Land & Sea: Oldtimers

[Music] born in a place called Addison school in Fortune Bay that's about approximately 40 moles in the bay from Grand Bank I was fourteen nineteen one I started to go to the bank fishery when I was fourteen years of age captain arch Thornhill 74 last of the singing skippers of the Grand Banks do it much else for the boy ten times we didn't have a very much education as you hold great fight then I don't know whatever they know I create for the big around there so that wouldn't be very much knowledge only agree but anyway seeing all the rest of the Devine around there as he got old enough and went on I guess was in high regard you know so I I got a man asked a man to take me and or I paid him I had to make three offers before first time they offered in twenty dollars and next time I offered in forty and a week or so after that I went to him again offered him sixty take me Dorie wasn't yes he he would be the dories cover you know but anyway he finally made of his morning he took me in doing so we left for the bank we would leave for the banks at that time ago I guess that made him one I think we go to grand bank and fit up the score Nevada Grande probably one schooner from the company he was over from would call me fortune day and pick up all the men there would be probably seven or eight five or ten schooners from that company and I guess 90% of the cruise was lean fortune babe so a one Spooner two schooners would come off come up twice him day and pick up the mean you know take him all aboard I've seen so much as a hundred men the border once the corner or two grand banking Oh enjoying this the schooners you're going on and then we took what we cough it off with a stick of our gear you know get it ready whatever sticking it off we put Ganges on the line they put oaks on occasions and we have products for tubs in the Dory and we when we get our get fitted oh and grand bank take on supplies way to be there probably a week fit now then we leave and going fortune bei gaining the schooners and get a supply of bait and then we go out on what we call our first baby and we'd official about four beans in a spring which would be the spring trip like I say you'd go out on a grandma should be out five or two hundred miles that's 240 miles and Sunday hard 150 miles like Grand Banks is big banks didn't we go on what we call the Western banks sometimes missing bank bank for some pure banks and when we get onto banks we don't grow our mothership sometimes and we leave the mother ship seen Dory take so much gear Dory probably well if you had four clubs ten minds you know toiled over 40 lines you go to sit that gear and then you'll come boys your mother ship and get something to eat a snake and you go out and take that gear babe probably you'll get tortured or eat all the fish out of that much gear and you come aboard and put it the boy your mother ship and go on until you get you all your gear in the day to be finished in and go down a virus supper to getting rattled for dark day sometimes after her then the hardest work of the day was just a start we'd have to dress that fish you see that's glitter and salt salt fish and probably altar tape probably if you had a fairly good day's worth of fish to take it out twelve or one o'clock in the night for you get a dress scene you'd have to Eve over again to fight in the morning for the bait you gear and you go down to have your breakfast you have beans for breakfast hot bones so uh not the same as it is today well then we're gonna begin to get daylight you devote every gear finished then you're getting their doors again down when I begin to guess I do a same thing over again [Music] one summer particularly that we was 72 hours boys one season I never closed the order we turned out of our bunks two o'clock Wednesday morning and we never seen him no more for knowing o'clock Sunday while we was not a lot efficiency but everybody wouldn't do that I mean it I never ever did anything let's go ever sail I never kept any man up any warden you know I kept him up the first 24 hours I was good and a good many more like me and him days after the laser you know after 24 hours then the next night I was good ensure my minute three hours sleep anyway three or four hours he's good for it then well the dim times you know oh there was nothing you could go ahead that make so much money in such a short time as you could fishing I mean you take six or seven months you know if you make six or seven hundred dollars averaging a hundred dollars a month boy that was a good money ten times what you see what I will kill it to do division next six months so you wouldn't be doing anything so after all you know it wouldn't be so very much but you make a livin after you make good Levin because you come home in a file the year and people would have going it there would set you on everything for the winter and every time that did have visited was you know and helped you take that out of the ground and everything like that and then one day a time we used to do a lot of hunting caribou hunt and rabbit and priorities aren't and everything like that so I'd say it was a good 11 as anyone else was getting a 10 times [Music] the Saline skills of Newfoundland semen is renowned they sail the Atlantic and fishing schooners the banks and to the West Indies and the Mediterranean with cargoes of fish often with just the basic knowledge of navigation well the way it was in a sailing schooner you had to depend on so much wind anyway yeah I mean you had to have wind to sail around but when it comes to much well it could be pretty uncomfortable sometimes we'd be on a Grand Banks if we was anchored at the mother ship anchored the storm come up which is like oh we had a 10-inch cable and a seven or eight hundred pound anchor and we just slack Oh probably like Oh have it and then the wind still increase you sly here whatever you add need lots of cases she departed Kavon you go adrift and then you get to your forceful we call it you know there's Maine so forceful Jim and John blocks corner well you put the four slop just between the two masters that's called a forest and wouldíve her to what we call Eve - then we lash the wheel the winner and Eva - and she's just going you know when I hit the Seas like whenever she wouldn't be able to hit on right but she'd take kind of barrel to it I'll tell a story Oh be pretty rough sometimes and I just seen it and a good money after that you take a read down to what we call a reef force double single wreath and then a double reason she's just going on and he lots of cases that cc-come we were one time of other capes and George fishing and a storm I seen a sea come we was off - ladies you know under a forceful dodging around him it took the leaven Dory's right off a dick and a dickens and then everything was on deck level or a clean we had to abandon a trip to come down and : grand baked I'm gonna get new doors everything that was quite a cedar there was no I I think there's a kind of a fear do it in a way you know what I mean you use your CFP see Thomas unkind I mean he could go to level everything off you know you can do a lot of damage there I've been lot of damage something but I don't think Bray I don't think you'll be afraid that that time particular when they took the dories we didn't have time to be afraid because it was just a storm well where is everything lots of them but this sea came so quick before you know anything everything was gone Dory's decades and everything that's how your video at the turn of the century there were hundreds of saline schooners in the demand the wind was a useful and cheap friend schooners are still used but it wasn't until as late as 1940 but the last wind powered vessel had an engine installed captain arch Thornhill was the master of that ship this particular schooner that I'm telling you about now there was the last sailing schooner Brandon and that fall and we can't when would you get old if we two got along there which was it that they were going up the owners was going to put an engine in but I the next year then I say all the vessels out of Lunenburg Nova Scotia and that was the last sailing schooner up there so I fished that year you know the owners put engineer that's gonna that the power scars if I had my day over I do the same thing again I've worked hard we all worked there not only me I had wonderful meet mr. Carey one of them then I had I always say I had to try to neuville and not a lot of the men that went with me on bodyboards just captain today I want to salvage scores I'd was a tenant grass-covered sell me on the roof or just a all the way every day over I do it again I'd do the same thing again like I say I had to work hard but I made a livin didn't I never invaded any millions or anything like that because you take two and a since the does that's the most I got I think the last few years I was out of we got three cents a pound but if we was getting what they're getting they're worth ten million pounds officials we make some money went a year yes I considers I had a good life I enjoy [Music] the fishing schooners ranged far and wide from the southern Grand Banks to the northern coast of Labrador spanning a thousand miles thousands of men went north for the brief summer fishery [Music] was hair amongst the arctic ice that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians met the Eskimos often resented the fishermen they were intruders they took but gave little in return [Music] right from the moment I opened them for the first time my eyes saw foreigners I was born to find ministers Newfoundlanders and a schooners when the fishermen from Newfoundland came to Labrador to go fishing when I was still young we lived together and we helped each other we the Eskimos and they the white men some of them are really nice but some of them seem to want to dominate the Eskimos at least this is evident especially today Martin Martin eighty-six of nain Labrador the most northern settlement on the coast [Music] he is a wise man an elder in the Moravian Church a man to be respected a leader known all along the coast Martin Martin represents the old way in a rapidly changing society I can recall many many things but what I remember most of all is what I was taught by my father and mother when they were still living they used to teach me when I was still very young of what to expect when I grew up my father always told me that I could be a kind and understanding person so that when I became a man I would have peace of mind to this day I carry what my father taught me especially now when things are not going so well his teachings also helped me to have peace of mind when I was alone at the hunting places he told me many times to pray to God and even today I consider this to be one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me to this very hour to this very moment after my father died I had relatives there were 6 of us I was second to the youngest I had only one younger brother but we were all old enough to take care of ourselves I was sassy and a bit of a hard ticket when I was younger it seemed I had not a thing to worry about and because that was the way I was I hated to Louise and be beaten in a game or a fight to see who was the strongest we played all kinds of games including skiing the skis were three or four feet five or six feet long we laid them from wood the school was hoped like this our skis had straps so that our feet could sleep I would like this and we would go up to the top of the hill and start coming down this way and that way and if there was a bank or a bunker we would head straight for it which made his job into the air and with luck we would end up at the bottom all in one piece I would like to change the subject now and talk about my early hunting days I was a hunter as a younger man each time we went caribou hunting in the winter we used to trap foxes I always had a companion and at times we would have one combo take and other times we would have two or even three on one of our fox hunting trips in the country he ran out of the white man's food although we had lots of caribou meat even at that time we were pretty well used to this foreign food so when we ran out of it the other three teams went back to Maine while me and my companion stayed behind all we had left was a bit of white power but lots of caribou we had a spark installed in small house but we would only make a fire twice a day because there is no wood at all in the country every morning we would get up before the Sun boil our kettle then put the fire out to preserve the wood after we ate we would go to our many Fox traps and we would be gone all day until after dark we would have nothing to eat during the day we ain't before the Sun was up and we wouldn't eat again until the Sun was gone we were used to this because we were trained at that way by our fathers these hunting trips would last about a week in the summer we would go see the hunting I had my own kayak and my brothers had theirs I learned from my brothers how to use a kayak when we went sea hunting I would follow as a distance until I had learned well enough to go on my own there was one man who I really respect him because he never lost a seal after killing it especially my spirit in the spring of the year when you should a seal and kill it it sinks like a rock because their blubber is not very thick I wanted to learn from this man so one time when he went seal hunting in his kayak I followed him from a safe distance good morning can you come down what you're worried hokule'a me can you be my mother when he got out among the ice bombs he pulled his kayak on the put it on each side and positioned himself in such a way that his gun was in readiness along with his kayak he didn't pay any attention to me although I knew that he knew I was watching him as soon as a seal came up he shot and killed it true he's gone into the Kaiya grabbed the paddle through his kayak out and jumped into it it seemed like one graceful environment he paddles so fast that his kayak was low in the stern and before the seal had time to sink he was on top put a harpoon into it and had it aborted kayak in no time he was a man to be respected and I learnt a lot from him I never saw another man and was as smart as he was even after he was dead [Music] the leaders or elders belong to the mission they were the members of the Moravian mission to be an elder one had to be a good person with a clean mind but nowadays we have changed and a few of the same ones who belong to the church with me and along with me have changed it is not the same anymore what was predictable all along is happening in days gone by of the younger ones used to pay attention to and obey their masters but today they don't listen anymore it's as if we are driven to lead a much more difficult life from those days the Eskimo society does not abandon its old this year Martin traveled 2,000 miles to attend an Inuit conference his advice is still sought if you want to say a few words now you can begin and tell us about the meeting you had handed in Cambridge Bay all right the meeting was a very important one for us it was about our land rights the white man is coming from everywhere some of them are cunning and crafty I have forgotten some of the things we talked about but we now know the ownership situation we have to make claims here in Labrador us only us should be in control those foreigners are not to do here as they please but first you all have to agree amongst yourselves that was the understanding I got at the meeting now you must search your minds for answers as to how far and where the boundaries to be concerning over land in Labrador then we will control Labrador what I say is the truth of what I heard as long as this is what you want you will now be able to do this as long as you agree to do it the lands measurements will be from west to east north to south you only you will have control over this you must start looking for answers you who are listening to me now I say the truth you can now have ownership as stated as long as you work quickly we Labradorians should not disagree on this matter we should come together as one all of us we are Canadians and we belong to the Inuit brotherhood [Music] I am unable to come up with anything new that I can beam behind I can only hope to pass on to others what has been given us and has been with us from the beginning and that is the Word of God [Music] ever since the ministers came to Labrador they have been teaching us the Word of God ever since they came they have been telling us how we should live and today they still teach us the Word of God that the Eskimos throughout Labrador and all the people throughout the world would realize that it is only through God by accepting God that they can hope to lead a whole and happy life I am an old man and have only a short time before I pass from this life I have seen a lot in my time and there have been many changes [Music] Corgi Praetorian exact farming permit I would like all mankind to live a more happier life I would wish upon them to please respect the day of rest [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: CBC NL - Newfoundland and Labrador

Views: 36,088

Rating: 4.9466667 out of 5

Keywords: Newfoundland, Labrador, CBCNL, CBC, NL, Land & Sea, Grand banks, cod, Inuit, inuk, nain, schooners, land rights

Id: 5WD-fz0g6Qo

Length: 27min 17sec (1637 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 18 2017