Photo courtesy of Elmer Harp, Jr.

We found at one point that we were losing a lot of fish; I couldn't buy anything under 18 inches through the Salt Fish Corporation. That's when I changed the plant over from salt to fresh fish. It gave us a lot more leeway in terms of being able to ease up on the grade and be able to tap into the fish what was coming through.

When we got into the fresh fish we had automatic headers, automatic splitting machines and all this. I was splitting it up and freezing it in 5-pound fillets. Most of that was brought in from Black Tickle and Domino. The sad part was you watched the Gulf stocks die; as the stocks were declining, the sizes were declining. We saw that. Back in 1982, 60 percent of our fish was large fish, over 22 inches. In 1989, 95 percent of our fish was under 18 inches. In 1984, I put up 1.2 million pounds in West Ste. Modeste and in 1985, I went down to 800,000. It went down to less than 50,000 pounds in 1990. The Gulf stock was gone, see.

We had a lot of good times in those 10 or 12 years there in that plant, but I tell you there was some nights it was pretty rough. I remember one night - it browed hard all day and there was a lot of Newfoundland boats over small-boat fishing. And the boys went out after supper and the wind calmed down and they started jigging.

The first boat that came to the wharf was 10:00 that night. We started grading off fish, and one then tried to get ahead of the other Cause they knew there was good jigging for the next morning. And every boat with 800, 900, and 1,000 pounds of fish. My husband and our son were there - 3:00 in the morning I got them graded off. The next morning some of the fishermen grabbed one young fellow belonged to me by the throat. I went out, grabbed one of the fishermen and said, "Look here. Any fighting to be done, I'm going to do it. You behave or you take your fish and go where you like with it. I don't even have to buy it from you." But I never had a problem with it. I thought I could always handle it well. I never had that many people come and jump down my throat. You always had it the odd time, but no matter who was there, you'd get that.

In West Ste. Modeste the fish plant is owned by the community and leased to a processing company. In 1986 the Fishermen's Committee decided to let Earles go and they hired H.B. Dawe. I worked for them that year. I was the first woman that ever the old skipper H.B. hired to be in'charge in any of his plants, 'cause he didn't believe that women were capable of doing a job. Every day I had to fax them my production costs. Well, they couldn't believe that they could make money, that they could break even in Labrador, because of the high cost factor and everything.