Page 2 - A Visit with Frank Landry, 91. of Isle Madame

ISSUE : Issue 70

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1996/6/1

did with it?) So help me.... No.... I'll tell you what I did. I sold it for $12. and it cost me about $18 to make it. And I sold it for 12. I didn't want to see it anymore. I wanted to make a better one. Now that's what I mean by self-employment. You're self-employed and you learn while you're working. And you'll never forget that. But there's a lot of work. I'd never stop a person trying to learn something, even if they spoil it, because it's the on? ly way to learn. That's the gospel truth, now, that's true. I've studied the darn thing, see. I studied that. Now, if my fa? ther would have been living, he wouldn't have let me make a boat. No, sir. I'd spoil that lumber, see. That's the way it is. (So your father wasn't a teacher?) Oh. my father was just a fisherman. He knew all about a boat, but he couldn't make one. I don't think. Could repair one, but he couldn't make one. (What I mean is, he wouldn't teach you what he knew.) Oh, no. no, no, no. No. All the old peo? ple, they were to save, not to promote any? thing. If they could save some? thing it was a victory for them. Never mind what you learned. You get me? My father was a fisherman in the Iv THE BEAR PAW GIFT & CRAFT SHOP Local Crafts to Tickle Your Fancy Photographs • Knitting • Crocheting Painting • Quilts • Weaving/Hooking Gifts to Test Your Resistance • Beautiful Souvenirs KMBI'jIii • Attractive Tartans B'3' • China and Glassware QyQQQ • Numbered Icono Celtic Prints • PLUS OTHER ARTISTS And: • Celtic Jewellery 3 Breton Tapes and CD's CENTRAL AVE. INVERNESS PHONE 258-2528 TOURS OF: LOUISBOURG, CABOT TRAIL, MINERS MUSEUM AIR CONDITIONED UNITS 564-6200 Limousine Service Taxi Fleet 24 KINGS ROAD SYDNEY 564-4444 States. They were pogy fishermen. Mostly all the settlers here, they were going po? gy fishing in the spring. They'd fish for about eight months, then they'd come home and they'd stay home in the winter. (What's pogy fishing?) Pogy is a fish that they make fish meal with it. It's a fat, fat fish. And that's what the factories make fertilizer with. My father was one of them that he'd work for somebody else and get the money and that's it. He was a good fisherman, a good mender and everything for nets and that. He wouldn't even show us how to mend a net, see. Never showed me.... How in the hell could you do it when you don't study it? But he could do that. See, he had learned that up there (in the States). (Did you want to know how to do it?) Well, I was young. When he died I was only 17. I've been making my living since I'm 12 years old. I was farming, cutting lumber. My fa? ther had an ox. You've seen a pair of oxen that's on TV sometimes for show. Well, this was only a single ox. One. I used to work for people. I'd haul perhaps about 80 cords of wood in the wintertime for different people. I'd haul coal from the wharf.... The lighthouse I had (on Hawk Island) didn't give you a living. I used to go ashore. I had a little farm ashore and, of course, I was coming home every day. But I turned out this way. I drove (cars) Hi RESTAURANT'ltH "Enjoy superb dining in a re[a?(inj t [u?(unoiis atmosphere SPECIALIZING IN CHINESE CUISINE Canadian Dishes also available FULLY LICENSED TAKE OUT & DELIVERY ORDERS Major Credit Cards Accepted' 'king Hestaurant 355 Charlotte Street Downtown Sydney Tel: 539-777' Open dally11:00am """" "" ONE OF } li CAPE BRETON'S FINEST i

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