_WITH The FLEET_
In the early spring--when the sunlight is yellow and the warm winds
blow and the melting snow drips over the cliffs and runs in little
rivulets from the barren hills--in the thousand harbours of
Newfoundland the great fleet is made ready for the long adventure
upon the Labrador coast. The rocks echo the noise of hammer and
saw and mallet and the song and shout of the workers. The new
schooners--building the winter long at the harbour side--are hurried
to completion. The old craft--the weather-beaten, ragged old craft,
which, it may be, have dodged the reefs and out-lived the gales of
forty seasons--are fitted with new spars, patched with new canvas and
rope, calked anew, daubed anew and, thus refitted, float brave enough
on the quiet harbour water. There is no end to the bustle of labour on
ships and nets--no end to the clatter of planning. From the skipper of
the ten-ton _First Venture_, who sails with a crew of sons bred for
the purpose, to the powerful dealer who supplies on shares a fleet of
seventeen fore-and-afters manned from the harbours of a great bay,
there is hope in the hearts of all. Whatever the last season, every
man is to make a good "voyage" now. This season--_this_ season--there
is to be fish a-plenty on the Labrador!
The future is bright as the new spring days. Aunt Matilda is to have a
bonnet with feathers--when Skipper Thomas gets home from the Labrador.
Little Johnny Tatt, he of the crooked back, is to know again the
virtue of Pike's Pain Compound, at a dollar a bottle, warranted to
cure--when daddy gets home from the Labrador. Skipper Bill's Lizzie,
plump, blushing, merry-eyed, is to wed Jack Lute o' Burnt Arm--when
Jack comes back from the Labrador. Every man's heart, and, indeed,
most men's fortunes, are in the venture. The man who has nothing has
yet the labour of his hands. Be he skipper, there is one to back his
skill and honesty; be he hand, there is no lack of berths to choose
from. Skippers stand upon their record and schooners upon their
reputation; it's take your choice, for the hands are not too many: the
skippers are timid or bold, as God made them; the schooners are lucky
or not, as Fate determines. Every man has his chance. John Smith o'
Twillingate provisions the _Lucky Queen_ and gives her to the
penniless Skipper Jim o' Yellow Tickle on shares. Old Tom Tatter o'
Salmon Cove, with plea and argument, persuades the Four Arms trader to
trust him once again with the _Busy Bee_. He'll get the fish _this_
time. Nar a doubt of it! _He'll_ be home in August--this year--loaded
to the gunwale. God knows who pays the cash when the fish fail! God
knows how the folk survive the disappointment! It is a great lottery
of hope and fortune.
When, at last, word comes south that the ice is clearing from the
coast, the vessels spread their little wings to the first favouring
winds; and in a week--two weeks or three--the last of the Labradormen
have gone "down north."
Dr. Grenfell and his workers find much to do among these men and women
and children.
* * * * *
At Indian Harbour where the _Strathcona_ lay at anchor, I went aboard
the schooner _Jolly Crew_. It was a raw, foggy day, with a fresh
northeast gale blowing, and a high sea running outside the harbour.
They were splitting fish on deck; the skiff was just in from the
trap--she was still wet with spray.
"I sails with me sons an' gran'sons, zur," said the skipper, smiling.
"Sure, I be a old feller t' be down the Labrador, isn't I, zur?"
He did not mean that. He was proud of his age and strength--glad that
he was still able "t' be at the fishin'."
[Illustration: "AT INDIAN HARBOR"]
"'Tis a wonder you've lived through it all," said I.
He laughed. "An' why, zur?" he asked.
"Many's the ship wrecked on this coast," I answered.
"Oh no, zur," said he; "not so many, zur, as you might think. Down
this way, zur, _we knows how t' sail_!"
That was a succinct explanation of very much that had puzzled me.
"Ah, well," said I, "'tis a hard life."
"Hard?" he asked, doubtfully.
"Yes," I answered; "'tis a hard life--the fishin'."
"Oh no, zur," said he, quietly, looking up from his work. "'Tis
just--just _life_!"
* * * * *
They do, indeed, know how "t' sail." The Newfoundland government,
niggardly and utterly independable when the good of the fisherfolk is
concerned, of whatever complexion the government may chance to be, but
prodigal to an extraordinary degree when individual self-interests are
at stake--this is a delicate way of putting an unpleasant
truth,--keeps no light burning beyond the Strait of Belle Isle; the
best it does, I believe, is to give wrecked seamen free passage home.
Under these difficult circumstances, no seamen save Newfoundlanders,
who are the most skillful and courageous of all, could sail that
coast: and they only because they are born to follow the sea--there is
no escape for them--and are bred to sailing from their earliest years.
"What you going to be when you grow up?" I once asked a lad on the far
northeast coast.
He looked at me in vast astonishment.
"What you going to _be_, what you going to _do_," I repeated, "when
you grow up?"
Still he did not comprehend. "Eh?" he said.
"What you going to work at," said I, in desperation, "when you're a
man?"
"Oh, zur," he answered, understanding at last, "I isn't clever enough
t' be a parson!"
And so it went without saying that he was to fish for a living! It is
no wonder, then, that the skippers of the fleet know "how t' sail."
The remarkable quality of the sea-captains who come from among them
impressively attests the fact--not only their quality as sailors, but
as men of spirit and proud courage. There is one--now a captain of a
coastal boat on the Newfoundland shore--who takes his steamer into a
ticklish harbour of a thick, dark night, when everything is black
ahead and roundabout, steering only by the echo of the ship's whistle!
There is another, a confident seaman, a bluff, high-spirited fellow,
who was once delayed by bitter winter weather--an inky night, with ice
about, the snow flying, the seas heavy with frost, the wind blowing a
gale.
"Where have you been?" they asked him, sarcastically, from the head
office.
The captain had been on the bridge all night.
"Berry-picking," was his laconic despatch in reply.
There is another--also the captain of a coastal steamer--who thought
it wise to lie in harbour through a stormy night in the early winter.
"What detains you?" came a message from the head office.
"It is not a fit night for a vessel to be at sea," the captain
replied; and thereupon he turned in, believing the matter to be at an
end.
The captain had been concerned for his vessel--not for his life; nor
yet for his comfort. But the underling at the head office
misinterpreted the message.
"What do we pay you for?" he telegraphed.
So the captain took the ship out to sea. Men say that she went out of
commission the next day, and that it cost the company a thousand
dollars to refit her.
* * * * *
"A dunderhead," say the folk, "can _cotch_ fish; but it takes a _man_
t' find un." It is a chase; and, as the coast proverb has it, "the
fish have no bells." It is estimated that there are 7,000 square miles
of fishing-banks off the Labrador coast. There will be fish
somewhere--not everywhere; not every man will "use his salt" (the
schooners go north loaded with salt for curing) or "get his load." In
the beginning--this is when the ice first clears away--there is a race
for berths. It takes clever, reckless sailing and alert action to
secure the best. I am reminded of a skipper who by hard driving to
windward and good luck came first of all to a favourable harbour. It
was then night, and his crew was weary, so he put off running out his
trap-leader until morning; but in the night the wind changed, and when
he awoke at dawn there were two other schooners lying quietly at
anchor near by and the berths had been "staked." When the traps are
down, there follows a period of anxious waiting. Where are the fish?
There are no telegraph-lines on that coast. The news must be spread by
word of mouth. When, at last, it comes, there is a sudden change of
plan--a wild rush to the more favoured grounds.
It is in this scramble that many a skipper makes his great mistake. I
was talking with a disconsolate young fellow in a northern harbour
where the fish were running thick. The schooners were fast loading;
but he had no berth, and was doing but poorly with the passing days.
"If I hadn't--if I _only_ hadn't--took up me trap when I did," said
he, "I'd been loaded an' off home. Sure, zur, would you believe it?
but I had the berth off the point. Off the point--the berth off the
point!" he repeated, earnestly, his eyes wide. "An', look! I hears
they's a great run o' fish t' Cutthroat Tickle. So I up with me trap,
for I'd been gettin' nothin'; an'--an'--would you believe it? but the
man that put his down where I took mine up took a hundred quintal[2]
out o' that berth next marnin'! An' he'll load," he groaned, "afore
the week's out!"
[Illustration: "SET THE TRAPS IN THE OPEN SEA"]
When the fish are running, the work is mercilessly hard; it is kept up
night and day; there is no sleep for man or child, save, it may be, an
hour's slumber where they toil, just before dawn. The schooner lies at
anchor in the harbour, safe enough from wind and sea; the rocks,
surrounding the basin in which she lies, keep the harbour water placid
forever. But the men set the traps in the open sea, somewhere off the
heads, or near one of the outlying islands; it may be miles from the
anchorage of the schooner. They put out at dawn--before dawn, rather;
for they aim to be at the trap just when the light is strong enough
for the hauling. When the skiff is loaded, they put back to harbour in
haste, throw the fish on deck, split them, salt them, lay them neatly
in the hold, and put out to the trap again. I have seen the
harbours--then crowded with fishing-craft--fairly ablaze with light at
midnight. Torches were flaring on the decks and in the turf hut on the
rocks ashore. The night was quiet; there was not a sound from the
tired workers; but the flaring lights made known that the wild, bleak,
far-away place--a basin in the midst of barren, uninhabited hills--was
still astir with the day's work.
At such times, the toil at the oars, and at the splitting-table,[3]
whether on deck or in the stages--and the lack of sleep, and the icy
winds and cold salt spray--is all bitter cruel to suffer. The Labrador
fisherman will not readily admit that he lives a hard life; but if you
suggest that when the fish are running it may be somewhat more
toilsome than lives lived elsewhere, he will grant you something.
"Oh, ay," he'll drawl, "when the fish is runnin', _'tis_ a bit hard."
I learned from a child--he was merry, brave, fond of the adventure--that
fishing is a pleasant business in the sunny midsummer months; but that
when, late in the fall, the skiff puts out to the trap at dawn, it is
wise to plunge one's hands deep in the water before taking the oars,
no matter how much it hurts, for one's wrists are then covered with
salt-water sores and one's palms are cracked, even though one take the
precaution of wearing a brass chain--that, oh, yes! it is wise to
plunge one's hands in the cold water, as quick as may be; for thus one
may "limber 'em up" before the trap is reached.
"'Tis not hard, now," said he. "But, oh--oo--oo! when the big
nor'easters blow! Oo--oo!" he repeated, with a shrug and a sage shake
of the head; "'tis won-der-ful hard those times!"
The return is small. The crews are comprised of from five to ten men,
with, occasionally, a sturdy maid for cook, to whom is given thirty
dollars for her season's work; some old hands will sail on no ship
with a male cook, for, as one of them said, "Sure, some o' thim min
can't boil water without burnin' it!" A good season's catch is one
hundred quintals of dry fish a man. A simple calculation--with some
knowledge of certain factors which I need not state--makes it plain
that a man must himself catch, as his share of the trap, 30,000 fish
if he is to net a living wage. If his return is $250 he is in the
happiest fortune--richly rewarded, beyond his dreams, for his summer's
work. One-half of that is sufficient to give any modest man a warm
glow of content and pride. Often--it depends largely upon chance and
the skill of his skipper--the catch is so poor that he must make the
best of twenty-five or thirty dollars. It must not be supposed that
the return is always in cash; it is usually in trade, which is quite a
different thing--in Newfoundland.
* * * * *
The schooners take many passengers north in the spring. Such are
called "freighters" on the coast; they are put ashore at such harbours
as they elect, and, for passage for themselves, families, and gear,
pay upon the return voyage twenty-five cents for every hundredweight
of fish caught. As a matter of course, the vessels are preposterously
overcrowded. Dr. Grenfell tells of counting thirty-four men and
sixteen women (no mention was made of children) aboard a nineteen-ton
schooner, then on the long, rough voyage to the north. The men fish
from the coast in small boats just as the more prosperous "green-fish
catchers" put out from the schooners. Meantime, they live in mud huts,
which are inviting or otherwise, as the women-folk go; some are damp,
cave-like, ill-savoured, crowded; others are airy, cozy, the floors
spread deep with powdered shell, the whole immaculately kept. When the
party is landed, the women sweep out the last of the winter's snow,
the men build great fires on the floors; indeed, the huts are soon
ready for occupancy. At best, they are tiny places--much like
children's playhouses. There was once a tall man who did not quite fit
the sleeping place assigned to him; but with great good nature he cut
a hole in the wall, built a miniature addition for his feet, and slept
the summer through at comfortable full length. It is a great outing
for the children; they romp on the rocks, toddle over the nearer
hills, sleep in the sunshine; but if they are eight years old, as one
said--or well grown at five or seven--they must do their little share
of work.
* * * * *
Withal, the Labradormen are of a simple, God-fearing, clean-lived,
hardy race of men. There was once a woman who made boast of her high
connection in England, as women will the wide world over; and when she
was questioned concerning the position the boasted relative occupied,
replied, "Oh, _he's_ Superintendent o' Foreign Governments!" There was
an austere old Christian who on a Sunday morning left his trap--his
whole fortune--lie in the path of a destroying iceberg rather than
desecrate the Lord's day by taking it out of the water. Both political
parties in Newfoundland shamelessly deceive the credulous fisherfolk;
there was a childlike old fellow who, when asked, "And what will you
do if there _is_ no fish?" confidently answered: "Oh, they's goin' t'
be a new Gov'ment. _He'll_ take care o' we!" There was a sturdy son of
the coast who deserted his schooner at sea and swam ashore. But he had
mistaken a barren island for the mainland, which was yet far off; and
there he lived, without food, for twenty-seven days! When he was
picked up, his condition was such as may not be described (the
Labrador fly is a vicious insect); he was unconscious, but he survived
to fish many another season.
* * * * *
The mail-boat picked up Skipper Thomas of Carbonear--then master of a
loaded schooner--at a small harbour near the Straits. His crew carried
him aboard; for he was desperately ill, and wanted to die at home,
where his children were.
"He's wonderful bad," said one of the men. "He've consumption."
"I'm just wantin' t' die at home," he said, again and again. "Just
that--just where my children be!"
All hearts were with him in that last struggle--but no man dared hope;
for the old skipper had already beaten off death longer than death is
wont to wait, and his strength was near spent.
"Were you sick when you sailed for the Labrador in the spring?" they
asked him.
"Oh, ay," said he; "I were terrible bad then."
"Then why," they said--"why did you come at all?"
They say he looked up in mild surprise. "I had t' make me livin'," he
answered, simply.
[Illustration: "THE BULLY-BOAT BECOMES A HOME"]
His coffin was knocked together on the forward deck next morning--with
Carbonear a day's sail beyond.
* * * * *
The fleet goes home in the early fall. The schooners are loaded--some
so low with the catch that the water washes into the scuppers. "You
could wash your hands on her deck," is the skipper's proudest boast.
The feat of seamanship, I do not doubt, is not elsewhere equalled. It
is an inspiring sight to see the doughty little craft beating into the
wind on a gray day. The harvesting of a field of grain is good to look
upon; but I think that there can be no more stirring sight in all the
world, no sight more quickly to melt a man's heart, more deeply to
move him to love men and bless God, than the sight of the Labrador
fleet beating home loaded--toil done, dangers past; the home port at
the end of a run with a fair wind. The home-coming, I fancy, is much
like the return of the viking ships to the old Norwegian harbours must
have been. The lucky skippers strut the village roads with swelling
chests, heroes in the sight of all; the old men, long past their
labour, listen to new tales and spin old yarns; the maids and the lads
renew their interrupted love-makings. There is great rejoicing--feasting,
merrymaking, hearty thanksgiving.
Thanks be to God, the fleet's home!
[Footnote 2: A "clever hand" can split--that is, clean--thirty fish in
a minute.]
[Footnote 3: A quintal is, roughly, a hundred pounds. One hundred
quintals of green fish are equal, roughly, to thirty of dry, which, at
$3, would amount to $90.]