With The Cod Fishermen

With The Cod Fishermen

By Lacey Amy

From The Canadian Magazine, May 1915. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec. 2015.

COD fishing is not what it used to be. The fishermen themselves will tell you that. The fish are not so plentiful, the grounds are more distant from the old convenient harbours, and there are other openings for the energy of the fishermen offering brighter lure. The result is a more or less discontented worker who is either actively looking for another occupation or lacks the ambition. Around Newfoundland and Labrador the uncertainty of the “run” is annually driving hundreds from the calling, and frequently (as this year) leaves hundreds more a charge to the Government. At the Magdalen Islands it has advanced little further than grumbling, for the fisherman knows that to change his occupation he must change his home, and that is the last resort. But along the south coast of Nova Scotia there is a different kind of fisherman, one who has kept pace with the times. Cod fishing there is an industry developed like transportation and surgery and peace organizations and the other outgrowths of later-day leisure and wealth.

And the fisherman himself is changing, especially where he has advanced his methods. That is the altered condition which appeals most to the nonfisherman. But it is still a special train of thought that runs in the cod fisherman’s mind; a unique style of life is his, a vivid independence, and an uncertain recklessness that cannot be fathomed by the uninitiated. Therefore, to-day or yesterday, he is interesting. A day with him is liberal entertainment.

In the introduction of the motor one finds the most startling evidence of the altered conditions. A deep-sea fisherman without sails would seem like a farmer without horses; and yet four out of five of the fishing-boats in some of the harbours of Nova Scotia use sails only when the engine balks. Half the waste time of cod fishing and most of the danger have been thus eliminated, and grounds formerly far beyond range are now the regular goal of the day. Where the Magdalen Island, the Labrador, and most of the Newfoundland fishermen trust to their deep brown sails to get them in touch with the cod or run them to shelter in a storm, the Nova Scotia fisherman starts a couple of hours later, arrives sooner, and negligently watches the heavens. Instead of starting soon after midnight, as must the Amherst Island fisherman, his Canso brother sleeps comfortably until daylight, and, independent of the wind, casts his trawls exactly when and where he desires. And at night supper awaits him at an hour as definite as the city man’s dinner.

Three hundred dollars of engine and a few gallons of gasoline have made fishing an industry, not a gamble. A few years hence it may be a profession.

But there is one characteristic which sticks to the fisherman—the careless indefiniteness of his morning’s mood. “What a difference in the morning” must have originated with a member of the crew awaiting his skipper on the wharf in the shivering mists of early morning. Patience is the primary requirement of dealings with the independent cod fisherman. He has always come and gone as he liked—save for the elements—and he always will. He has no set hours, no assured returns, no master. To-day a threatening storm forces him to idleness; to-morrow it catches him adrift and sends him home before the day is half over; and all next week a dog-fish raid on his fishing-grounds drives him to another quarter. No wonder he is unsettled!

During several summers amongst them it has been borne home to me that keeping an appointment with them is as tantalizing as the promises of a politician. At the Magdalens, two successive mornings I rose at one o’clock, on specific direction of the skipper, but was doomed to disappointment. Fear of a storm prevented the first day’s fishing, and the previous day’s idleness impelled a start at eleven p.m. for the second day’s work. I gave it up for a night’s sleep.

At Canso I fared worse in the way of waiting, but better in results. It required four almost sleepless nights to effect the reward of a day’s fishing. On Monday a seven o’clock appearance on the wharf, according to instructions the night before, brought the information that the boat had left two hours earlier. Tuesday was featured by a rainstorm only possible beside the ocean. On Wednesday morning by four o’clock I was on the wharf from which they were to pick me, and down the “tiddle” I could see the boat leisurely making ready. But five minutes’ absence for something I had forgotten furnished me with the maddening spectacle of a receding stern chugging out to sea. The next morning I took no chance. I closed my teeth and set the alarm for two a.m., closed my teeth and obeyed its message, closed them again and wandered forth on the deserted moonlit streets and down to the cold, damp wharf where the boat was tied. And I sat down on the edge of that boat for three hours, kicking my heels to keep warm, but a little proud that I had discovered a way of overcoming such an unreliable thing as a cod fisherman’s start for the fishing-grounds.

And those few hours on the deserted wharf in the brilliant moonlight will never be considered as wasted. All about lay the well-finished, trim boats of the Canso fishermen, models of grace and surprising cleanliness and order. In the moonlight the masts rose like a bare forest around me, gleaming here and there where the light struck them, and black elsewhere against the clear sky. Below it was all darkness, with edges of cabins, dories, tubs, ropes, creeping into sight as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Further down was the utterly black water.

I was alone. Not a sound came from the sleeping boats, although I knew that each had its sleeper—a hundred of them within sound of my voice. The water was as motionless as only tight-bound water can be—the silence that is the uncomfortable waiting and listening of a thing with life. The utter loneliness of the sleeping life was disturbing to a novice. My day seemed to have no start; everything was at a standstill.

A gloomy yawn was my first company, proceeding from a boat that, before the heartless introduction of its motor, had been the champion of the annual sailing races. Presently a spot of light revealed the outline of a cabin window, and immediately someone stumbled up on deck and sleepily shook himself, stretched, and growled at the cold. Then two or three little oval windows flashed into life, and yawns and growls sprang up all about me. A man clambered up the side of the wharf and stretched himself where there were no spars and ropes to interfere. He gave no sign that he saw the stranger within six feet of him, but proceeded to feel the mooring ropes, and disappeared below. It was not surliness—merely an intimation that I was not a part of his morning duties. Gradually others appeared, each retreating below after the preliminary stretch and careless reading of the sky. From the length of time between the appearance of the cabin light and the man on deck the scant amount of disrobing necessary for a night’s sleep could be accurately estimated.

Then, with every man below, two things happened almost simultaneously in all the boats. From tiny stovepipes protruding above the cabins drifted uncertain whiffs of smoke, and from the cabin entrances poured no uncertain language. If you have ever tried to light a fire in a cabin, beneath the shadow of overhanging wharves and buildings, you will understand the connection. Almost immediately the men began to reappear, thunderously, fluently, giving utterance to a variety of comment that agreed only in its general meaning. They fiddled with the pipe, swore, went below, swore, tumbled up on deck, swore—and swore between times. Those who light the fires of anchored fishing-boats know nothing of the dread effects of example; and I had no desire to enlighten them.

A cup of tea! That is the beginning of the fisherman’s day, and the end—and also the middle. The teapot is on the cabin stove before the boat is ten minutes awake, and it is there humming until the last member of the crew has gone. All day long it sings accepted invitation, and by the afternoon it offers a stimulant unrivalled by anything short of end-of-steel whiskey. I tried it—and it’ll do until I visit the fishermen again.

A member of my crew appeared, with the information that he had whistled beneath my window at the hotel until he was told of my departure, and through the next hour or so the others came straggling down. They did not apologize to each other, nor resent the expressive allusions to the damp disagreeableness of waiting on a wharf before daylight. To-morrow it would probably be their turn to wait and make comment. From all about us motors were chugging away, stopping to get swung into position, and then puffing steadily off into the distance. For hours little motorless boats had been swinging lifelessly along with flapping sails behind ridiculously small rowboats pulled by one man—and for hours more they would still be within sight. The patient seemingly profitless toil of a rower towing a big boat is almost pathetic—if you aren’t in the boat. To the luxurious occupant of a motored vessel it is ludicrous. But I was still on the wharf; I could see things in their proper proportions.

As we pulled out from the wharf in the hazy light of the rising sun, a long line of boats stretched before us right out to sea—big and little in an irregular line, the motor-driven skimming noisily past the sail-driven, and watched by envious eyes, the less powerful engines yielding in their turn to the greater. Right into the sun we aimed, a big globe of red rising from the ocean with the glare of coming beat—out past the Lunenburg “vessels” anchored in mid-harbour, around the lighthouse on the edge of the open. As we passed one helpless sail-boat we suddenly swung about and threw them a line, although it meant an hour’s delay in reaching the fishing-grounds six or eight miles out. The unselfishness of the fisherman is the quality that makes his life most worth living. Where all are so much at the mercy of the elements each strives to help the other.

And then our course began to be more up and down than along. It was not a rough day, they told me, but later they acknowledged that it was the record for that year’s roll. I have never been able to bring myself to the nicety of distinction that unhesitatingly separates roughness and roll. I have heard landlubbers do it as an excuse for seasickness. Sometimes we could see the boat we towed rushing down towards us, and sometimes it was out of sight behind a mountain of water that brought the uncomfortable conviction that only our rope was keeping it from hitting the bottom. I liked to keep that tow in sight, even if it threatened to drop on our deck. . . . And I had twelve hours of this ahead. I began to wonder if I had not rashly overestimated the pleasures of a day’s cod fishing.

In the meantime the crew—those who were not engaged with the towline and the tiller—were preparing for the fishing. We had taken aboard at the wharf a couple of boxes of herring for bait, the cost to be deducted from our day’s catch, and now these were being cut into small pieces. Later the bait was fastened to hooks on short lines attached more than a foot apart on a long, larger line. Net fishing was over, and the cod were being caught on trawls and handlines. The trawls had been carefully wound in tubs the night before, the hooks towards the centre, and baiting was done with a dexterity that looked positively dangerous, and the baited trawls thrown deftly in place in another tub.

We had come up with the fleet. In all directions boats of every size stood out against the dark water and bright sky, some casting hand-lines over the side, some lying idle while their dories pulled off with the trawls. Off on the port side a peculiar, uncanny wave broke and disappeared over one spot, broke and disappeared again. They told me a rock came close to the surface there, a constant menace to navigation. Away back when the French and English were tussling sporadically for Nova Scotia a French frigate struck there and sank; and many a ship since. It stood at one edge of the fishing-grounds, in about twenty-five fathoms of water, and the fishermen pursued their calling all about it.

Out past the fleet we twisted, and, beside the flashing buoy that marked the channel into the Straits of Canso, we dropped our dories. In each a fisherman took his tub of bait, and another of trawl and, standing recklessly in the stern, sculled with one hand while dropping two hundred feet of trawl with the other. And there we left them all day, running alongside only at noon. I tried hard not to picture their day on that sea in those tiny bobbing boats, with no protection from the blistering sun, and nothing to think of but the swell and their sins. I was in comparative comfort on fifty feet of deck that was at least flat and solid to the feel—and it was mighty little just then. One thing—it wasn’t far to the side of the dory.

From the larger boat we tried to supplement the catch with hand-lines, the last resort of the cod fisherman. Only after netting and trawling are past does he rely upon the more laborious, slower method; and when it comes to hand-lines around Canso the end of the season is at hand. Catching cod in this manner is like trying to satisfy thirst from a pump-spout—an unprofitable task performed in the hardest way. About all we caught was blistering salt water and sunburn, and now and then a phlegmatic bit of fish that seemed glad to be at rest. No wonder a fisherman leaves hand-lines to the last, when the children are crying for bon-bons. Casting unsuccessfully all day for trout is hilarious revelry compared to cod fishing with a line.

Between acts the professional members of the crew drank tea. If Chinese commerce were bound up like Germany’s is now there would be a rush of fishermen to enlist and get the war over in a hurry. At noon we ran alongside the dories and received their catch; and I looked after the tiller while the others went below for stimulant. Seated on deck I tried to forget the all-pervading smell of cod. I couldn’t. Why must a fish smell so fishy? And then the dories dropped astern once more to their work.

Occasionally coasting vessels went by, turning around the light buoy into that great path of commerce, the Straits of Canso. A small steamboat cut across our stern headed for Canso, and a couple more passed along between Halifax and Gulf ports, all of them staggering helplessly in the swell. And then, a mile outside, something dark and ominous flashed by, the black smoke streaming furiously out behind so long as it was in sight. Twenty-five miles an hour—nothing less! So fast that a steady wave curled high above the bow, and the stern was out of sight beneath the water. It was a British cruiser going west in chase of reported German boats off the south coast. For war had been declared and the dogs let loose. With regulars and big guns protecting the cable stations in Canso, German cruisers sighted off every corner of the coast, and British cruisers searching them diligently, we felt as if we were the centre of hostilities.

All afternoon fishing boats were leaving the grounds disgusted, some with insufficient catch to pay for the bait, and none with a day’s pay. Our luck was a little better. But at sixty cents to two dollars a hundred pounds cleaned it required a large catch to make the day worth while. But the Canso fisherman does not do so badly. The crew with which I fished had made a thousand dollars in four days the year before, and the skipper had cleared $1,475 for the season. He was not complaining. But he followed the run of cod throughout the season, from Prince Edward Island to the “Western”—in fishing parlance, the western part of the south coast of Nova Scotia.

In at the wharves the boats were moored two and three deep, discharging their catch. The five members of the crew had their work definitely assigned. One pitchforked the cod from the hold to the deck, another passed them to the wharf, a third lifted them to the splitting tables, and the other two performed the expert work of splitting. It was a dirty mess to the novice—fish cleanings, tobacco juice, and odour. The livers and heads were saved, the former bringing forty cents a pail for cod liver oil, and the latter finding a market at the glue factory down the “tiddle. ” Later in the season a dog-fish factory on the outer islands would take even the bane of the fishing-grounds for manufacture into fertilizer. The byproducts of cod fishing are making up to some extent for the decrease in the cod.

His day’s work done usually some time before six, the cod fisherman is again the care-free, light-hearted workman who is satisfied that he has done his best. Be the catch good or bad, there is no sign of it when the day is done. Around the wharves he sits with his fellows, telling yarns of past records, banter running through it all, and the unoathlike oaths of a good-tempered people. For the stranger they have a bright welcome, and a willing information that is seldom unreliable. The future is not a worry to them, and the present bears lightly upon them. But the future is often serious. A man of no more than sixty sat totteringly on an upturned dory, hands twisted pitifully in to his body, head bent forward and down, vainly trying to light his pipe. Tremblingly he inquired what was good for rheumatism; he had no faith in the local doctors. Almost in the prime of his life he had been forced from the water, but each evening he faltered down to the wharves to see the catch come in and to tell of things that were in his day. A small boy took his pipe below and lit it with his own breath, and brought it back and pushed it between the old man’s lips. Next day they told me partial paralysis had come to him in the night, and the poor old fellow lay weeping to get out with the boats again, to feel the dash of the spray in his face, the tilt of the boat before the wind, the drag of the filled net. But his day was done.

Tramping in Unfrequented Nova Scotia

Tramping in Unfrequented Nova Scotia

By W. Lacey Amy

The Canadian Magazine, 1915, February. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec. 2015.

This story is so interesting; we live in Nova Scotia and have travelled the Eastern shore just a few times. His description is one hundred years old but the remarks are so fresh they belong to today./drf

NOVA SCOTIA, almost equally with Newfoundland, is little more as yet than a coast-line. The great interior remains a hunting-ground, despite the existence along the coast for a century and a half—long before Ontario passed the forest stage—of a hard-working, serious-minded people, who have struggled, first to hold the country for England and latterly in some parts to hold existence in the face of commercial disadvantages. On the south coast from Halifax westward the tourist has begun to seize the scenery as his own, but eastward there is still no railway, no tourist traffic, and little in the way of real industry save cod fishing.

To see this country of unsearched rivers, untrod forests to the very water, and indentations that twist and wind behind an outpost of innumerable islands, you must forgo your chauffeur—and a lot of other things you may have become accustomed to connect with comfortable travel. It depends upon your point of view. So long as you refuse to lend yourself to the scheme of life that is on a fair way to make man’s legs merely historical—like the appendix and the tonsils—there are pleasures to be enjoyed along that coast that outweigh the absence of comforts. The Woman-who-worries[i] and I thought so. Three hundred miles of roadway—and four times that length of coast—was bound to open up new delights not obtainable where the dining-car menu faces you or the summer resort obtrudes its tiresome affectation.

Along that railwayless coast lives a thin line of fishermen—nothing north of them for fifty miles but man-less forest, nothing south but the ocean, nothing in life but the harvest of the water. Stores there are few. Boarded-up show-windows here and there tell of the inroads of the mailorder house, the cheapness of water transportation from Halifax, and latterly the parcels post. All along the road stand these mute signs of a dead trade, with empty houses thickly strewn. Steadily, year after year, the people have moved to the West, or died of the dread scourge, tuberculosis, which plays such havoc with the fishermen. Many of those who remain will tell you of depleted fisheries and repeat longingly the lurid tales of fortunate friends in the West. A kindly people and honest, with hands out to the stranger and an unaccountable lack of many of the ordinary comforts of life. Doctors are few and scattered, visiting their patients in summer by motor-boat and naturally dependent upon Halifax for surgery. The few stores offer few luxuries. The mail-order catalogue is the closest connection between the fisherman and the life we know.

Along that three hundred miles of coast there is but one road, with little off-shoots leading southward here and there to fishing villages on the peninsulas. The “coach road” has covered everything even the careless indulgence of a winking government could permit, but it couldn’t reach every cluster of houses on such a sinuous shore. There seemed to be no other limitation to it. Payment per mile has made the miles many. Hills that might have been avoided, with a saving of length, structural difficulties, repair, and climbing, are carefully included. The road glimpsed over simple country only a mile away wanders two or three to get there, for no reason save the extra mileage it means. One would think that the natural tangle of that coast would satisfy even a government contractor.

Thus it is that settlements appearing on the map four or five miles apart are really ten, and in the passage every physical feature of the surrounding country is encountered.

It is not mere rhetoric to assert that a new road could be built through every essential point almost as cheaply as to repair the old one. For years there has evidently been no attempt to repair the bridges over some sections; in one stretch of twenty miles there were missing culverts of an average much exceeding one a mile. How the mail driver overcomes them at night is a mystery; upon inquiry he merely grins and says the horses know the holes by this time. Right in the heart of Ship Harbour the roadway up a grade misled me into thinking we had wandered into the bed of a dry stream. Everywhere along the way springs use the road as the simplest channel for getting there. They ripple merrily along the trail, crossing unbridged at their leisure, fulfilling no purpose but the drainage of the Provincial Treasury and the convenience of the thirsty traveller.

Here and there are short stretches that show the possibilities of the road, and a few cement bridges were under construction over the more dangerous streams. And yet it was under more continued pseudo-repair than any road I ever saw. “Where will we reach decent roads?” asked one of the two automobiles we met in our walk more than a hundred miles east of Halifax. I referred them to the possibilities beyond Halifax; I had never been there.

It was a hundred miles of that kind of road we trudged—and walking was the only method of doing it with anything resembling comfort. It gave us time, and exercise, and entire freedom of action. The only other way to do it was by “coach”—what we would call the stage;—and we tried some days of it to the most kindly memories of the walking.

It was a lonely hundred miles—lovely and lonely, lonely and lovely. In that distance we met two automobiles—and they were sorry for it—and not more than a half-dozen vehicles outside the settlements. There seems to be no communication between settlements save by coach and telephone. It is explained by the fact that there is no inter-trade. Each village looks only to Halifax, where it sells its fish, buys its supplies, spends its holidays. Mile after mile there was evidence that nothing but the coach had passed that way for days.

We commenced our walk from Musquedoboit Harbour, a name we learned to pronounce with the greatest pride. Further along we came to a dozen villages that troubled us more that we mentioned to each other in our own jargon, and stumbled blindly over in getting directions. I carried a large map as the simplest method of finding our way. Chezzetcook, Petpeswick, Newdy Quoddy, Necumteuch, Ecumsecum, Mushaboon and the rest of them derive their names from sources of criminal intent, the tourist is apt to think. Getting rid of the words with quick confidence is the only chance of being understood.

Musquedoboit Harbour will some day be a week-end resort for Halifax. My memories of it are a deserted sawmill, a deep, menacing river with steep banks, and an inexhaustible supply of four-pound speckled trout that lay beneath the dam awaiting the first bare hook to be “jigged” out for the table. “Jigging” may be the extreme of bad sportsmanship, but it makes unrivalled eating at Musquedoboit Harbour.

The daily coach provided a solution of the baggage problem, and we experienced little difficulty in keeping in touch with our conveniences. From Musquedoboit Harbour we set out one afternoon eight miles for Jeddore Oyster Pond. On the way we passed through the tiny settlements of Salmon River Bridge, Head of Jeddore, and Smith’s Settlement, each liable to be missed, but jealous of its name. A little Sunday-school picnic in a sheltered nook beside an arm of the sea reminded us that there was still pleasure-taking along the coast. Not even in the settlements did we see another sign of life.

Jeddore Oyster Pond derives the familiar portion of its name from the cultivation of oysters there at one time. A saw-mill quickly put an end to that. Now there are only a few white shells to tell of it. At Jeddore we had our first taste of the possible difficulties we might have to face. By request the coach-driver had unloaded our baggage before a house which had been named to us as a possible stopping-place. But stopping-places along that coast are only possible, as a rule—by which I mean nothing to their discredit. Liquor is not sold east of Halifax, and the roadhouses serve you or not, as they please. There are very few to serve. Our baggage was in front of the house, all right, but we were firmly informed that it was not a stopping-place, and even if it had been, a wedding the day before prevented the entertainment of guests. A mile back there was a woman who might take us. I looked at the two suit cases and decided camping out there had its attractions over a mattress a mile back. We went up the road begging accommodation, and a woman took compassion on us for the nights were cold. It was no relief later in the evening to be told in a kindly way that no one would have seen us stuck for a place to sleep. We learned then that there must be no guesswork in our information, and that there was not a horse to be had anywhere for moving baggage. It increased our delight that we had not trusted to the steamboats running along the coast, the landings being anywhere up to a couple of miles from the stopping-places.

Next morning we set out for Ship Harbour, an easy day of ten miles intending to stop for dinner at Lower Ship Harbour, reported to be four miles on the way. By the time my pedometer registered the four miles we had advanced a mile beyond the last house into the heart of unbroken dismal forest. It was noon, and we had had no meat—and little else since the noon before, and I carried thirteen pounds of camera. Once more we had come a mile too far and didn’t go back. On we ploughed into the most lonely bit of road we met in the whole journey—not a sign of habitation, not even the tinkle of cowbells, and but the dim tracks of the coach of the day before. We learned to yearn for the cowbells from that day, for they told of settlement near at hand.

At two o’clock we burst suddenly on a welcome road-gang at the edge of Ship Harbour, and a few minutes later were making a meal at a table that haunted us for the rest of the trip. Mrs. Newcombe, of Ship Harbour, I remember as one of the bright spots of the journey. With sickness on her hands she still had time for cleanliness of house and pleasing variety of table—and a roll of hooked rugs beneath the parlour sofa made me regret the limits of my baggage.

At Ship Harbour was a relic of prosperous times, a deserted saw-mill. All along the way we came on them. Financed by English capital, they had gone the way of so many industries in Canada thus backed, through prodigal management, ignorance of local conditions, and careless control by the shareholders. Some of the mills were closed through the clearing-out of the saleable timber, and powerful waterfalls and well-built dams were wasting their force. Only one other industry revealed itself along the coast. Two or three gold mines were making desperate efforts to keep at work, depressed a little by the failure of others. At Tangier and Sheet Harbour there were lively hopes that the local workmen would not be turned off.

Ship Harbour, situated at the head of a beautiful arm of the sea, is now best known along the coast for its salmon; but the salmon season was about over, the one or two belated fishermen we met being most concerned about the quickest way out. Down each side of the arm a road ran, the one used only by the coach to avoid the ferry, and the other leading to a fishing settlement down by the sea and to a ferry across to the coach road.

That four-mile walk down to the ferry on a vivid Saturday morning—the coach road, they told me, was almost impassable—was one of the most beautiful stretches along the coast. A church or two, one lone blacksmith shop, a working sawmill, an old mill of our grandfathers with its overshot wheel, and here and there a herring fisherman drawing his nets—these were enough, without the fleeting glimpses of faraway sea, deep green islands, and quaint houses. Hanging on the fence I found the horn to summon the ferryman across the three-quarters of a mile of water. It was a small horn for such a big job, but it possessed a voice that would have made it the most brilliant memory of any youngster’s Christmas. It echoed and rolled over the water, and up the hill behind me, and in among the trees, until I thought I had been playing with a tempest. The little rowboat that ferried us over for seven cents each was manned by a boy who could have had no possible use for land.

I found it difficult to explain that we were tramping—with enough money to pay our way. One kindly-intentioned resident considered he was elaborating on my story by telling of his meeting with “another fellow walking along the coast. He was covering more ground than you a day, and he’d worn the soles off his shoes and had paper tied around them, his feet were terrible sore.” If we had not providentially got through two days before the declaration of war I have no doubt of our classification as German spies. As it was, we were—a new kind of tramp.

That day we had before us a walk of twenty-three miles. We had heard of the stopping-place at Spry Bay, and wished to make it for Sunday. On the way we encountered one of the confusing tangles of the country. Many of the villages have neighbouring settlements distinguished from them only by some qualification. Ship Harbour has its distant suburbs of Ship Harbour Lake, Lower Ship Harbour, and Lower Ship Harbour East, covering an area of a dozen miles, and entirely disconnected by miles of unsettled country. A careless memory is a calamity on the Nova Scotia coast. We learned, too, that distance cannot be gauged by villages, but only by individual houses, for some of the villages are four or five miles long. Five miles is a factor in a tramp of twenty miles, about meal-time.

We dined at Tangier—pronounced as it is spelled—and after an hour’s rest in a light shower, set out in the threatening skies ten miles for Spry Bay; and one of those ocean rains is not to be trifled with. For the last four miles it was village all the way, Spry Bay being separated from Spry Harbour only in the imagination of the residents. Here we found the first mistake in our Government map, but it was a serious one. That four miles followed every dent in the coast in a most aggravating manner, the stopping-house in plain view only a half-mile away as the crow flies, but two miles by the road.

We spent Sunday at Spry Bay, a day of continued rain and fog. We were thankful to be where we were. The table we faced was in a class by itself along that coast.

Speaking of tables reminds me of the beds—and the memory is not the most pleasant. Everything from ropes and feather ticks up we tried, and the springs were usually not the most comfortable. Travellers with ironclad demands in the way of bed comforts will not be at home there. Breaking new ground has its discomforts, one of the greatest to me being a set of springs that sags a foot and a half in the middle. In case of extremity the rug beside the bed is comparative luxury.

Monday we made but eight miles, to Sheet Harbour, the most important village between Halifax, and Sherbrooke. We had of necessity to stop there for we had been unable to learn anything of the coast beyond. Nobody west of Sheet Harbour goes east of it. Between Spry Bay and Sheet Harbour we passed over a great height, the island-dotted, peninsula-pierced sea beneath us specked with groups of distant fishing boats. Mushaboon was a quiet little place of cod flakes and a wharf where a vessel was loading.

Sheet Harbour, you would remember, as composed of Mrs. Conrod, the travellers’ friend, and a Catholic church crowning the end of the harbour. To be received by Mrs. Conrod is recommondation enough for the south coast. “Do you see any name out there to say this is a hotel?” she demanded of a complaining traveller. “Well, then, get out.” Three years later he returned, confident that he would be forgotten. She recognized him in the midst of dinner—and he finished it elsewhere. We spent a whole night there. We’re proud. Mrs. Conrod is Irish, and seventy-five, and, with one maid, handles a big house and a store across the road. “Go to the other store,” she hurled at a customer who had interrupted her afternoon nap.

In the meantime events had been shaping to force us to the coach. The soles of the shoes of the Woman-who-worries were making effective protest against the roads. We didn’t appreciate the paper our fellow-tramp had used to fill the gap; but not a shoe repairer had we seen since we left Halifax, and we were informed we probably wouldn’t this side of Sherbrooke. At Spry Bay a fisherman drove in a few tacks. At Sheet Harbour we heard of one who worked in the mines by day, and by night cut the village hair, and sometimes repaired shoes. I was waiting for him at six, and found him willing, “supposin’ they didn’t bother him too much with hair-cuttin’.” At eleven that night I stumbled through the darkness to his house and was rewarded with soles that were, at least, solid leather and securely tacked. It prevented the paper situation.

East of Sheet Harbour the average accommodation deteriorates, but is not at all impossible. Sheet Harbour seems to be the end of ordinary traffic, and travellers thereafter must take what they can get. We also began to feel the distressing effects of unreliable information. Having planned to walk only sixteen miles that day, we decided at the end of it to push on five miles further in the uncanny darkness of an ocean fog after sundown. It was a venture I don’t want to repeat in a wild country without fences to keep you in the road—and the memory of a bear cub we had seen saunter out on the road before us that day.

Twelve miles farther on, at Marie Joseph, we were forced to give up walking and take to the coach. The weather was becoming unsettled and raw, the roads were terrible, the stopping-places more irregular, and our meals coming at all hours owing to mistaken local ideas of distance and direction. To reach Marie Joseph we were directed down a branch road that carried us two miles out of our way, having already walked four farther than the distance given; and then another mile out of our way—with a great, gaunt feeling where the last meal should have been two hours before. The remainder we did by coach—longing every minute for better weather, that we might walk.

In six days, the Sunday of which we had spent at rest, we had covered almost exactly one hundred miles, according to my pedometer, more than eighty of which was along the coach road. During that week—and through the preceding and succeeding days by coach—we opened to ourselves a variety of scenery indigenous to Nova Scotia. Little, indifferent fishing villages, asleep by day, lively in the early morning and late afternoon, unsullied by the outside world or local class distinctions; ample basins where a country’s fleet might anchor, but only bobbing little fishing boats in sight; fresh, white-washed houses set without regard to aught but the owners’ whims; white-towered churches peeping over the hills and breathing peace and thoughtfulness; ox-carts here and there, lumbering gravely along as if the world were free of rush and care; a patient people, kind and gentle, bearing the difficulties of their life with wonderful calmness—these but a few of the brush-touches of the picture we saw. Ever it unfolds, bringing to us new memories, new humours, new gladnesses of the life, new sorrows—always beautiful and free and tinged with the colours of simplicity and patience.

---

[i] Lacey Amy’s wife, Lilian Eva Amy, later received the MBE from His Majesty King George V at Buckingham Palace on 24th September 1918 for her efforts during the War./drf

How the Fog Came

   How the Fog Came

By A. Hyatt Verrill

Author of "Harpers Aircraft Book," "Harpers Wireless Book," etc.

From Everyland magazine, Legends of the Northland, March 1915. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, June 2012.

It was dreary winter time in the Arctic, and the icy gales whistled around the little group of igloos (snow houses), drifting the fine snow about them until nothing but their low, rounded tops showed above the dazzling white surfaces which stretched away for countless miles to the frozen shores of the Arctic Ocean.

Just within the tunnel-like entrances to the huts the dogs huddled together, now and then howling dismally at the storm without or snapping at one another in a wolfish, savage manner. Within the little dwellings built of blocks of frozen snow, it was warm and comfortable, with no sound or sign of the blizzard raging outside. Near the center of each house stood a rude stone lamp filled with whale-oil, and with a row of moss about its edge. This moss served as the wick, and from this primitive stove the occupants of the house received their warmth and light.

 All around the inside of the igloo was a bench of ice, covered with the skins and furs of foxes, bears, seals, and wolves. On this bench sat the women; among them old Nepaluka, her wrinkled face bent close to the deerskin shirt which she was patiently stitching with a sharp bone needle and sinew threads. Near her was Newilic, her son, busily at work upon a walrus tusk, which under his deft fingers was being transformed into a long snow-knife. Between these two sat Kemiplu, Newilic's motherless daughter, a chubby brown-eyed lass of five years, playing with a horn dipper and a handful of bright pebbles.

Finally the grandmother finished the last seam, and, placing the completed shirt aside, sank back among the furs. The little granddaughter had tired of her simple toys, and cuddling up to the old woman, begged for a story. The grandmother smiled and gathering the little bundle of fur-wrapped humanity in her arms said:

"And of what shall I tell you, little daughter? Shall it be of Ukla the great bear who made the fog; of Nowgaluk the gull who ate the whales; or why the crow is black and the loon speckled?"

"O tell me of Ukla, Ananating!" (Grandmother), cried the child delightedly, and her busy father looked up from his work and listened attentively, for the simple Eskimos love their quaint old legends and never tire of hearing them repeated.

"Many, many winters ago," began the old woman, "there was a great white bear named Ukla. He and his wife lived many days' travel to the west in a great skin house upon a rocky plain, and all about the house were the skulls of men and women; for wicked old Ukla loved human flesh, and every night he traveled far across the land to the homes of our people. He would kill those whom he could find outside their huts, or would steal the bodies of the dead, and, fastening a rope of skin about their feet, would drag them across the rocks and hills to his home.

"Sometimes he was seen by the Eskimos, but oftener they saw only his giant footprints in the moss and snow, or found the graves deserted and empty. For many years this had gone on, and, although the people held medicine feasts and asked the Great Spirit to help them, yet he seemed displeased and answered not their prayers.

"Many times also the people lay in wait and tried to kill the robber bear with their spears and arrows, but Ukla was a great anti-coot (magician), and the bone-tipped weapons fell back bent or broken from his shaggy sides. At last the Eskimos were in despair, when one day a tall fair stranger came among them and said.

" 'Take heart, for I will rid you of this Ukla.'

"Then the Eskimos danced and beat their drums and rejoiced, and the stranger said to them:

" 'Tomorrow I will pretend to die and you must wrap me in skins and bury me among the stones, and when Ukla comes let him depart in peace with me.' Then the people grew very sad and sorrowful, but he answered them saying, 'Weep not, for soon I will return, and never after shall Ukla rob the graves of the Eskimos.'

"Then the people did as the stranger told them, and, wrapping the stranger in skins, placed him among the stones and departed to their homes crying aloud as if in sorrow. In the evening the great bear, having heard their cries, came across the hills to the village and, finding the body of the stranger, he fastened his rope about the man's heels and started homeward. But the man spread out his arms and grasped at stones, and although Ukla pulled and tugged he could travel but slowly, and every few miles he was compelled to stop and rest from his labors. Then as he looked at his burden he would shake his head in wonder.

" Ah,' he would say to himself, 'who would think such a small man would weigh so much; but he must be fat and fine indeed! What a grand supper he will make!' And thus encouraged by the thoughts of the fine feast he would have, he would again start onward. At last he reached his home and dragging the man within the door threw him into a corner, and tired out with his hard work crawled into his sleeping-bag, telling his wife they would feast in the morning.

"After a time the stranger opened his eyes to look about, but Ukla's wife, who was trimming the lamp, saw him and cried out to her husband:

" 'This man is not dead—he is looking about.'

"But Ukla was very tired and answered sleepily,

" 'Oh, man dead, man frozen stiff.'

"Then the man kept very quiet indeed, and when the bear's wife turned away he caught up Ukla's knife and leaping forward killed her. As she fell the bear awoke, and the man, throwing down the knife, dashed through the door and across the rocky plain while the bear followed close at his heels, panting and growling terribly as he ran.

"At last, run as fast as he might, the man found the bear was constantly gaining and would soon overtake him. Now this stranger was a mighty magician, and as he ran he caused a great hill to rise between himself and Ukla, and as the bear climbed slowly up one side the man ran swiftly and easily down the other; but when Ukla reached the top he curled up and rolled swiftly down the side of the hill and nearly caught the man again.

"Then the stranger caused a mighty river to flow between himself and his pursuer and sat down upon a stone to rest. When Ukla reached the farther side he roared and growled with rage, and in a great voice called out,

" 'How, O man, did you cross the river?'

"And the man laughed and answered, 'I drank my way across.'

"When Ukla heard this he plunged into the stream and drank and drank until at last he made a dry path across the torrent and crawled slowly up the other bank. But his long hair was wet and heavy, and his body was greatly swollen with all the water he had swallowed, so that the man feared him not, and taunted him. Then the bear grew very angry, and with growls like icebergs clashing in a storm he cried out, 'Ugh, even though I am so sodden that I cannot overtake you, yet you shall not escape me,' and giving himself a mighty shake he burst, and the water which he had swallowed flew in all directions and caused a thick fog over all the land.

"Now the man was greatly troubled, for all the hills and plains were hidden from his eyes and he knew not which way to turn. But having skinned the bear he grasped the shaggy hide in his hands and waved it many times about his head, thus making a great wind which drove away the mist. When he reached the village of the Eskimos great was the rejoicing and the men did not work and the women did not comb their hair for three days and three nights, but danced and beat drums and feasted. For many years the stranger dwelt among the Eskimos and taught them many things, and performed many great and brave deeds, but of these I will tell you some other day, for now it is time to sleep, little daughter."

As the old woman ended her tale the little brown eyes were closing, and the grandmother laid the child tenderly among the soft rich furs to dream of the good brave stranger and mighty Ukla the "Fog Father."

How the Reindeer Lost Their Tails

How the Reindeer Lost Their Tails

By A. Hyatt Verrill

Everyland magazine, Vol. VI, No. 4; September, 1915; column ‘Legends of the Northland’. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, June 2012.

Author of "An American Crusoe," "The Cruise of the Cormorant." Etc.

Little Kemiplu was learning to sew. Her grandmother, old, wrinkled Nepaluka, was mending skin garments and the child, with a bone needle and sinew thread, was amusing herself by stitching odd bits of fur together. At last the little girl arose, toddled to the old woman's side and proudly held forth the result of her work for approval. Upon a bit of dark sealskin she had fastened strips of white hare and when the grandmother saw it she burst into a low laugh.

"Ai, ai!" she exclaimed, "It is like the feathers of the ptarmigan when he changes from his brown coat of summer to the white of winter. Or is it that Amook has stood beside thee, little daughter, and has laid his hands upon the skin and left white marks where his fingers rested?”

Kemiplu threw down her handiwork and climbed into her grandmother's lap.

"O, tell me of Amook and the reindeer," she begged, "and of why the ptarmigan turns white in winter."

"Very well, little daughter," said the old woman. "Thy father's clothes are mended and my eyes are weary, and perchance the stranger has never heard of Amook."

"Many ages ago," she began, "before the Eskimos first came to the land, all the reindeer were brown from head to tail and all wore long, bushy tails like the foxes. In those times there lived a mighty magician named Amook who owned all the animals and birds. All creatures roamed at will except the reindeer, but these Amook kept hidden in a great hole in the earth. Every day Amook would come forth from the hole, and after pulling a big stone over the entrance to his home, he would travel all about to care for his creatures. In those days the birds and animals were all of one color and when winter came and the snow fell their brown bodies were plain against the snow and the creatures saw one another afar and it was easy indeed for the owls and hawks to see the ptarmigan and kill them and for the foxes to see the hares and devour them. At last so many were killed that Amook grew fearful lest his live things would all be destroyed and he would be without food to eat or skins and furs to wear. So Amook, the magician, gave many days to thought and made many spells, until, by touching the hair of an animal or the feathers of a bird, he could make the brown change to white like the snow. Then, when winter came, Amook would go forth throughout the land and would call to the birds and the creatures far and near. As they came to his call he would stroke them with his hands and their color would change and they would go forth from him white and spotless. But soon Amook was again greatly troubled for when spring came and the snow melted and the brown rocks and gray moss were to be seen, the white creatures were like spots of snow upon the land and fell easy prey to their enemies. From far and near the beasts and birds flocked to their master crying aloud for help in their troubles and begging him to make them brown once more.

"So Amook made another spell in his hole beneath the earth, and when he came forth and touched the birds and animals, behold! they were changed from white to brown as before.

"So, as each winter came, Amook went forth across the land and changed the brown of birds and animals to white; and again, when the winter had passed and the wild geese came to the northland, he went forth again and changed the white once more to brown.

"But some of the creatures were wary and would not come at their master's bidding, and Amook was hard put to chase and capture them. It was thus with the great bear, for he loved his white coat which Amook had given him and which helped him to hide upon the icebergs and the floes; and try as he would Amook could not catch him in the spring to once more turn him brown. So, too, the great white owl; in his white coat he could perch motionless upon a rock, and birds and beasts would think him but a piece of ice and unsuspecting would approach within easy reach. Time and again did the magician creep close and strive to catch the owl, but never did he grasp him, although the tips of his fingers touched the feathers as the owl flapped away; and to this day you may see the round brown spots, left by Amook's fingers upon the feathers of the owl. The weasel, too, timid and suspicious, but too cowardly to disobey his master, crept sneaking from the rocks and crouched snarling to the earth as Amook passed his hands over the fur, and the tip of his tail, being hidden in the rocks, to this day remains black, while his belly that was pressed to the earth is white throughout the seasons. Many other things—the geese and ducks and snipes, the hawks and the gulls—flew southward ere Amook came forth to work his spell of whiteness and came not north again until the spell of brown was spent, and so their colors changed not with the year. But the hare and the fox, the ptarmigan and the weasel, came at Amook's call and grew cunning and hid from their enemies through the magic of the Anticoot.

"Through all this time the reindeer, deep within their hole, remained brown, for under the earth there was no winter and no summer. One day, as Amook returned to his hole beneath the earth the raven, flying by, saw the magician step out of sight. Always curious he wondered what Amook had hidden in the earth and after pondering he flew to his friend the fox. 'Ai, ai!' he exclaimed, 'Tell me, O brother, what your master keeps in his home beneath the earth. You, whom he fondles and strokes to white or brown must know.' But the fox knew not and said so to the raven. This made the black bird more curious yet. 'Why have you never found out, O brother?' he exclaimed, 'Have you never wondered where this Amook gets the power to turn brown white and white brown? Think you, O brother, how fine it would be to know the secret of his power. With it in thy paws thou couldst change color at will and like the owl pose as a bit of snow in summer or a bare rock in winter. Truly, O little friend, you would find hunting easy.' Now the fox was a born thief and most cunning withal, and the words of the raven set him thinking. At last he spoke. 'With thy help, O black brother, I may find out. We will hide close by the hole of Amook and when he comes forth thou wilt fly far into the air and croak loudly, and when the magician looks up at the sound, I will place a bit of rock beneath the cover to the hole so it will not close tightly, and when Amook has passed on we will enter his dwelling and steal the charm!'

"So it came to pass that, when Amook again went forth, the cunning fox lurked close at hand, and in the air above the great black raven croaked hoarsely. Even as the two had planned, the magician looked up to see why the bird called out, and the fox slyly slipped a bit of rock into the edge of the doorway to Amook's home. So, when the magician pushed the stone shut, the bit of rock stopped it from closing and an opening was left which Amook did not see. Then, when the magician had gone far, the raven descended and with his friend the fox entered the dwelling of the magician. After a long time they came to a great valley and there they saw the herd of reindeer—all brown and with bushy tails—feeding upon the fresh moss. The fox and the raven were filled with wonder at the strange creatures with the branching horns; and the deer, who had never seen another creature other than Amook, were filled with wonder as great and with some fear at sight of the white fox and the black bird.

"But the raven with his flattery and the fox with his cunning soon overcame the fears of the deer and talked with them. The deer knew nothing of the magician's spell, for they had never been changed to white; and the fox and raven—finding the deer dull and stupid—began to tell them of the wonders of the outside world. At last the simple deer were interested and longed to go forth, and they followed the fox and raven to the opening in the rocks.

"One after the other they squeezed through, and just as the last one had come forth Amook came home. When he saw that the deer had escaped, he rushed forward and with outstretched hands tried to push the deer back into the hole; but the deer—pleased at the outside world—struck at him with their feet and where his hands had touched their foreheads broad white marks appeared, for Amook had been forth to turn all creatures white for the coming winter and the charm was still upon his hands. Then Amook, running about, seized the deer by their tails and strove to pull them back into his home. The deer struggled and tugged and all at once their tails broke off in Amook's hands and the magician, tumbling head over heels, rolled into the opening beneath the stone.

"Then the deer pushed the bit of rock from beneath the stone door which fell into place and shut Amook up forever. But, as the deer's leader closed the rock door, one of the prongs of his antlers was caught between the stones, and in drawing it forth it was bent and twisted in front of the deer's face.

"And so, little daughter, to this day every reindeer has a twisted part of each horn before his face and a stubby tail, and where Amook grasped the deer's tails and struck their foreheads in the long ago the white patches still remain."

Why the Crow is Black and the Loon Speckled

 Why the Crow is Black and the Loon Speckled

‘Legends of the Northland’ column, Everyland magazine, June 1915. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, May 2012.

By A. Hyatt Verrill

Author of "An American Crusoe" "The Cruise of the Cormorant,"etc.

The spring was approaching in the Arctic, and little flocks of snowbirds were twittering outside the igloos on the snow. Soon the Eskimos would be moving into their skin houses and would live much of the time out-of-doors, but it was still cold and dreary, and the people were glad to seek the shelter of their ice huts save when fishing or hunting. In Newilic's home old Nepaluka, ever busy, stitched steadily away at a pair of sealskin moccasins while her son bound a tough thong of skin about the cracked stock of his ancient rifle given him by a whaler in exchange for musk-ox and bearskins.

Little Kemiplu played about, running here and there, tumbling among the heavy robes and furs and filling the close, smoky air with childish laughter. Presently she spied a pot of black soot carefully set aside for future use, and unnoticed she dipped her chubby fingers in the thick black mass and, pleased at its appearance, daubed it over her round little cheeks. Then, running to her grandmother, she proudly exhibited the results of her first attempt at self-adornment. The gentle, patient old woman dropped her work and threw up her hands in amazement:

"Hail Ai!" she cried, "what is this, you naughty little one? Are you a little imp, or is it a little crow I see? Ah, Kemiplu, you are indeed like the crow. Never quiet for a moment, and now you are as black as when the loon was through with him."

All unabashed Kemiplu cried out in glee.

"Oh, Ananating," (Grandmother), "tell me the story of the crow and the loon!"

The old woman picked up the pet of the household in her arms and exclaimed:

"Ah, you little tease, you have wasted the father's black and have daubed your face, and what now but your grandmother must reward you with a story! Well, my old eyes are tired with the sewing, and 'twill serve to keep you from further mischief, so I will tell you the tale you desire."

"Many moons ago," began the old woman, "all the birds were of one color, white like the snow, and all the beasts were of one color, brown like the rocks. One day the crow, while stealing bits of skin from the village of the Eskimos, saw the medicine-man, as he pierced the skin and rubbed in the black for the tattoo.

" 'Ah,' said the crow, 'how beautiful do the men make themselves, while we birds are ugly white and one can scarce be known from another!' Flying off he soon saw his friend the loon, and stopped for a chat.

" 'Ai! Ai!' he cried, 'I have been watching the Eskimos and have seen how the men-creatures make themselves beautiful. What a shame that you and I cannot do likewise!'

"Now the loon is a very wise bird; indeed, he might be called a medicineman among the feathered people, and when he heard the crow's story he exclaimed:

" 'And why, brother, should we not also use the black pot and paint our bodies ? If you, who are so wily, will steal the pot of color, we will try.'

"So the crow flew back to the village of the Eskimos, and watching his chance he stole the pot and made off with it. Then the loon said:

" 'You, brother, have seen the man use this thing and must know how to use it better than I. Tattoo me first and I will watch you work, and then when you are through and I have learned the trick I wall tattoo you.' " So the crow took the little sharp bones and dipped them in the black and commenced to tattoo the loon's neck. The loon squawked in pain but he stood still patiently while the crow decorated his neck with black stripes and dots and made neat black squares upon his back.

"Then the loon took up the bone points and told the crow to stand still while he worked out a pattern. But the crow—always a coward—danced and hopped at the first prick, and the needle slipped and made an ugly, scraggly mark. So the loon, who is ever quick-tempered, cried out, 'Stand still, or I will throw the pot at you!'

"Then for another while the crow was quiet, but soon he again began to move and squirm, and the loon, seeing all his beautiful lines and dots rubbed and spoiled, grabbed up the pot of black and threw it at the crow, and the soot spreading and running over him blackened all his feathers as he flapped, squaking, away.

"And as the ugly black bird flew off, the loon, thinking of his own fine tattoo marks laughed loud and long; and even to this day the crow is black and the loon is speckled, and ever as the loon sits on the calm water and sees the reflection of his pretty black and white feathers he thinks of the long ago and laughs in wild glee.

"And now, little daughter, if you are like the crow surely your father is like the loon, for even as he looks upon your black face his sides shake with laughter, so I will clean you lest he burst with merriment."

Thus closing her tale with a fling at her fat, good-natured son, she began the difficult task of removing the black stains from Kemiplu, and presently tucked the child among the robes to dream of things even more wonderful than her grandmother's old legends.