Page 15 - Lobster Factories around Cape Breton

ISSUE : Issue 20

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1978/8/1

tory in Judique, ahd we went and we packed up there for the '45 season. Then that fall we built our own factory again down at Pig Cove, Little Judique Pond. Again, all free labour. And we packed in 1946 and kept on until 1953 and another storm came in the spring and cleaned pretty near half of the traps out. Had to close down the middle of the season. Grand Etang was still a going co-op in 1953 • so we had a meeting with them and decided to go in with them. We tirucked all our lobsters down there for that year, and afterward. And kept sending the markets by rail. And we never packed here after that. Of course, going to Grand Etang • we were better off. We were clear of a lot of trouble and we were still in the co-op. Then their co-op went out and the factor? ies all joined in one. And we're shipping all the canners today to New Brunswick. Shediac, I think. So they're packed up there and the co-op is still alive. (Why did the co-op succeed here?) Well, what they were getting from the company, it was no good anyways. And we had a good leader in Father Lauchie MacDonald from Judique. He was our boss sort of • after us all the time, encouraging us. And he'd go good for us at the bank for money in the spring and we'd pay him back. He'd be watching us all the time, be down ther' the shore visiting • and that had a lot to do with it. And determination. And maybe because we were all cut out of the same kind, of people • all Scotch and all related and they were all the same kind of people in the Maryville Co-op, And others, they were all French • and they stuck together. And succeeded. At the last of it, before that storm in '53f sometimes in January we'd make enough to get a little bonus. And then we were beating the fellows who were fishing for the other companies, fellows selling out? side the co-op. We were getting the going price for the last few years of it. We'd get the going price • same price as the others were getting. Then perhaps when all the lobsters were sold, perhaps we'd get 3 or 2 or 4 cents a pound bonus, which would be more than the other fellows. And be? cause of that, those other companies had to start paying their fishermen the same thing. So the co-op helped them more than it helped the ones that were in the co-op, because they didn't have no trouble, no worries, no nothing. We were working a lot of times for nothing, free labour, build? ing the factory and all • and they weren't doing anything. But because we were there and getting a certain price, the private companies had to meet that price so their fishermen wouldn't go to the co-op. Co-op Factory at Grand Etang. 1940. Girls. 1 to rt; Virginia Aucoin. Sophie Ann Aucoin, Zabme Doucet, Marguerite Doucet, Sophie Chiasson, Cecile Anne Doucet, Marie Helene Doucet. Alma LeBlanc. Anita Aucoin. Felix Poirier. foreman. Marie Theresa Cormier. Marie Janette Doucet, Marie Anne Aucoin, Dyney Doucet, Dyney LeLievre. Coroline Shomp. Nancy Aucoin, Juliette Poirier. Cecile Cormier. Men; Philip Deleney, Luc Camus, Gerard Cormier, Alex LeBlanc. Luc Aucoin, Arsene Chiasson, Joseph J. Chiasson, Arthur LeBlanc, Elie Joseph Doucet. For help in making this article, our thanks to Joy MacDermid, Josie Shaw. Evelyn Smith, Wilena MacAskill, Mr. and Mrs. Audie Morrison and the Cape Breton Historical Society of Cape North. Fred Williams and Cabot Archives, Collie MacDonald of Port Hood. Bob Fitz? gerald, Dingwall. John A. Wilkie, Sugarloaf, Arsene Chiasson, Grand Etang, Eleanor Tho? mas, Port Morien, Marguerite MacDonald. Little Judique Ponds, Ethel Whitman, Big Bras d'Or.

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