O Notes Re the Nova Scotia Bank Fishery« November, 1952
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r 1 O Notes re the Nova Scotia Bank fishery« November, 1952. Prom M.M.Gardner, retired partner in W.C .Smith & Co* Lunenburg* "I joined the company as a clerk in 1909> eventually became a partner by investing $12,000 in the business. We never paid large dividends, preferred to plough most of the profits back into the business. When we sold out finally to Ra^ljh Bell’s National Fish Company in 1946 my share was $224,000. "How the times have changed. In 1909 a fisherman would come into the store and buy a 6-lb caddy (that’s what we called the tobacco boxes) of black-strap chewing tobacco, enough to last him a three months’ voyage on the Banks. If he was a heavy chewer he’d take a 12—lb caddy. Brands like Old Tom, Club,and Heart. Nowadays it s always cigarettes —— only the old men smoke a pipe, hardly anybody chews. "Nowadays the young men don’t want to go fishing any more, ’specially where there s dory work. A lot of our young men since the war have gone to sea in oil tankers, where they get big pay, comfortable quarters, the best of food, and a long leave each year. We’ve got a situation right now in the Masonic lodge at Riverport. Fifteen or twenty years ago they had a thriving lodge there, 36 or 90 members, all good solid fellows, the salt of the earth. Today they're down to 25 or so, and as the old fellows die off they get fewer and fewer. Most of the young men have gone away, and those that remain aren’t interested in Freemasonry, there’s too many other ways to spend their time. Looks as if the Riverport lodge will have to give up its charter. Never thought I’d live to see that. From Wallace Smith, partner in W.C.Smith & Co.: " I went for a voyage to the Banks in the summer of 1914. I was jU3^ a y ° ^ g s'^er then, of course. In those days it was all done with sailing vessels —— schooners of course — and trawls that were baited and set and hauled by men in dories. And we used to catch all the fish we wanted on Banquereau, the Sable Island bank, the Middle Bank and Green Bank, sometimes on the Grand Bank itself. The vessels were owned "on shares", i.e. when a vessel)^ was built they'd sell p2 or 64 snares in her.Many of the fishermen themselves used to invest their savings inshares, one in this vessel, one in that. Nowadays a new vessel costs so much that we have to sell fractions of shares — as small as one-fifth of a share. In the 1920’s they began to instal diesel engines in fishing schooners for auxiliary power, and by 1959 sail had become the auxiliary and the engine was the main power. That is still the case. You never see topsails any more you can 3Q-i the vessels in the harbor all have spike topmasts, nothing more. In 1959 you could build a wodden fishing vesseljand equip it ready for iishing — diesel engine and everything — for about $4*»000. Today the same vessel would cost $140,000. Each vessel is still divided into 64 shares, but we have to sell fractions of shares because the cost is so high. There were 20 vessels operating out of Lunenburg last summer in the bait fishery on the Banks. Salt fish are still important to us in Lunenburg and Riverport. O^ur total (Lun. and Riverport) fish sales last year would run about $6,000,000, and roughlybhalf was salt fish and half was fresh fish. Until a few years ago the salt fisherman continued to land their catch nere, and then it would be carted or trucked away by dozens of small contractors, usually families, who would engage to "make" the fish on their flakes and return it to U3 dried and ready for shipment. About 15%> of the (Lun. & Riverport) catch is still dried in that way. The rest is dried by special drying apparatus within the plant on a scientific basis. We (my firm) pioneered in experimenting and installing artificial dryers. It gives a better and more uniform product. Under the old system all depended on the skill and care of the small contractor, so that in a single cargo shipped to the West Indies there would be fish "made" perhaps by twenty different contractors, all varying in quality. m 2 There is a great difference, too, in the handling of the fish nowadays. Formerly the fish were pitchforked from the dories to the vessel, from the vessel to the wharf, from the wharf to the ox-cart or truck, and so on. All of which resulted in damage to the fish. mKpCXasqpOtiiXSMXMMXpm; Now the fish are removed in^ baskets from the vessel to the wharf, where most of them go direct to the drying- plant. Also nowadays we are much more particular in trimming away blood-spots and other small blemishes on the fish. Formerly, too, the fish were washed by hand after "making". Nowadays this is done by machine, and the fish are washed cleaner and quicker by this means. The best market for salt fish at the present time, for us anyhow, is Cuba — the east end of Cuba, round about Santiago. The next is, strangely enough, New York, which never offered a market in the old days. Part of this is due to the influx into New York»in recent years j of thousands of Porto Ricans, who were accustomed to eating Canadian salt fish at home and continue to demand KKX it where they are now. Our people sell some fish also in Bermuda, Brazil, Panama, Haiti, San Domingo. The Newfoundlanders sell quite a lot in Jamaica; but of course there you run up against the sterling currency problem. Incidentally the Norwegians still compete strongly in the West Indian market; they put up an excellent grade of salt fish and get a good price tfaixxrfcx for it. r \ The fresh fish market has grown to a great size (from almost nothing) during tne past 15 or 20 years. This * * ¿3 due to improved methods of handling in the vessel and at the dock, improved refrigeration at the dockland in transit and in the shops inland, attractive pxskKging filleting and packaging, and persistent and skillful salesmanship inland. The meat shortage during the war, and the sharp increaee in meat prices since, induced many housewives to buy sea-fish who had never tried it before, and now they are steady customers. The great grocery chains like A & P buy and market huge quantities of sea-fish nowadays, dealing directly with the fishery firms on the coast. Some of them even supply their own packages for the fish, so that it goes out under their name right from the fish-plant. The method of sea fishing is changing fast. At the present moment there are half a dozen vessels tied up in Lunenburg, hook-and-liners, using dories to set the trawls — and tied up because it’s impossible to get crews for them. The young men don’t want to go dory-fishing any more, especially in winter weather. We used to get a lot of Newfoundlanders for dory-fishing every year, but now they’re all busy at home — where they have first-rate modern fish-plants now, some of the best in Canada. These hook-and-liners, as we call them, still operate on a share basis in the oldfashionea way. They carry a crew of 28 men — 24 to man the 12 aories, each man of whom gets his pay in the form of a share of the catch, after the cost of outfitting the vessel has been deducted. The cost of outfitting a hook-and-liher is so high nowadays that the vessel has to make a big catch if the men are to make good wages. (24 man the dories; then there are 4 others, the captain, engineer, cook and f1unkey-boy.) , . The result is that the men prefer to work in draggers or trawlers, whicn eaten their fish by towing a bag net over the sea bottom and scooping up the fish. All the work i 3 done from the deck — no dory work at all. So the hook-and-liner is on the way out. In a few more years they will be gone. That is, the big ones of the old schooner-hull type. Right now there are fishing out of Lunenburg 6 big^ trawlers, 2 draggers, and only 2 hook-and-line fishing vessels of the dory-setting type. The terms trawler and dragger are really synonymous — both tow net3 over the bottom. The Americans seem to call anything over 100 feet long a trawler, and anything less than that a dragger. A trawler has a crew of 20 men, a dragger carries 18. Our two most modern trawlers were built in England especially for these waters; they have comfortable accommodation, the latest dragging gear, M M X and so on; they are very fine ships. All these trawlers and draggers are equipped with radio-telephone, radar, radio direttion-finders, Loran, and sonic M depth-finding apparatus, so that the fishery is now on a scientific basis. Most of thi3 development has taken place since the war closed in 1 9 ^5 » indeed the whole industry has been revolutionised- within the past seven years.