During the early 1970's I worked for a man by the name of Norman Goodrich. I worked as a herring collector for two years on a boat called the Bella Rosetta. Ambrose Chubbs and myself worked as deckhands on the boat. A man by the name of Ralph Martin was the engineer and another man by the name of Henry Hillyard was the captain of the boat. Goodrich would also be on the boat. He was called the paymaster (meaning the one who paid the fisherman). He would also measure the quality of the pickle in the barrels to make sure the pickle was 100% pure. The five of us would live on the boat. While working on the boat we were all 'found,' meaning our board and food was all free. We would start work in August and knock off sometime in November. We would work about 15 hours a day for 6 days a week. We were paid well for our work. I used to get $8 an hour.

We would collect herring from people from Henley Harbour to Pack's Harbour. We would drop off wooden barrels to the fisherman to store the herring in. Then every week we would go and collect herring from the fisherman and drop off more barrels to them if they needed them. We could carry about 200 barrels of herring at a time aboard the Bella Rosetta Each barrel would weigh between 200 and 225 pounds. We would bring the herring to Pack's Harbour. There the herring would be offloaded and another bigger boat would take the herring somewhere up in Newfoundland.

The fisherman had to clean the herring and salt them in barrels. Some fisherman would also salt and sell some mackerel. The mackerel was done different from the herring. The mackerel had to be filleted, which meant the backbone had to be removed. This took more time to manage but many fisherman fooled with the mackerel too. The fisherman had to work hard at the herring and the mackerel. It was time consuming work and it took a good many herring or mackerel to fill up one of those barrels.

We collected herring all down the coast. Gordon Penney of Murray's Harbour used to do the best with the herring. I remember one summer we collected over 300 barrels of herring and mackerel from him. Overall we collected the most herring from Murray's Harbour because that was a good place to catch herring.

Norman Goodrich collected herring and mackerel in Labrador for 3 years. Then he went bankrupt. That was the end of the herring fishery in Labrador. There has not been a herring fishery in Labrador since. The herring fishery was something people could fall back on in case the cod didn't come in that particular year. It was a big help to a lot of fisherman in the fall of the year when most of the cod fishing was done. It gave fisherman something to do in the fall and at the same time it put some money in their pockets.