Chapter 2

THEM TIMES

Fox Harbour: A Busy Port

By Gertrude Chubbs
Researcher: Christopher Poole

When I was a young girl I would sit outside the house and watch hundreds of schooners go down the coast. The schooners were from Newfoundland and they came to Labrador to fish for cod. I remember one summer when five schooners used Fox Harbour as their resting port. They'd look for a safe sheltered spot in the harbour and drop anchor. They'd remain in that spot all summer until they returned home in the fall. Schooners were fair sized ships and people lived on them during the summer. There was usually five or six men on a schooner and usually one woman who would do the cooking and the washing. All the fish the crew caught were salted and stored onboard. The schooners didn't have engines. They used sails to power them along. The schooners had a couple of punts on board which were used for fishing purposes. The men would set and haul traps, set out traps and go jigging in those punts. Some of the punts were over twenty feet long and they had two sets of oars on them. When the crew got their fish they would return to the schooner. There the fish would be offloaded unto the schooner where it would be cleaned. They had splitting tables and everything set up. It was like a stage on water!

At that time there were also people fishing out of Fox Harbour. Sometimes the local fisherman and the schooner crews would fish right along side each other. In those days local fishermen had berths which they would fish every year. Some of those berths would be handed down from father to son. So some fisherman had real attachments to particular berths. The schooners crews respected the local fishermen's berths and never set their gear in those spots. The crews of the schooners were friendly people. They would often come ashore and visit the local residents. Everyone got along well. After all, the people on the schooners were fisherman like ourselves who were just trying to make a living. In the fall of the year the schooners would lift anchor and head back to Newfoundland. There they would dry their fish and sell it. Residents of Fox Harbour were sad to see the schooners leave. The residents would miss the company of the crews, the friends they had made during the summer.


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