Canada in general. And now that I am home, I have heard a few more things which disturb me, which is why I am writing you this letter today.

As you all must realize, I am as pleased as anyone to hear of the twenty million dollars promised by Government to aid the fisher­ ies on the East coast of Canada, and I am also pleased that the Provincial Government is stepping in to provide further assistance and guarantees to trawler fisher­ men and shore fishermen.

What disturbs me, however, is the completely mistaken understanding that some fishermen may have - that they MUST join the Fishermen's Un­ ion in order to gain from any of these benefits. The money which is being given by both the Federal and the Provincial Governments is being given to every fisherman in Newfoundland, irrespective of whether he is a member of a union or not.

171 Mr. cashin is trying to give the fishermen the impression that HE is providing the money, and more­ over that, if you do not join his union, you will not receive any benefits from the Government Pro­ grams. This is an outright LIE. I have checked this point personal­ ly with the Federal and Provincial Governments, and you will receive the same amount as every trawler crewman in Newfoundland, whether you join Mr. Cashin's union or not.

We all realize that you are perfect­ ly free to join a union if you so wish, and there is nothing we can or would do to stop you. All I want you to know is that you do not HAVE to - and moreover, if you look back over the past sev­ eral years, the fishermen who are unionized are the ones who have been tied up and unable to fish, and who have lost out in the long run. This means also that shore workers and the communities concerned have all suffered.

I cannot tell you what to do, if you attend the meeting in Burgeo on Sat­ urday. You must do what you think is right. However I do feel an obli­ gation to let you know the true facts, as I do not want to see Ramea torn a- part by the effects of Mr. Cashin's union - and I do not want to see broth­ ers against brothers, and families a- gainst families here in this peaceful town.

Before closing, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you once again the very best of everything in 1S75 - Health, Prosperity, and Peace to you and 173

all of your families.

Sincerely,

JOHN PENNY AND SONS, LTD

Margaret S. Lake, President

December 24, 1974

A fisherman is one rogue, a merchant is many. Ramea fisherman

Prior to beginning my period of residence on the Island, I met in St. John's with officers of the fishermen's union. One had spent three months at Burgeo organizing the 1971 strike. He had visited Ramea several times but never for any length of time. The residents made it very clear to him that they had little use for him or for anyone else con­ nected with the union, and that it would be best for him to leave the Island on the next ferry. In discussing the South Coast, and Ramea in particular, the union men suggested that the resistance to unionization rested in the loyalty the residents felt toward the merchant family. An anecdote was told of a Burgeo man who, on the or­ der of the merchant, steadfastly held onto the painter of a dory being used to walk supplies up Grey River to the merchant 174 family's hunting camp. The current caught the dory, shearing it into deeper water. But rather than release the dory, the employee held fast, was also swept into the river, and drowned. In the opinion of the union officers, loyalty to the mer­ chant is not just a calculated response to the lack of any alternative source of livelihood, but entails a deeply felt sense of obligation and commitment to the merchant family. From this preliminary interview, and a reading of news­ paper items and journalist accounts of the Burgeo Strike and Ramea stronghold of the merchant, my expectation was that the strong resistance to unionization evidenced in Ramea would prove to be the result of a continuation of the traditional pattern of patronage and paternalism so frequently described for Newfoundland. What I discovered is that although this characterization of the relationship between contemporary owners and workers is not inaccurate, my notion of the di­ rection or tendency of the changing nature of the relation­ ship was incorrect. The history of labor/management (fisher­ man/merchant) relations on the South Coast does not read as the gradual deterioration of a formerly feudal arrangement. Nor can the recent situation in Ramea be understood simply as an anachronism or survival of that era. The economy of the South Coast has undergone considerable change since Con­ federation, and likewise the role of the merchant vis a vis the fishermen and workers. 175

South Coast Economy

The South Coast economy, like that of the rest of New­ foundland, was structured about a singular marketing ar­ rangement which greatly affected patterns of production as well as consumption. Outport mercantilism consisted of the combination of several interrelated elements; a) a personal commercial attachment between merchant and fisherman, which was b) based upon allocation of credit, and entailed c) ex­ change in kind rather than by means of cash. Even prior to the development of the dyadic relationship of merchant to 'independent' producer which was characteristic for the greater part of South Coast economic history, and during that period in which the Jersey and English firms maintained large establishments along the Coast, at least one of these elements was already present. Although wages were paid to company employees (at least to those who worked ashore), the operation of a monopolistic credit system is in evidence. An observer of the outport economy of Burgeo in 1848 writes;

Most of the fishermen belonging to the settlement were hired by one or the other of the above mentioned houses (Newman, Nicolle), and they received 4s.6d. for every hundred fish delivered; but unfortunately, they are dependent upon the employ­ ers for their supply, not only of the boats, nets, clothes, and other articles, but also for their food - so that by what I could ascertain I fear that a very pernicious system of usury is prosecuted. If this should continue the merchants may be enriched, but the settlers will certainly never improve in 176

civilization or prosperity (Journal of the Legislative Assembly 1849:188).

Following the decline of the large overseas firms, a fish­ erman would enter into agreement with a single merchant to trade his fish solely with that party in the coming year in return for an advanced'fit out' of winter's provisions and supplies. Merchants would periodically collect dried fish from each of their clients and continue to provide goods on a credit basis to those fishermen with whom they carried an account, through local shops or by means of schooners known as 'traders'. On several specified days each fall, a period which at one time marked the conclusion not only of the fis­ cal year, but of the fish processing and fishing year as well, a 'settling up' occured in which each fisherman appeared be­ fore his merchant for a reckoning of his account. Keeping no records of his own, a fisherman was not assured before­ hand of the result of the meeting, and could only await the verdict of the merchant who would at this time inform his client as to the tendency and magnitude of the balance of the account. As one man recalls settling up time; 'You might owe him $50, or he could owe you $50. But I can tell you that it wasn't too often anybody (fishermen) ended up ahead. Most times they (merchants) told you, you was square, and you were glad to hear it.' If a fisherman ended the year without being in debt (square), or much less often, money ahead, he would likely be invited to deal with that merchant again in the coming year, and would be permitted to 'take up' or purchase on his newly established credit, some food and supplies. Those in­ dividuals whose accounts showed them to be in debt at the 177

conclusion of the season might not be extended credit for the winter, and were said to have been 'turned off1. 'It was run on a twelve month basis. If you settled-up in fall and didn't pay your account, well, that's it, you was turned off. You couldn't get nothin' else from them no more then. Not 'til you got that paid back. That was it then. You had to go on the dole, or go to another merchant.' That latter merchant, however, was not ignorant of the circumstances that forced an individual to seek economic support in other quarters. And if he was agreeable at all to dealing with a fisherman that had been turned off by another merchant, he would do so in a manner that was even more strict than that which characterized the disposition of credit to clients having a better productive history. With the excep­ tion of the schooner fishery, in which the men's shares were determined not by individual effort (except in the aggregate), but according to the success of the vessel, the allocation of credit to fishermen and their families followed no strict formula, but reflected the merchant's personal appraisal of a client's current productivity, and confidence in his pro­ jected landings. During and following the depression years, merchants could be even more circumspect in their bestowal of credit, and were able to further reduce their risk by turning off more fishermen over the winter months. These fishermen lack­ ing credit were not totally without income, however, in that they could directly barter their winter's fish, either fresh or in salt-bulk, to obtain necessities. The arrangement was more favorable to the merchants in that, although it allowed families lacking credit to readily convert unprocessed fish 178 into commodities, it cost them (the fishermen) additional value that the fish would have brought if traded in a dried state. It did allow the fishermen to survive the winter without 'going on the dole' and enabled them to repay past debts that had occasioned their loss of credit. It availed them at their first opportunity to regain the sponsorship of a merchant so that they might benefit from the additional in­ come attributed to the household processing (salting and dry­ ing) of fish. Szwed stresses the persistence of individual merchant- client relationships in the Codroy Valley (Southwest New­ foundland), suggesting that practical difficulties of disen­ tangling and discharging debts tended to discourage the dis­ solution of such ties, and that; "... the accounting was quite secondary and more a symbol of the necessity of the relation­ ship than a determinant of it" (1966:43). Wadel concurs with Szwed in the minimal importance attributed to the current balance of individual accounts; "If the catch was bad, the fisherman would be in debt and the merchant would normally 'carry' him; that is, supply him with the basic necessities over the winter, relying on the fish of subsequent years to make up the balance" (1973:3). In Wadel's view, the econom­ ic system is considered to be functional in that it: "... gave some security to the fisherman, the merchant acting as buffer between him and the fluctuating world markets for fish" (1973: 3). 'It is not disputed that the merchant-client relationship was one which carried more meaning in terms of trust and pro­ tection than simply that of an ephemeral economic transaction, and that the system as a whole was adaptive to a marginally 179

productive economy dependent upon a fluctuating market. And it is quite possible that this aspect of merchant-client re­ lations was most pronounced in those portions of Newfoundland in whic the fishery was dependent on the seasonal glut of caplin feeding cod. On these coasts, seasons failed more than individual fishermen, and merchants had little choice but to continue support of their clients following a bad year. Yet it appears that, at least for the South Coast, the merchant-client relationship was one which did not carry such guarantee of permanence. The ties might be broken after only one year of 'falling behind', and many stories are told of men being turned off for being only a few dol­ lars in debt. To be turned off, at least over the winter months, was also not so rare an occurence. The same merchant may or may not fit out an individual in the spring, but at least for a period of the year, many relied upon a combination of the dole and direct (in a temporal sense) barter. And the practice of 'putting out' children as a result of the lack of mercantile sponsorship attests to the qualified nature of the ties existing between producer and merchant. It was not, therefore, a foregone conclusion that fishermen would automatically receive a merchant's continued support. Continuance of a credit relationship was problemat­ ic and depended upon such factors as the proportion of pro­ ductive to consuming members of a household (a man with a large family of young children was a poor risk), and the relative productivity of a fisherman in comparison to his peers. 180

Szwed is correct in his claim that the redistributive na­ ture of the credit system tended to average income (1966:52), but there did not occur on the South Coast a corresponding leveling of production or productive effort. Competition between fishermen was not diminished by outport mercantilism, but heightened in that the productivity of each man's neigh­ bor was the measure of his own. A former fisherman explains; 'Everybody had an account then, and was fitted out by a mer­ chant. And if you was cornin' in day after day with nothing, and buddy was gettin' fish, and you owed that man (merchant) money, he was wondering why. The merchant was watching you. This was the people's biggest worry. They wanted to get so much as the next fellow so they'd have a better chance next year.' Another informant gives the same reason for a prac­ tice of considerable time depth, and one which I observed myself several times. 'If one fellow went fishing in Cue d' Soc, they all went at it. I think it's 'cause they figured out that the merchant would be watching them.' A pattern of behavior exhibited at settling-up time also demonstrated both the tenuousness of merchant-client ties and the competitive nature of the fishing economy. On the day in which the men of a community would be settling-up with their merchants, wives and children would watch apprehensive­ ly for the return of the household heads. If a man had been given credit for the following year, he would, before depart­ ing for home, take up a portion of his winter provisions al­ though the bulk would be transported soon after by a trader (schooner). Loaded aboard his dory, the weight of the sup­ plies taken immediately would, like a load of fish, convey a message of success to his family and neighbors even before 181 he reached his stagehead. Similarly, a man not turned off by a local merchant would be sure to bring home in his hands, and in full sight of the community, a box of hooks or some suds lines, a sign of his competence as a provider. On the other hand, a light dory or a 'hung head' and empty hands meant a winter on the dole and the stigma which this form of dependence carried for the unfortunate or improvident fisherman and his family. An element of distrust between South Coast merchant and client was inherent in the relationship due to the multi­ plicity of occasional marketing outlets for fish. As the source of bait (principally herring) and fresh water closest to the Grand Banks, the South Coast was frequented through­ out the 19th century by foreign fishing schooners; first the French, and later by the Americans and Nova Scotians whose baiting requirements were greatly increased in the latter part of the century with the adoption of the bultow (trawl). Either prevented by law from taking bait on their own, or finding it more convenient to obtain a supply from Newfound­ landers, schooner captains dealt directly with the inshore fishermen and paid them in cash for their herring. Although merchants did not deal in the bait trade themselves (except as producers, in supply of the same schooners), they did not approve of this commerce as it subverted the attention of their clients from the primary fishery for cod in which they (the merchants) did have considerable interest due to outlay of credit and claim on landings. Days spent in procuring bait amounted to time lost to the codfishery. And herring was not the only item of exchange in this sup­ plementary economy, dried cod was also bartered or sold to the 182

schooners. Speaking of the resident fishermen of Great Jervis in 1871, fishery inspection officer Captain Mallolm of H.M.S. Danae notes; "...and I have no doubt sold them part of the fish comprising their cargoes; they thus get money; had they given them (fish) to the merchants, they would only have served to pay up arrears of old debts" (Journal of the Leg­ islative Assembly 18 72:174). Some vessels visited the coast specifically to trade for cod on a cash or barter basis. A- nother inspection officer observes;

I believe a very considerable amount of illegal trading to be carried on along the South Coast by Nova Scotians, and American vessels, not entering at the Customs House for the District, by which the Colony is defrauded of con­ siderable revenue, and the Merchants of the fish to which they are entitled, af­ ter supplying the people with the outfit to enable them to prosecute the fishery; and a very demoralizing system conse­ quently arrives on both sides - the Merchants chagrin largely to cover bad debts, and the people, knowing it, e- vade payment when they can by disposing of their fish to the illegal traders, (who giving no credit cannot lose), and pleading a bad catch to the Merchant who has supplied them with their outfit (Jour­ nal of the Legislative Assembly 1863:13).

Foreign fishing and trading vessels were not the only sources of competition. Firms of intermediate size that replaced the English and Jersey companies relied upon tra­ ders of their own to collect fish and distribute supplies. Owners of the schooners were seldom the only merchants that dealt with the fishermen of the settlements they visited, and the presence of the trader in harbor offered the same 183 temptation to nonclient fishermen to engage in surreptitious direct barter as existed between residents and foreign ves­ sels. Domestic traders were not so anxious to deal in cash as were the Americans, preferring instead that the fisherman take-up the value of his fish in goods from the stock carried on board, just as would a regular client. But due to the lack of a credit relationship between the two parties to the transaction, a cash exchange might be agreed-to by the skip­ per if it was felt necessary to insure the sale. Regardless of the format of exchange, the transaction would be to the benefit of the nonclient fisherman who was aware that the value of his fish would not be equally realized if traded to his own merchant and creditor. A further encouragement to a fisherman's involvement in such barter, in spite of the risk, consisted of limitations in access to his already established source of credit and supply. As mentioned earlier, families with ongoing accounts were strictly limited in their consump­ tion of trade commodities although not turned off entirely. Merchants did not automatically meet each request for pro­ visions, and as a rule, allowed less quantity in those orders that were filled. The following is quite typical; 'If you needed four gallons of gasoline, they'd say that one was plenty.' So, if a man or his wife had been turned down by the merchant for some article, the trader was an occasional source of supply. Transactions in salt fish with a merchant other than one's own were necessarily covert as it was expected that a fisher­ man would deal solely with the concern that had advanced him credit for that year. Consequently, an element of risk stemmed from the possibility of a merchant’s awareness of 184

such'dealings and subsequent withholding of future credit. Local merchants operating on a small scale were perhaps the most vulnerable to this practice in that they posessed no traders of their own to make up for losses by purchasing 'loose fish' themselves. Their defense consisted primarily in close attention to the activities of clients during that period in which a trader was in harbor. The task was a dif­ ficult one in that the mere observation of an individual aboard a schooner was insufficient evidence of a breech of trust. Smaller merchants dealt only in salt cod and not in by products such as oil or salted tongues and sounds. These latter items were marketed therefore by all residents through traders, and on that basis any man or woman could claim le­ gitimate business aboard the schooners. Of course, cash pur­ chases could be made by any fisherman as well, but these were rare. The ambiguity of the content of resident-trader trans­ actions contributed to the suspicions of local merchants. Nonlocal suppliers had equal or even greater cause for con­ cern stemming from the absenteeism and consequent lack of evidence conerning probably 'wrongdoing' of clients. A for­ mer culler who had been employed aboard a trader belonging to the Ramea merchant, told me of an incident in which the vessel at anchor in Lock's Cove was spotted by a resident of the community of Recontre West who had been fishing lobster in Hare Bay. This latter individual happened to be brother to the Recontre merchant with whom most of the Lock's Cove fishermen dealt, and communicated to him the activity which he observed. Soon after, the merchant made it quite clear to his Lock's Cove clients that if they wanted to sell their fish 185 to the trader, then they could look for their winter's grub there as well. Grenfell, observed a similar pattern of merchant/fisherman distrust on the Labrador;

To prevent such frauds, a kind of espionage had to be exerted, and the catches of a suspected planter were watched as the season pro­ gressed. Convicted planters were turned off from the merchants an no one would take them on. This re­ sulted in the end in the worst cases of poverty - cases, to my mind, not caused by the bad fishing, but by the bad system (1922:310).

The reluctance of merchants to deal with their clients in cash is understandable. The absence of a medium of ex­ change facilitated a system of bookkeeping in which the rate of exchange between fish and goods was hidden to the client. If the price of fish was low, the cost of supplies was ev­ en higher, and the merchandising role of the merchant (cf. fish buyer) was not a minor sideline. The prifitability of the trade was observe in 1862 when Captain Hamilton of H.M.S. Hydra compared the cost of South Coast privisions to the price of the same commodities as sold in St. John's.

outports St. John 1s pork L6 10 3 10 flour 2 8 1 15

The Captain observed that; "... the freight to the outports being a very small portion of the margin" (Journal of the Legislative Assembly 1863:xiii). The response of fishermen to high prices, of which they were not unaware, was not only 186 to engage in surreptitious trade with local merchants and foreign traders, but to smuggle goods for their own con­ sumption . The truck system, as has been shown, restricted the ease with which the former type of transactions were accomplished; and smuggling was discouraged, (although not effectively) by government activity at the behest of merchants. Skiff fish­ ermen participating in the summer fisheries in the vicinity of Cape Breton and St. Pierre/Micquelon, took advantage of low prices (even lower than St. John's), to purchase food, clothing, and fishing equipment. Goods were hidden in box­ es buried in the hold under tons of coal, or landed in the smaller outports before the vesel reported for customs clear­ ance by officials residing only in the largest settlements. Further merchant-client conflict resulted from the in­ roads of the larger cash economy into the local system of truck. The following peronsonal remembrance in not atypical. A schooner fisherman left a vessel belonging to a local mer­ chant during World War II, to work for a year on the construc­ tion of the U.S. naval base at Argentia. He returned to the schooners the following year, but instructed his wife to pay for her purchases from the shop during his absence, from his construction earnings, rather than to take-up articles as they used to do. This she did, and at the end of the voyage when he asked for his money earned aboard the vessel, he was told by the merchant that they (the company) didn't pay in cash, but that he could take-up what he wanted in goods. In this case, as in many others, it was only through repeated and loud protest that currency was eventually paid out to the fisherman. Some men recall their not even being able to get 187 change from cash purchases. What remained of a twenty dol­ lar bill earned aboard a Nova Scotia schooner and used to make a purchase on the South Coast, was not returned in cash, but credited to the client's account. Not until after the local collection and processing of fresh fish began thirty five years ago, and the payment of inshore fishermen in cash for their landings, did there oc­ cur some diminishment of the mutual suspicion and distrust of merchants and their clients. Salt fish production gave way to the processing of frozen fillets, and the merchant no longer functioned as buyer, but only as retail merchan­ diser and collecting agent for the fish plant. Credit, if given at all, was only short term; and if the economic standing of the shopkeeper was not threatened, his power and influence within the community was lessened. As one woman expressed it; 'They had to come to us then, after all those years of us bowing to them.' The traditional or historical patron-client relationship between South Coast merchant and fisherman just described, may be characterized using Wolf's (1966) scheme as 'single­ stranded, dyadic, and vertical'. It is essentially a single economic interest that binds the fisherman and his merchant, with the merchant in a superior position as power-holder. However (Szwed's analysis for the Codroy Valley notwithstand­ ing) , the South coast merchant/fisherman relationship does not fit well that portion of Wolf's model of such arrangements which specifies that; "(n)o dyadic coalitions are possible un­ til the single-interest transaction is supplemented with con­ siderations of 'goodwill,' or adjustments are made in the rate of interest or in the tax return in return for services 188 or favors extraneous to the dominant transaction itself. When that happens, the relation begins to become encumbered with ties that approach the manystranded" (1966:83). It may­ be that Wolf's model of patron-client relationships, which is explcitly linked to a practicing or recently industrialized agricultural peasantry, does not fit well the experience of rural 'peasant' fishing cultures. And Szwed's interpretation of this relationship in the Codroy Valley may be in agreement with Wolf's model because of the unusually important role of agriculture in that region of Newfoundland.

Merchant as Employer

Former agents and clerks of the large English and Jersey firms took advantage of the diminished activity and eventual withdrawl of their previous employers, to supplement and re­ place these operations as the population of the South Coast grew in the latter part of the 19th century. If the 'rooms' of the Newman and Nicolle firms were not themselves purchased, small trading vessels would enable an entrepreneur to estab­ lish a clientelle in less populated portions of the coast. It was in this latter manner that the founder of Ramea's merchant family made his start as an independent businessman following a period of time as apprentice to Newman and Co. at Great Jervais in Hermitage Bay. As the company history relates;

John Penny was not of the calibre to remain long in a subordinate position, his ambition was to operate an enter­ prise of his own? ... as soon as his 189

apprentice days were over he bought a small barque, fitted her with shelves and with a supply of tea, molasses, flour, flannelette, pound cotton, lines and twines, fish hooks and other articles necessitous to the times, sailed her around Hermitage Bay, with profit to himself and to the great satisfaction of the people (Penny 1956:1-2).

Attracted perhaps by the mercantile potential of the cent­ ral portion of the Coast following upon Newman’s cessation of activities in Burgeo, and foregoing the greater competition of local and foreign traders in Hermitage Bay, Penny bought out the sole planter residing in Ramea and made the Island community his base of operations. From there, his small schooners delivered supplies to, and collected fish from, nearby mainland settlements, and also engaged in the winter fishery of the Western Shore. The firm gradually expanded its operations during the salt fish era. Larger three mast­ ed tern schooners were later added to the company fleet to carry fish, salt, and molasses between the South Coast,South­ ern Europe, and the West Indies and Brazil. Eight and ten- dory banking schooners were operated in the second decade of the present century and greatly increased the production cap­ ability of the company. At the same time, shoreside facili­ ties were improved and enlarged so that a greater portion of the schooner landings might be processed by the firm. More men were hired to maintain the fishing fleet and shore fa­ cilities, and women and children were paid by the day to tend to the drying of the fish. In contiguous mainland settlements, branch shops replaced the trading schooners and accepted fish at various stages of processing for final cure 190

under the supervision of the firm. But it was not until after the depression years and the financial rescue of the owner by loans obtained from local skiff owners, that the greatest expansion took place. In 1943, after losing several of his skiff fishermen to the fresh fisheries of Nova Scotia and the Western Shore, and to the year-old filleting and freezing operation in Burgeo, the third-generation owner converted the old salt fish rooms in­ to a fresh fish plant. The modernization and industrialization of the processing sector transformed the local and regional fishing economy. The number of shoreside production line employees swelled as did service assemblages of mechanics, engineers, car­ penters, etc., who were required to maintain the plant as well as the growing fleet of mechanized draggers which re­ placed the ten-obsolete banking schooners. A refrigerated carrier (converted schooner) shipped the finished product to the company's marketing outlet in New England. The firm's only competition on the Island itself was eliminated as that company's parent operation in Burgeo was discontinued in the last days of the salt fish trade. At the same time. Penny's influence in the neighboring settlements increased. The plant's need for fish was partially met by the landings of inshore fishermen from these settlements which were transported to Ramea several times weekly from outlying areas in ice aboard collector boats or 'smacks'. Local merchants, thus deprived of their function as purchasers of salt fish, either went out of business al­ together, or continued only as retailers and perhaps as col­ lecting agents for the Ramea firm. Penny's own branch 191

operations were expanded, especially the retail function, and a geographic expansion took place as new branches and agents were established in communities which had not formerly been so closely connected to the Ramea firm. Referring again to Wolf's classification scheme of peas­ ant coalitions, this more recent relationship between mer­ chant/owner and f.isherman/employee may still be considered to be singlestranded (economic interest) and vertical, but is more characteristic of a polyadic rather than dyadic as­ sociation. To be sure, dyadic relationships between merchant and individual fishermen are still formed, but the merchant as employer has now a more substantial relationship with the community as a whole. Wolf's example of a singlestranded polyadic vertical coalition is instructive; "Such relations are illustrated by the hierarchical relations of employers and employees or relations between supervisors and supervised in an office. Peasants are likely to encounter this kind of a tie mainly when they enter employment in a plantation or a factory" (1966:83).

Merchant as Patron

As has been shown, fisherman and merchant did not always demonstrate toward one another, the affection, trust, and loyalty that is generally understood to apply to patron- client relationships (Wolf 1966:16). The principal asset brought by merchants to such transaction was that of credit dispensation, a service which was not unconditionally pro­ vided and was often withdrawn. Similarly, fishermen did not 192 always express their loyalty by dealing exclusively with their respective creditors. The arrangement was not char­ acterized by trust, but by suspicion. The merchant relied upon close observation or intimidation of his clients to keep them honest, and the fisherman, suspecting and expect­ ing to be cheated in the bargain, engaged in the only de­ fense open to him, surreptitious trade and smuggling. But the enlargement of the catching and processing capa­ bility of the Ramea firm at the conclusion of the salt fish era and subsequent to the inception of the fresh frozen in­ dustry, had a great bearing on the changing role of the prin­ cipal merchant of the Island. The greatly expanded person­ nel needs of the processing operation, and the manning re­ quirements of first the schooners, and later the dragger fleet, put the merchant in the position not only of purchaser, supplier, and creditor, but employer as well. The distinction is important, for it is the enactment of this latter role sec­ tor which distinguishes merchant as 'owner of the firm1 from that of simply 'merchant'. And it is as 'owners' that the first family of Ramea is generally viewed by the Islanders. One evening, at the after-supper gathering of men at the community slip, I was engaged in conversation with a number of fishermen on the topic of American millionaires. I was trying to dispel the notion that the wealth of American sportsmen who had in earlier years launched expensive hunting and fish­ ing expeditions to the South coast or now cruise the Coast in their yachts, is typical of most U.S. citizens. In the dis­ cussion, one of the men remarked with some resentment; 'Well, we've got one millionaire on this island.' The comment sur­ prised me somewhat as I had seldom heard disparaging remarks 193 aimed at the plant owners, and never in public. He continued, and it developed that he was not speaking of the owners at all, but of the second largest merchant on the Island who owns a hard goods and grocery shop. What had precipitated the rather deprecatory comment was the observation of this merchant's new 'mainland built' (Nova Scotia) yacht lying to her mooring in the harbor. I asked the individual if the plant owners weren't, in fact, even wealthier than this fel­ low. Several listeners to the conversation gave me substan­ tially the same reply, to the effect that although the own­ ers were unquestionably millionaires several times over, they were investing their profits in the plant, thereby pro­ viding jobs for the community. Conversely, the disapproba­ tion expressed toward the smaller merchant was based upon the perceived imbalance between the value of employment gen­ erated by his shop and the profits extracted from it as ev­ idenced by the yacht. In later months I was to hear repeat­ edly the same general complaint made of the other five Island shopkeepers. Not specifically that they didn't hire enough people in their shops, for it was understood that the oper­ ations were of a retail nature only, and of limited scale. But criticism of their prices was untempered by any recogni­ tion of community service. It is the smaller businessmen then, rather than the principal one, that are commonly called 'merchants', and all of the approbation that this title carries from the days of the salt fish truck system. Therefore, it is control over jobs rather than credit that constitutes the owner's assets in a patron-client relation­ ship that is much longer term than its historical precedent. Wage labor is strongly valued over reimbursement by share or 194

individual enterprise. And positions ashore are much pre­ ferred over seagoing jobs. The private and personal quality of merchant-client re­ lations continues to be highly valued even if not always re­ alized. I first became aware of this early in the fieldwork as a result of visits to the bank and company offices. The ferry's schedule is so arranged that the Burgeo doctor and bank manager (or his assistant) may hold clinic and conduct business on the Island each Wednesday afternoon. The small building which is used for the bank is laid out similar to a larger institution with a tellers' counter facing the street entrance and dividing the main room. In a rear corner, behind the counter, is situated the manger's office where he can speak privately with customers seeking loans or advice. Tow or three tellers are borrowed from the office of the fish plant and serve routine customers over the counter. Be­ cause hourly-paid workers receive their checks from the company weekly, and due to the fact that the bank does not open each Wednesday (the manager did not always make the trip in inclement weather), there was no lack of customers for the few hours that it was open. I found a crowd there on my first visit although each teller had only one woman at the counter. I assumed that the others were eaiting to see the manager who was having a discussion with a client in the back room, and took my place in line behind one of the customers at the counter. At my next occasion to enter the bank, I found the situation to be the same with many congregated just inside the door and along the front wall of the building, and only one customer in front of each teller. Again I moved di­ rectly to the counter. Not until I had almost completed my 195

business and introduced myself to the manager who was as­ sisting the tellers and who had served me, did it strike me that nobody could be waiting to see him. As one custom­ er would leave the counter, another moved forward from the mass of people huddled about the entrance of the bank. I had unknowingly been cutting in front of all of them. That behavior corrected, I found later in the year that I had been making a similar blunder at the plant office. Routine transactions with the firm such as check cashing, bill payments, etc., are conducted with a clerk on the first floor of the company offices. His counter faces a hallway which leads both to an exterior door and to an entrance which connects directly to the supermarket located in the same building. I always entered from outside simply because it was more convenient. The fact that I never found the clerk with more than one customer made no impression on me as the office was open each working day, and I was unaware of the volume of business conducted there. That is, until I hap­ pened to look into the supermarket one day through the glass of the interior door, to find a line of women by the meat section patiently waiting their turn to enter the of­ fice and see the clerk. The office hallway was not too cramped to hold them, just as there was ample space directly in front of the bank count­ er for queing. The reason for this non-use of space in the vicinity of a business transaction makes sense if the Island­ er preference for privacy in financial dealings is recognized, even those that a mainlander might consider to be of a semi­ private nature. This degree of spatial privacy is matched by verbal reserve on topics of personal finance or dealings 196 with the merchant. Personalistic style of interaction and high status of patrons is important to Islanders, both features of patron- client relations. The primary criteria by which Islanders evaluate the performance of owners and managers further in­ dicate the degree to which Islanders value a personal re­ lationship with their merchant. Highest rated are those in­ dividuals who are, or were, known for their accessibility, willingness to listen, and expression of personal interest in the affairs of their clients. Earlier owners are remembered to have possessed these qualities to a limited degree, none were accorded the esteem directed toward Marie Penny, who, in nearly every instance, was described as being 'some good' or a 'wonderful person'. Her popularity was due to the ma- ternalistic/paternalistic manner in which she dealt with the Islanders. Apparently, she knew the names of all her workers and most of their families, and greeted them in pas­ sing on the road. She attended weddings (or always sent a fine gift), visited new mothers in their homes, and ordered groceries to be delivered to the families of sick employees. Her home and office were open to Islanders at all times. She combined this visible concern for the well being of her 'fam­ ily' with a hardened business nature that is also remembered by the Islanders. The withholding, or threat of withholding of jobs, purchase of fish, and electricity, was reported to have been a frequent tactic directed against those who had occasion to cross her. Her account of the community, and its founding merchant of the 19th century, might be more descriptive of her own situa­ tion when she wrote; "Monarch in his own right now ... he 197 became a power in the tiny community to whic other fishermen were steadily being attracted" (Penny 1956:2-3), and; " Ramea was a kingdom of its own with a fine, God-fearing, contented people" (1956:6). Author, and one time resident of Burgeo, Farley Mowat has described the owners of the Ramea and Burgeo fish plants as; "...local patricians making a handsome living for them­ selves" (1967). Objecting to the description, Marie Penny replied; "Mr. Mowat was a trifle misinformed ... Both in Burgeo and Ramea almost one hundred percent of our people have fine residences" (1967:77). But in spite of her pro­ testation, the characterization is not inaccurate. Notwith­ standing the fact that the standard of living of Island fam­ ilies has risen considerably since the fish plant began op­ eration, it is obvious that the fortunes of the first family of Ramea have taken a far greater upswing. By mainland standards, they would be considered to be part of an econom­ ic elite, and in the view of the Islanders, their financial and social position is even more exhaulted. The family spends most of the year at their home in a fashionable sec­ tion of Boston, residing in Ramea only for a period of time in summer and at Christmas. Arrivals and departures are us­ ually by their private yacht or via chartered plane, and local women cook and clean for the family while they are on the Island or 'up the bay'. The precise number of bathrooms in 'Four Winds', their Ramea home, is a subject of community conjecture (estimates no lower than seven), and those who have seen the interior of the family fishing canp at the head of White Bear Bay compare it favorably to the finest Ramea homes. Their use of helicopters for hunting excursions 198

and the private entertainment of the Lt. Governor further distinguishes them and their lifestyle from that of the Islanders. They are a class apart in what is otherwise es­ sentially a classless society. The plant owners are, however, grouped with a small num­ ber of resident professionals who together form a social e- lite, primarily from the perspective of the Islanders. This elite includes the owners, manager, nurse, and clegyman, who are addressed or referred to formally as 'Mr.', 'Mrs.' or 'Reverend'. Their status accrues to the occupational posi­ tions they hold as well as to the fact that they are educated 'strangers', not 'belonging' to the Island or the Coast. With the exception of the owners, the incumbents of these roles have always been brought into the community from out­ side. And they are truly outsiders in that they remain per­ ipheral to the mainstream of community life regardless of the length of their stay. The individuals themselves do not inter­ act very frequently although they occasionally attend small 'get togethers' or dinner parties. There appears to have been more cohesiveness within the group prior to the death of Marie Penny, as she was the principal host for such functions. The social gap which separates the Islanders from this group of resident strangers and the economic distance between them and the owners is considered by the population to be not only right and proper, but necessary. During the period of fieldwork, the assistant manager of the Burgeo fish plant was promoted as the preceeding senior man was transferred to St. John's. The new manager was a fairly young man with a liberal business philosophy and a fraternal approach to 199 labor/management relations. He decided not to move his fam­ ily into the larger manager's house vacated by his prede­ cessor, because of what he felt it 'stood for'. Local op­ inion was strongly in favor of his moving, and his resist­ ance wore thin as his groceries ordered from the shop were delivered, not to his bungalow, but to the manager's house. He eventually moved.

Owner as Broker

If the expansion of the Ramea firm added weight to the owner's role as patron, the proliferation of government services and local funding following Confederation estab­ lished his function as middleman or broker. Paine has most clearly distinguished between these two interrelated elements of the concept of patronage. Middle­ men, brokers, or go-betweens are those; "... persons who are engaged in the purveyance of values but who are not 'responsible for'them ..." (1971:20-21). Whereas a merchant acted as patron in the bestowal of credit, and as owner through his provision of jobs (both values clearly proceed­ ing from that individual himself), he became a middleman in the channeling of federal and provincial funds to in­ dividuals and to the community as a whole. It has been primarily through the enactment of this relatively recent role, that the merchant family has solidified its position within the community. It is recognized by the Islanders that it has been through the efforts of the merchant/owner that many of the 200 benefits of Confederation and subsequent government programs of rural development have been realized at the local level. In some instances, such as the upgrading of the fish plant facilities and expansion of the dragger fleet, the benefit to the community resulted from the owner's efforts extended on his own behalf. And such improvements as electricity and community water system, although initially obtained for the fish plant, have been extended to the entire community. Submitting petitions or leading delegations of citizens to St. John's, the plant owners were also instrumental in ob­ taining sewage facilities, road construction money, telephone equipment, ferry operations subsidy (the merchant owns the ferry), improved medical services, and numerous stop-gap local improvement programs funded by government. The merchant was instrumental too in obtaining more government resettlement subsidy for the many outport families that settled in Ramea. The public service contributions of the merchant family re­ main high in their consciousness too. As one remarked to me; 'I'd like to see a book written about all the things I've done for this Coast.' One of the doctors at Burgeo lays the blame for the dif­ ficult medical care situation on Ramea squarely at the feet of the plant owners, specifically the late Marie Penny. The Ramea Islanders, she feels, are unreasonably demanding of the resident nurse, Burgeo doctors, and the government sponsored health program in general, because they have been'spoiled' or given unrealistic expectations by the owners' highly publi­ cized efforts to get the community its own doctor, more nurses, and a better facility. 201

Ramea and Grey River residents are convinced that the community of Burgeo has 'gone down' or suffered since the merchant's departure. They cite the slow progress of road construction which will link that community to the Trans Canada highway system, the deteriorating condition of the fish plant, and the old age of the Burgeo dragger fleet. Even after the managing company and government announced the finalization of plans to construct a new fish plant in Bur­ geo, Ramea residents were not impressed. Further delays and very slow progress were attributed by Islanders to that com­ munity's lack of leadership in the person of an owner of high status. By contrast, the modernization of the Ramea plant and addition of a new stern dragger are seen as evidence of the effectiveness of the owners' influence in government circles. Therefore it is in the role of broker that the own­ er has been able to convert his assets of status, power, in­ fluence, and authority, into loyalty - or at least quiet ac­ ceptance . But the role of broker in Newfoundland culture is one that is not exclusively the province of merchants. Politicians base their campaigns largely upon their record, or promise, of effective tapping of government funds on behalf of their constitutents. The leadership of the union operates in much the same fashion and may, in fact, be considered to be a com­ petitor of the merchants for the patronage of the fishermen. Frequently, competing claims for credit are made by these brokers and brokerage organizations when some project or bene­ fit is won for the community. One clear example of this is the confusion surrounding the draggermen's guaranteed daily wage and the landed fish subsidy payments. The merchants 202 complain that the union gives the impression that it (the union) is respnsible for these fishing subsidies, while the union maintains that the company tells the fishermen that they (the merchants) are the ones who influenced government to provide the fishery support program, or even that the money is coming out of their pockets. EPILOGUE

The brand of servitude is even visible in the physique and the character of fishermen of certain localities in the 'old colony' and it is a fact that a special type has been developed in cer­ tain fishing districts that were worthy the attention of the ethnologist.

Rev. P.W. Browne Where the Fishers Go

The product of ethnographic investigation, as with the particular method of research from which it proceeds, is not easily reduced to a single test of theory. Just as the participant observer is completely immersed in the sub­ ject matter of his study, so too is the report of that ex­ perience likely to reflect more than a single line of thought. Yet, for all its holistic intent, an ethnography is hardly a complete record of a cultural event. Therefore, the ethnographer should attempt to specify for the readers' consideration, to the degree he (the ethnographer) is able, whatever models or abstractions have guided him in his ob­ servations and writing. That is one purpose of these clos­ ing remarks, the same rationale having prompted an earlier description of the practical (cf. theoretical) underpinnings of the fieldwork.

2 03 204

This dissertation consists of a functionalist description of a regional variant of Newfoundland culture, that of the Central South Coast. It does not, however, treat equally of all elements of that subculture. Most attention is paid to the sociotechnical characteristics of the South Coast - the organization of men (crews) and machines (boats/gear) at work - that bridges the environmental and ideological levels of that society. This particular concentration reflects the ethnographer's positing of a causal rather than nondirectional functionalist relationship between these various cultural elements. That theoretical orientation is cultural materialist. It suggests that ideological and social structural manifestations are reflections of technological and economic arrangements, which, in turn, are shaped by environmental constraints and oppor­ tunities . Within this cultural materialist, functionalist descrip­ tion of South coast Newfoundland society, a particular prob­ lem or issue is addressed. Why is it that, in contrast to other coasts of Newfoundland, the Central South Coast has demonstrated an historical and contemporary resistance to collective behavior, especially in the matter of cooperative and union organization? In posing an answer to this ques­ tion, the analysis becomes comparative as well as function­ alist. A contrast is drawn between the culture core of the South Coast and that of the Northeast Coast, Southern Shore, West Coast, and Great Northern Peninsula. Reduced to a matrix, the comparison is depicted in the following figure. 205

o Northeast Coast o South Coast o Great Northern Peninsula o Southern Shore

individualism interdependence Ideology mobility stability competition cooperation

Social Organization fragmentary corporate agnatic 'crowds'

Merchant Relationship patron-client (intensifying) patron-client (diminishing)

single or temporarily paired 4-5+ man corporate crews plus Work Organization crews (inshore) wives (inshore) temporary crews (offshore) corporate familial (Labrador)

partible; small craft, hook nonpartible; cod traps, trap Technology and line, company-owned boats, shore fa c ility , family schooners owned Labrador schooners

Perceived Environment 'edge of ground'

distributed catch, year-round seasonal glut fishery, Effective Environment e ffo rt, deep water shallow water

maritime and shoreside Environment exclusively maritime (gardening,‘woodwork, mining)

Newfoundland Culture Core Comparison 206

For the South Coast, a scarcity of land resources has magnified the economic importance of fishing and peripheral marine employment. The effective environment of the Coast is one of a fairly evenly distributed year round fishery in deep water over limited grounds. This in contrast to the ef­ fective environment of most other Newfoundland coasts in which fishing in only one of a number of commercial and sub­ sistence activities, and consists of the seasonal taking of caplin feeding cod. The perceived environment of South Coast fishermen is one of a finite number of small shoals and a narrow edge of ground which is, for the most part, considered to be an open resource with few territorial privileges. As the most suit­ able fishing technology for this fishery has consisted of a combination of hook and line and small craft, the correspond­ ing optimal size of work organization (crew) has been that of single (crosshanded) or occasionally paired fishermen. For offshore fishing, large company owned banking schooners em­ ployed fishermen on a voyage by voyage basis. On other coasts, larger groupings or 'crowds' of agnatically related men form crews for the purpose of fishing traps at shore berths which are inherited or drawn for by lot. This method of fishing produces a great number of fish in a relatively short period of time, requiring substantial pooling of cap­ ital and labor. These same crowds may also have manner fam­ ily owned Labrador schooners in an extension of the inshore fishery. Wives and children of the cttwi also contributed to the productive effort in the processing of the summer glut of salt cod. On the South Coast, the perception of scarcity of available fishing ground, and the competition for space 207 and knowledge of location of space, discouraged collective economic behavior. So too has the relatively evenly dis­ tributed (year round) work load in the processing of fish discourage, or at least not encourage, the pooling of shore- side economic effort on the part of wives and children. The resulting South Coast social structure, depicted in this dissertation in terms of the developmental cycle of the domestic group, consists not of the formation and re­ inforcement of instrumental and affective ties within 'crowds' of kith and kin, but rather in a temporary and easily frag­ mented organization of individuals, even within families. In such a working and social environment are fostered such values as individualism, competition, self-reliance, inde­ pendent action, and caution in entering interpersonal rela­ tionships . If the preceeding summary analysis explains the proclivity of South Coast fishermen to individual rather than collective action to resolve conflict vis a vis the merchant (or for that matter between fishermen), the dissertation also address­ es the degree to which such conflict with the merchant is recognized. Again, contrasting the South Coast pattern with the rest of Newfoundland, it is shown that the patron-client relationship between fisherman and merchant is more recently an intensification, rather than residual feature, of the historical pattern. In terms of merchant/fisherman relations, the South Coast pattern has seen an intensification of the de­ pendence of residents upon the merchant/owners of the ver­ tically integrated fresh fish dragger fleet and processing plant. The corresponding relationship on other coasts has not seen the transformation of merchants to employers. 208

The argument presented in this thesis, as just summarized, is contrasted with alternative explanations of why unioniza­ tion has met with differential success of the several coasts of Newfoundland - the 'great man', 'roadblock', and 'secular' theories. It is proposed here that the Fishermen's Protect­ ive Union, cooperative movement, and Newfoundland Fishermen, Food, and Allied Workers' Union have been met on the South Coast with either indifference or resistance not because of the absence of activity of charismatic organizers, remote location, or religious ideology - but because the 'character' of the residents of the South Coast has discouraged such collective behavior. That character or value system has been shown to correspond to a social structure, organization of work, technology and environment, which is peculiar to the South Coast. Aside from shedding light on this one particular local phenomenon, the analysis suggests the utility of application of cultural materialist theory to subjects or issues that are of more than academic interest. Decision-makers, both in the public and private sector, could be served by be­ havioral science analyses that demonstrate the limitations of, and opportunities for, directed culture change in spe­ cific settings. And since cultural ecological analysis i- dentifies the locii of most significant determining elements of a cultural whole (culture core), and the direction of causality, it may be of assistance in the planning of spe­ cific intervention. The degree of responsibility a behavioral scientist feels toward the subjects of his research is related both to the techniques of data collection, the practical nature of the 209 problem on which he is focusing, and the likelihood that his analysis will guide action taken by decision-makers external to that group. Because of the close, personal nature of ethnographic research, and because the subjects of such study are frequently not in decision-making positions, anthropolo­ gists are more likely to be sensitive to the uses of their work than some other varieties of behavioral scientists. However, it is easier to associate or connect the interests of the subjects of research with those of the external de­ cision makers when the decisions are to be made by govern­ ments, since these bodies are generally considered (at least in theory) to be the body politic of the population. When the decision-makers are not government, but are private con­ cerns (companies, unions) which even in theory act in their own special interests rather than for the commonweal, the question of responsibility is even more pointed. In the case of this project, responsibility to the subjects of the study was met by conducting completely open research. There was no concealment of sponsorship (in this case not a problem be­ cause of government funds), which can be problematic in in­ dustrial ethnography where support of research may come from ♦ either company, union, or joint funding. Nor was the purpose of the research hidden from the subjects. Both in public and private disclosures, the several purposes of the research were made known, including the focus on explanation of the reasons for failure of union organizing. Regarding dissemination of research results, no private disclosure was made to any par­ ties, and distribution of the report will insure that the sub­ jects of the report will have access to it, this aside from considerations of reciprocity for the provision of information. 210

Any ethnography, np matter how holistic in treatment or holocultural in content, is a distortion; in some cases an exaggeration, and in others an understatement. This may be especially true of studies which explicitly focus on spe­ cific cultural elements. In the present case, the concentra­ tion upon the identification and explanation of South Coast values of individualism and competition, tends to magnify the importance or application of these values to the full round of everyday life. Less the reader be misled, and without diminishing the validity of the ethnography in any way, it should be stated that South Coast Newfoundland cultural val­ ues appear to be as complex and diverse as for any group, and provide for the full range of emotional support required of its bearers. The ethnographer can report that South Coast culture works, and that he found his stay to be per­ sonally rewarding. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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