Seal Fingers

Arnold Chafe

Arnold Chafe is one of the old-time fishermen from Petty Harbour. Besides fishing, he went to the ice to hunt seals.

I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH that I never got seal fingers. I often cut myself out there and bandaged it up. You often heard tell of seal fingers.

Seal fingers came from a strain. That's what they always said. When they had the seals sculped, some fellas would put a rope in them to tow them. Or you could put your fingers in where his eyes were, in the eye sockets, to pull him along. With the real heavy ones you could pull your fingers out of joint.

Seal fingers was a pretty bad infection, with swelling and pus, and it would be some sore. You could go to what doctors you liked. Old Mrs. Stafford on the Southside Road was an ordinary person, but she could cure them. Fellas I knew went to her.

You could get a cut, and then the old fat would get in there. A friend from Petty Harbour was out with me. He got two seal fingers on the one hand. He had to go up and get them done up. There were two women doing them up, to keep them dry and everything.

The two women bandaged them up, and then they hauled a condom down over the fingers. There weren't too many of them seen in Newfoundland, but that's what they put on them, a condom. When he came back down, the boys said to him, "What? They did them up with condoms?" They couldn't believe it.

There were a few fellas who said, "Well, they weren't brought out here for that reason, but they come in handy!"