Three Ways to Capsize a Boat - Chris Stewart [56]
WALKING ALONG THE QUAYSIDE, distracted a little by the sharp angles of pickup trucks poking out of the water, Eli and his son Jeb told us about the cod fishing. There had been a time when it was said that a man could walk across the Grand Banks on the backs of the cod; for hundreds of years it had been the greatest fishery in the world. But the size of the catches, and the size of the fish, had dwindled to almost nothing, and it was the same story with the smaller inland fisheries like this one. It was no longer possible to make a living from fishing, especially as the sea here was frozen solid in the winter months.
“Yup,” said Jeb. “Whole darn sea’s frozen solid just as far as you can see. You can make a hole and take a fish or two for the family, but there ain’t no money in it.”
“So how do you make a living?” I asked. It was something I’d been wondering about for a while.
“Well, there’s only one way hereabouts. We take some seals. It’s all there is in the winter.”
“Seals?” There was a pause.
“Yup, seals,” repeated Jeb a little less certainly.
“What do you mean?” asked John.
“We cull ’em,” said Jeb. “We jus’ take the young ’uns. The furriers pay well for the pelt.”
“You mean you’re … seal clubbers?”
“Well, that’s sure the way we kill ’em: quick crack on the head with a club. Kills ’em instantly.”
These were our new friends—the very acme of kindness and generosity—and we struggled to take this revelation onboard. A pall of silence descended as Jeb went on to explain his work.
“What you gotta remember,” he told us, “is that there’s millions and millions o’ them seals out there. On the coast of Labrador just across the water, there’s a colony with about four million seals. It ain’t just man who’s over-fishing the cod; it’s them darn seals, too. If we go out of a morning and so much as see a single seal, we turn right about and come home again. You’ll never catch a fish when there’s seals about. So they gotta be culled.”
“But what about the clubbing?” I held out.
“Be a whole lot easier to shoot ’em with a rifle, but it don’t do the job quick enough, so we ain’t allowed to use rifles. The club kills ’em right away. It ain’t a nice thing to have to do, but then nor’s killin’ fish … an’ not cows nor pigs nor lambs, neither.”
We listened quietly, gazing at our respective feet or the distant horizon, as Jeb tried to put the facts straight.
“I tell you the controls is strict, too. You gotta have a license and there’s fishery protection officers there all the time. There’s any irregularity, you lose your license, and there ain’t nobody here can afford to do that.”
A COUPLE OF DAYS later I watched as Hirta hoisted her sails and tacked out of the harbor to start her run down the eastern seaboard. She was laden to the gunwales with fairy cakes, dried fish, and the warmth and good wishes of the Bridgers of Griguet. For a long time I stood on the dock and waved. It was such a lovely sight, I couldn’t leave until she had disappeared from view behind the hills to the east. Then I gathered up my pack and my guitar and headed off to see the New World … or at least Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. I wanted a spell on land, and a little independence, so I had forged a plan to hitch down through Newfoundland, across to Nova Scotia, and meet up with the boat in a week’s time in Lunenburg.
I trudged off down the cinder track that led south out of Quirpon. You can walk a long way—sometimes half a long day—among the blueberries and the cloudberries in northern Newfoundland before you get a lift. And so I spent a glorious seven days alone and on the solid unmoving road, wandering slow and easy down from the north. I walked for hour after hour, dreaming of home a little and longing