Cape Breton's Magazine

very hot, you'd have to turn it over two or three times a day, back-up and then face-up and then back-up and so on. Then you put them in what's known as fagots. It's a small pile, probably 100 or 150 pound of fish. You make it up head and tail, head and tail--the big part one way, then the other way--till you get probably a little pile. All back-up clear of the bottom tier. The bottom tier would be face? up. You'd keep them in fagots--and every day you'd spread them in the morning, for 5 or 6 days, good days--take them up again in the evening, back into fagots. And some people had canvas covers, but a lot of people didn't--they'd just have this roof, one fish over the other, and it looked like shingles, All built of dried fish. Well then, when you'd get it so many days in piles, then the next thing was the "stores"--a building where you put your fish. Take it out in the morning and put it back in the night. And it was getting pretty dry then. And before the vessel would come to load it, you'd dry it all-- just give it a day's sun on the beach or on the flakes again, whatever you'd have. Usually women did the most of the drying. My mother dried thousands of quintals. She'd have 7 or 8 women working with her. Thousands of quintals, from the Bank schooners. We had a great big beach on our _'.'. .. ..- place. We could spread 900 quintals in one ''d,-:'!'?*' spread. She'd have as high as 11 women -"' -dt - -< working with her, when the. weather was good. A lot of fish on hand. (And if it started to rain?) Everybody'd be there and just fagot the fish, or put it in piles if it was dry enough for piles. Fish drying in a fagot, a pile, and on flakes at North Ingonish. (Photo Clara Dennis, C.B.OVER,'42.) And then you made up what they called "piles," Well, the fish were getting pret? ty dry then. They'd be I suppose 5 feet in diameter, round. They started from the bot? tom and they'd come out bigger, wider, as they got to the top, That would keep the rainwater off. They'd begin by making a circle, all napes out, big part out. When you'd get built up, you'd fire a few in the middle of the pile. And when you'd get up as high as you were going, you'd make what is known as the "roof." And the last, there'd be just one fish on the top. It would be sharp and that would run the wa? ter off of it. The backs are up on these. All handwork. And then when you'd start to load those three-masters, handwork again. (You'd fish the season on the two-masted schooner, and then you'd go to work on a three-masted schooner for the foreign trade?) That's right. And the cargo you carried was what the women dried. All dried fish. Putting it aboard, it was all handwork--two quintals on a barrow--it was a handbarrow, no wheels on it, a fellow in the front and one in the back. It's just flat, with handles. You'd go out on the gangplank and you'd dump it in the hold of the schooner. Just dump it. And then there was a bunch, probably women or girls or men or something--whatever you could get-- stowing it in the hold of the schooners. And the vessels were all limed in the hold. 24-HOUR SERVICE Owned and Operated by Syl MacDonald Baddeck Ambulance Ltdi 295-2200 Fully Trained, Experienced Personnel! When You're in Halifax, Visit the Home of _ -. Minglewood Band IVlictV Long John Baldry The Battery Sam Moon Spice Colliervlnn ??'Glace Bay 28 Newly Renovated Units For Reservations, Phone 849-9333 Speedy Propane Moon SPEEDY FILLING STATIONS Speedy Propane Bulk Plant Kings Road, Sydney (4) THE A Jf * * /cabaret 3700 KEMPT ROAD NEAR WINDSOR STREET, HALIFAX J.E.Benoit, Arichat Inlet Campground, Baddeck H. Cormier Service Station, Petit Etang Fraser's Campground, Baddeck Bob Wilson's Fina, Reserve Dave's R V Centre, Bras d'Or