Page 9 - Lobster Factories around Cape Breton

ISSUE : Issue 20

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1978/8/1

I never lost a whole load. But, there was one day it was pretty stormy with the wind north-easter • and I used to come in through what they call the false channel. (What's that?) Well, you take a mark. You open the inside end of the inside island and the end of Cape Smokey • you just open them about the width of two big barn doors • you know, leave a gap • and that used to take us out through over the deep? est water across the shoal. But I came in there one time and I had a crate sitting out on the stern. And just about the time that I was crossing the little shoal out? side of the big one, a sea broke across her and the crate of lobsters went. At that time we were using the large crates • called them l'O-pounder crates • but could hold as much as l80 pounds or 200. And that one went off the stern. But I never looked back. Because if I would have swung around to try to get that one in the trough of the sea where I had them piled up above the washboard • once she got into the trough of the sea I'd have lost the Port Morien factory in 1938. Seated, 1 to r: whole thing off the top. That's the only time I ever lost a crate of lobsters. After the factory was closed up for the season, a lot of the time a lot of lob? sters would come up from Lingan (in cans) by boat • and they would be stored in North Sydney. My wife and another girl would sometimes be working for two or three weeks labelling those cans. And John F. MacDonald over here • he's passed away some time • well he used to be with them, nail? ing up the cases after, the labels were on. He was testing the cans • they were tested in the factory at Lingan • but they would still test them in North Sydney. (How?) Well, you'd pick up the can on the box and you hit it, and if it happened to bulge at top or bottom • that wouldn't go in the case. It meant there was a leak in the sealing somewhere. If it passed, he put it on the table and the girls would label it and pack it back in the case again. Then he'd nail it up and strap it. Harry Leslie, Virginia Curry, John Hawes, Bud? dy Boutilier, Pat Coch? rane, Eunice Timmons, Gus Curry, Melvin Peach, ! Bernard Cochrane, , I Harry Wadden, Tom Coch? rane, Gerald Kavanaugh. Standing, 1 to r; Eliza? beth McEachem, Loretta Macintosh, Freda Clements, Ins Murphy, Edith Bouti- ' lier, Beatrice Peach, Virginia Cochrane, Mal? colm MacDonald, James Lee, Archie MacAulay. Earl Cochrane, Elmer Boutilier, Carlyle Boutilier. The factory was owned by David Thomas Leslie. Below, some of the fishermen who supplied the factory at the turn of the century. Left to right; Henry Peach, Charlie Sheppard, Tom Peach. Murray Peach. Fred Peach, Abner Peach, , . Note sailing vessels and 4-foot traps.

Cape Breton's Magazine