Cape Breton's Magazine

a line with two hooks • one part would be a little shorter than the otner and there'd be two hooks on it, see? about a foot long from the mainline. Handline. Hooks were just called codhooks. You'd put your line over the side and just hold it. You'd let your line down till you'd touch the bottom;then you'd pull it up a piece • say about half a fathom or around there. Sometimes vou'd move it. Sometimes it wouldn't be down long enough the fish'd grab it. Oh sometimes vou'd get some pretty big ones. At that time there was lots of fish. Not like today. We'd get boats coming in • even when I was fishing with those two old fellows • vou'd be loaded down with fish. But it was nothing for them, you know, no price. The value was nothin, ha ha. And they didn't sell fresh. They dried them. Clean them ashore. Had what they'd call a stage, you know? a building. Come out on the wharf. Clean them there and all the gurry'd go in the harbour. And split them. Take the bone out. Then salt them. Lay them head and tail in the barrel • big molasses punchions. You had a little scoop and you'd fill that and shake the salt over the fish. It would ms'ce its own pickle then after a while. Then they'd take it and they'd wash it out, see? Generally water right out of the harbour. And then they'd dry them. They didn't press them. The only thing they done when they'd make thera up, at night, they used to use what they called friggets. Pile them up. One on top of the other. Sometimes they used to put a piece of canvas over them and sometimes they didn't. If it come to rain or anything like that. And vrhen the sun'd be out they'd spread them all out on those flakes, you know, keep them off of the ground--flakes made of little poles, out of the woods. They'd lay it flesh up, but then if the sun was too hot they'd turn them over, back up. When the sun was just right they left them face up. A good sunny day, nice little breez'e, you know. Not too hot, no. You'll have to turn them over, you'll burn the fish. Turn them brown, you know. If it look like rain you'd gather them up • friggets. That's what the old fellows used to call it anyway. A frigget of fish • when they'd have so many piled up, see? They went by the quintal, so many pounds to a quintal. Then I went to sea. I was 11 years old. On an old schooner. I was cook. Went from Louisbourg to Halifax to Yarmouth to Bridgewater, Liverpool • carrying coal, carrying coal. Then when I was 14 I went into the mines. My mother and all the rest of the For a Lunch or a Family Meal in a Relaxed Atmosphere Tartan Village Restaurant St, Ann's, on the Cabot Trail FRESH SEAFOOD A SPECIALTY WILL PICK UP ANYWHERE MAKS 1! Used Furniture & Antiques WE PAY CASH Granville St,, Port Ha;wkesbury 625-2517 At Margaree Harbour on the Cabot Trail )taIIabJ) prtasi) Along this indoor fantasy of London 100 years ago you will find shops featuring: Antique Replica Dolls and Toys Nova Scotia Handcrafts Locally-made Baked Goods Tartans, Kilts, Jewelry and China Museums of LOCAL CRAFTS, ANTIQUE TOYS and HISTORICAL DIORAMAS The"MARiON Elizabeth" Schooner Restaurant Open 8 AM to 10 PM Seafood Dinners and Afternoon Teas formerly "Paul Pix," now under new management f rost - 6. 9<:o-ttisU'AaAort Aio>de- '