Photo courtesy of PANL NA2288

We had no fridges in them days, which meant there were only certain things could be kept. The meals were usually beans, fish and brewis, salmon, fish stew, pea soup, fried fish, meat and vegetables, corned beef and salted cabbage, and dumplings or pudding. There weren't many things to change around the meals, but I did the best I could. There were a few times when it was rough and dinner was cooking -I'd have to lash the boilers to the stove so they wouldn't slip off. It would be a bit scary, especially when you had a boiler full of pea soup with dumplings or meat and vegetables. You didn't want to lose all the dinner.

The way it was, you had to find out what would be going on and then you got into the routine of things. When the men were out fishing you had to be watching for the boat to come. You'd have the meal cooked, but you wouldn't put the tea in steep until you saw them. You'd never know how long they'd be gone - might be an hour or two hours or ten minutes. If they had fish,

they'd work at it, and if not, they'd be gone again tr haul their traps. There was usually two splitting tat going all the time, one on each side of the boat. The would be times, probably in the afternoon, when h the crew would go out and haul a trap and the other would stay in to finish off the fish. Sometimes I'd up to get cleared away from dinner to have a spell them for a good laugh. I might prong a bit of fish d in the hole to the fellows salting it.

One summer the fish had "broke off up the shore," they used to say. Then the skipper decided to go tic shore to find the fish. It was getting up to about Au 20th. There was this place where there used to be

fish to be got a bit late some years. We got there in evening and the next morning they went out with trap. There was no other schooner, only ourselves, see this boat coming. I had the water boiling and t! teapot ready, but I wouldn't put the water on the te, went up again on deck to have a look out and I sad' myself, "Sure there's only one person to be seen in Well I began to shiver and shake, and I went down the forecastle. When the boat came to the side of t schooner, I could hear someone tying on and getting I could hear every sound. A man came to the scull sung out, "Anyone down there?"