However, the final authority on the text was the storyteller. At each stage - first draft, edited version, and chapter galley proof - the women were asked if they wished to make any changes. This process gave them control over their text. It also allowed us to clarify essential details - for example, whether the speaker was referring to pounds or pots - and to check our spellings of family names and local place-names.

Many people contributed to this book and we would like to acknowledge some of them here. First we would like to thank all the storytellers for working with us over the last year. We also thank their families and friends for taking telephone messages, receiving faxes, reading chapter text and searching through boxes of photographs.

We would also like to thank the members of Newfoundland and Labrador Women's FishNet, in particular Martha Muzychka, Lana Payne and Barbara Neis. They helped us set the boundaries for the book, read a draft of the work, and offered advice when we sought it. Lana also suggested the title, a phrase from the song Woman of the Island, written by Delores Hynes of Calvert.

A number of people assisted with the photographs. Ann Devlin-Fisher helped us find photographs at the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador (PANL) and made sure they could be published in this book. Bruce Wareham, Vice-President of Newfoundland Operations at National Sea Products, gave us permission to use pictures taken in the

company's plants by photographer Don Lane. The Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union provided pictures from their collection. We had the good luck to find Dr. Elmer Harp Jr. of Hanover, New Hampshire who, without hesitation, offered us all the photographs he had taken on his first trip to the Labrador Straits in 1949. Carol Brice-Bennett of the Labrador Institute for Northern Studies gave us photographs from her personal collection. We first saw the handsome front cover photograph proudly displayed at Bidgood's Supermarket in the Goulds. Jennie Bidgood let us borrow the picture so we could make a copy.

About forty men and women involved in adult literacy and basic education programs helped us field test the text; they read some chapter drafts and gave us many helpful suggestions. For working with us on the field test, we would like to thank Jeanette Winsor and participants at the FFAW Education Centre, Bonavista; Velma Pittman of Eastern College, Bonavista and her daughter Gwen; Pam Rideout and other people at Teachers on Wheels; and Doris Hapgood and participants at the Rabbittown Learners Program.

Finally we would like to thank the National Literacy Secretariat, Human Resources Development Canada. Their financial support made this book possible.

Helen Woodrow and Frances Ennis