I was born in 1928. My wife and I had lots of children - two that died, one who lives in Goose Bay, one lives in Pilley's Island, one lives in Fox Harbour and the rest are all around here. I was born in Capton's Cove, Battle Harbour. There were only two families there then. There was a lot of families up there in Hatter's Cove one time, around forty or fifty families. They came from everywhere - from Fox Harbour, Cape Charles and Battle Harbour and all over the place. We used to go fishing summer time and in the fall we used to go back in the bay again, up to April or March month. Then we used to haul(11) out to Battle Harbour again and get ready for fishing.

There was only four families living up there when I was living there - Uncle Earn Howell, Gregory Taylor, Alfred Allen and ourselves. They'd haul out in the spring too. When we would see one goin', we'd all get ready and shift out the one time. You'd straighten up in the fall with $100 or $200.You'd buy a bit of grub(12) in the fall and that had to do all winter. Probably sometimes in the spring now, if you was down and out and had neither bit to eat, you could get some welfare from the Rangers. They'd give you a little bit, about $5.00 and that had to stand you a month. Then you had to go take oath for that probably or sign for it. The rough grub we call it, like flour, butter, sugar, stuff like that and hard bread, that's the most things you'd buy then. We'd go up there to Hatter's Cove in November month with a bit of rough grub and when it came spring we had to slack up on it then. Everything would be so scarce. We'd have to share the food as far as it could go.

The bit of money you got when you straightened up, that's all you could afford to spend. There was nothing else to get then anyway besides a bit of rough grub. You couldn't go to shops. You couldn't get nothing from the merchants, not like you can now. You wouldn't get nothing from them then til' you'd get so much fish. You would get a bit of salt and a drop of oil or something like that. They wouldn't give you no grub til' you'd get fish. We was only getting $2.00 a quintal for our fish back then. If you got 100 quintals of fish, that was only $200.00. That's not very much by the time you'd feed your family in the summer. Then you had to pay for your oil and salt and whatever else. For ourselves that wasn't very much but everyone shared, tried to keep alive the best way we knew how. Only for the rabbits and other wildlife and stuff like that, we'd have had it pretty bad you know. But there was lots of rabbits then and we'd go outside in the winter and get a scattered seal. There was no chicken to buy, nothing like that then to get.

11 Haul - move; relocate

12 Grub - food