Page 32 - Remembering Life on Scatari Island

ISSUE : Issue 14

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1976/8/1

walked over on the drift ice. From West Point to Moque's Head • that's a mile and a quarter. I was glad of it. I was ??lad nrfaen I got back, too. Ihe ice was right in solid. Oh, there'd be cuts about that big, cracks into it. Water gets an awful tide in the tittle, you know. Water'd be going through there sort of like white foam. Had to jump across the cracks. Go? ing back. Bertha was over there. Mame: Bertha was his granddaughter. Joe: She was up here a whole week trying to get across, waiting until the ice would close in. She wanted to go home. I said it wasn't fit. "Yes," she said, "I don't mind goii' home with you." Well, I could not refuse her. I'll never do it again. We started. I'd jurap across the crack and get over where I could pull her a- cross. We got over to Little Shag Rock • it was all broke up. We got up and Ben Campbell • he was the lightkeeper; he's dead now too • he launched his boat and landed us ashore. That's ray first and last time. Joe: Prettiest place you've ever seen. Only nine miles long, is all. Nine raile frora light to light. And only three mile across. Had lots of room there. Lots of guns and lots of skating • that's the main thing. Ihe old people always had a garden. Potatoes and cabbage and turnips and carrots. Mame: Sheep. You had all your own socks, mittens and all that kind of thing. Raise your own pig for the win? ter. Joe: Cows. You had hens, you had eggs. Mame: Horses. Joe: Didn't cost much to live afterwards. Mame: Life was good there. Joe: No one was stuck up there one to another. All the sarae. Marae: I liked it all right. But after the one started to go....I'll tell you the most thing that made people leave Scatari. Fisheries business. Ihey had to come over here to Main-a-Dieu to sell their fish. And it would be late and they would have to stay away from home. And the harbour wasn't too good. Joe: You'd get in frora fishing it'd be dark. Then you'd have to come to Main-a-Dieu to sell your fish. It'd be 12 or 1 o'clock before you'd get home. Every day. Tire? some. (Otherwise, you never felt deprived?) Mame: No, never deprived of anything on Scatari. Lots to eat and lots to drink. Joe: Something happen at a house and everybody'd run. Mame: If you were sick there was always someone to tend you. We never locked the door. Used to leave everything open. gar and Abbie Spencer on Scatari, and a view of Scatari Island. Our thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Francis Wadden for su _____'' upplying faraily photoes. and to Jocelyn Marchand vtho sent J.D.Crawford's lovely view of Scatari. Pictures of the "Giss'' sinking are frora Capt. John Parker's collection. Inforraation for the to"bogra- phieal raap was taken frora a raap drawn tor us by Edgar Spencer. For raore about mumming see CHRISTMAS MUMMING IN NEWFOUNDLAND edited by Halpert and Story. U. of Toronto. The Main-a Dieu Disaster Fund The people who lived on Scatari moved to Main-a-Dieu and a nuraber of them were among the 16 families who lost their homes and all belongings in the devastating forest fire in June. 1976. The beautiful church and glebe house were lost as well. The people are rebuilding. Ihe Mam-a-Dieu Disaster Fund has been established to help in the rebuilding, refurnishing and reclothing for people who worked hardTor all they had and who have lost virtually everything. Donations can be raade through any bank or credit union.

Cape Breton's Magazine