Page 69 - A Visit with Steve Whitty, Ingonish Beach

ISSUE : Issue 36

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1984/6/1

kind of food- of it. • and that's the whole truth We were brought up in the hardest kind of a way. We didn't have everything perfect. We had what everyone else had. You had burning wood. When you went to bed, the fire went out. You had your kindlings in to make your fire in the morning. Probably the water'd be frozen in the kettle on the stove. That happened. (If the haddock was in the spring, when did you do the trawling?) Late in the fall. (Is that what you call the winter fishing?) Yeah. We started probably in November, the first of November. Fished November and De? cember. I've seen us quit on the 20th of January. (Must have been cold.) Yeah, but you'd never mind out there. Wouldn't mind that at all. You had your winter clothes on you--and once you put your oilclothes on, brother, there's no way water can go through them. And generally, under the oil- clothes what you'd wear was your underwear and your outside clothes and a sweater--to get in the dory. Good rubber boots and good socks and mitts--you never were cold, never. You had to strip off barehanded to coil the gear. You'd coil, then you'd slap your hands to get them warm, feeling would come back in them in a minute. I never heard a fellow saying yet he was cold. And I know I fished 35 years. See, the way we used to do it, we used to haul a tub about. Well, you'd go in the bow of the dory and you'd haul like the first tub. You'd come back, and I'd haul the second. Then on the fifth tub, the man there would haul three and a half lines, and you would haul the balance. Sometimes when it was cold--what you call cold--your hands would get cold--my father would haul like three or four lines and give the oth? er fellow a chance to warm up, you know. But hauling gear, you had to haul with a , great big pair of woolen mitts on. You nev? er were cold that way, no way in the world. You had a wonderful sou'wester buttoned un? derneath your chin, and man dear! (You didn't haul barehanded?) You couldn't, dear. You'd coil in the tub barehanded, but you couldn't haul the gear barehanded. Some people would coil with mitts on, but I couldn't because the hook would stick in the mitt, (How did you avoid the hooks when hauling?) You got used to it just like everything else, boy, (And you didn't get caught on hooks?) Never in my life, never. The only time that ever I got a hook stuck into me was in that finger right there, setting trawl gear fair off of the Bird Islands. I was in Maclntyre's then. And my old uncle was rowing the dory. Tom Donovan. And there was a great big square-rigger going into Englishtown. And there was a big sea on, a big roll, you know. But I was set? ting, anyTA'ay, and he was rowing. And on the roll of the sea, like, if you're row? ing you've got to kind of back water-- don't let your dory go ahead too fast. Be? cause some time the trawl gear will go too fast for you. And boy, the hook got me STOP AT DINO'S fresh baked goods * souvenirs magazines * film * charcoal gifts * novels * camp fuel * ice Ingonish STAY AT DINO'S Trailer Park Laundromat -- * close to the National Park * One Stop Store & Restaurant Ingonish /j Atomic Energy L'Energie Atomique /'>''' of Canada Limited du Canada, Limitee CANDU Nuclear Information Centre "An Insight into Canada's Advances in the Nuclear Age' 1 OPEN 9 - 9 : SEVEN DAYS A WEEK 1 1 JUNE TO SEPTEMBER 1 |aT THE ROTARY IN PORT HASTINGS, N. S.| Come Celebrate 2 Major Baddeck Events: The Anniversary of the Silver Dart, & George's ENTERPRISES & LAUNDROMAT 1 BADDECK All Rooms Overlook Sydney Harbour Vista Motel King's Road, Sydney, N. S. RESERVATION NUMBER: 539-6550 Zenith Number: 07940, Anywhere in N. S. f' Insurance Services For All Your Personal Coverage, Call: SYDNEY 539-6315 (toll free) NORTH SYDNEY 794-4788 GLACE BAY 849-4547 MABOU 945-2514 NEW WATERFORD 862-6459 LOUISDALE 345-2199 PORT HAWKESBURY 625-0640 CHETICAMP 224-3204 A COMPREHENSIVE FARM PACKAGE IS AVAILABLE I (69)

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