Netting for Cod



Tools of the fishery, including a needle used for
net making (centre) (Photograph: Noah Morritt)



When I decided what I wanted to study in Keels, nets and net making seemed like a straightforward topic, but after some preliminary research I realized what I was in for: I was about to receive a crash course in the cod fishery. Net making, as I soon discovered, is a fundamental skill for any inshore fisherman in Keels, connecting the modern fishery with the traditions of the past. Although the hand knitted cotton nets and traps used before the mid-twentieth century have now been replaced with nylon twine and pre-made mesh, traditional net making techniques continue to play an important role in both the cod and lobster fisheries.



Lobster Traps in New Bonaventure, NL (Photograph: Noah Morritt)



In the past, fisherman would spend the off-season winter months knitting their nets from cotton twine purchased from local merchants. This was time consuming work, but the nets and cod traps they produced were the fundamental tools of the trade. This pattern of net making and repair during the winter is still very much part of the Keels fishery. Today, however, twine is made from nylon, and machine made mesh is cheap and widely available.

Net making and net repairs continue to remain an important part of off-season preparations, and these traditional skills are being applied to the modern fishery in interesting ways. With the decline of the cod and squid fisheries, catching lobster has become an important source of income. Local fisherman prefer to make their own traps rather than buying commercially made ones, and often build new ones as older traps become damaged. This process involves knitting the mesh to fit semi-circular frames made from local timber, and lining the openings in the netting. This continuity in net making skills demonstrates the resiliency of local fishing traditions, and how they have been adapted and incorporated into contemporary fishery.



Worry for the Future: Peering Beyond the Horizon

“What do you plan to do once you finish here?”

I dread answering that question, and all like variants of it. It has less to do with the question itself, as it does with the answer. I don’t know. It seems that all my aspirations for the future always find themselves firmly lodged in the back of my throat when I attempt an answer. This morning I was asked that question, and my broken record squeaked out an anxiety-laden “I don’t know.” Some days I find that answer to be comforting; other days, it is petrifying. 

You can't see past the horizon: 

Do clear skies or stormy waters await?
 (Photo: Ed Millar) 

This morning, I was faced with that question before the dreaming sickness had fully left my body. 

When I try to imagine myself a year, two years, three years, or any other time down the line, I tend to see only where I hope to be. I know what I want to be, but I am afraid in providing that answer, as both I, and the inquirer, know that will most likely not be the case. Maybe that is what the question really means; “Where do you hope to be?” Yet we, including myself, tend to phrase that question in the expectation of an affirmative answer. Well the truth is I don’t know if I will ever have an answer, and if I did, would it be one worth giving? Or would I be too embarrassed to admit I ever had one? I know for certain some parts of that answer, but I will never know all the parts, and I don't believe I ever will. 

As our last week in Keels is winding down, we have spent the majority of our time in interviews, and wrapping up whatever work is left. Today while chatting with John Ducey after our interview, we spoke for a bit about the future of the fishery. John is worried that it won’t hold; certainly not in the direction that it is heading now. This morning in Noah’s interview, Phonse showed us how they made cod traps and nets, and stated that soon there won’t be anyone left who remembers how these things were made. Last night in Trinity, Jerry mentioned that traditional outport life is collapsing all around us. Many of these fishing communities are gradually becoming subsumed into the world of gentrified summer residences. 

Everyone’s worried of what the future might hold.

Yet in spite of this worry, we find ourselves soldiering on towards whatever dark and foreboding future we fear. Because we are not made of the sort of stuff which would bend so easily under panic, stress, and worry, that we would throw up our arms and proclaim our surrender.

As Donna Butt stated: there will always be people who want to live here, and there will always be people who want to reach that future. 

Not all paths reveal their end, but I think

 I know where this one leads. (Photo: Ed Millar)

Life will show us where it will.

I hope it is the one I had in mind.

A View of the Ocean

I’ve grown up with some very romantic ideas about the ocean, loving tales of adventure on the high seas.  A view of open water is magical to me, completely humbling and completely beautiful.  From childhood I’ve seen the ocean as a place of mystery and wonder, somewhere the imagination can roam at will.  In the last couple of weeks, I’ve heard these sentiments echoed; I’ve encountered more than one fisherman who spoke of his love of being on the water – of the sense of freedom it brings.

Boats moored at New Bonaventure

(Photo: Claire McDougall)

Things are never simple, though.  In communities that are closely tied to the ocean, and dependent on it in many ways, relationships with the water are necessarily complex and multi-layered.  A conversation I had a couple of days ago really brought this home to me.  Two women described their intense aversion to the water.  One cannot bear to watch when her son goes down to the wharf.  The other has lived in Keels for thirty-eight years (her husband was a fisherman for twenty-one of those) and, in her time here, she has been out in a boat twice.   

Keels Harbour

(Photo: Claire McDougall)

Their comments struck me very deeply.   I’ve been trying to imagine living my life, constantly facing something that was a source of intense fear, and I’ve found it very difficult.  The ocean has the power to provide (great bounty at times) but it also holds the power of life and death.  It seems this power is easier to accept when it is being faced directly.  As in so many things, that which is unknown is the most frightening… it is the waiting and not knowing that is difficult to handle.

My time in Keels has given me plenty to think about so far, and a new way of looking at the sea. 

Going Away/Wanting to Stay

“Going away” is a common phrase here in rural Newfoundland. People here often leave for lengthy periods of time to work elsewhere. This is not a new phenomenon. During the nineteenth century, many people left their home harbours to work in the Labrador fishery, sealing or catching fish in that most rugged of locations. During the twentieth century, several men around here left to go work on the “lake boats” – cargo vessels hauling various commodities back and forth across the Great Lakes. Several local people still do that. And now, there is a great exodus of people who head West to work in the oil and gas and mining industries. If one goes on the websites of WestJet or Air Canada, he will find that it is possible to get a direct flight from St. John’s to Fort McMurray, Alberta. What is notable about many of these people is that they choose not to relocate permanently to the places where they earn the majority of their income. Instead, they maintain their homes here, with money earned far away.

It seems to me that many people go away so that they can stay in the places where they were born and raised, in their homes. It is probably also true that many of them simply don’t want to pay the higher price of living in other parts of the country, and find that they can stretch their incomes further by maintaining a permanent residence here. But certainly there are some people who simply cannot bear the thought of going away permanently. To go away is a means to an end, that end being the ability to stay in the places they call home.

From the living room of my host house in Keels. Photo: Kristin Catherwood

This is not merely one of my romantic visions, influenced by my own close attachment to the place where I was brought up. I witnessed it firsthand on my flight to Newfoundland (a direct flight from Calgary to St. John’s). The passengers were overwhelmingly Newfoundlanders, most young men, returning home from several weeks or months of working in Alberta. As the plane finally touched down on the runway of early morning St. John’s, the sense of happy homecoming was palpable in the stale air of the cramped airplane. Several people craned their necks  for a peek out the window, a glimpse of their home soil. I heard several comments like “feels good to be back” and “it feels like forever since I’ve been home.” In the airport terminal, there were many happy reunions, young couples embracing each other, fathers being accosted by their young children.  I couldn’t help but compare their happiness with my own sadness. I was coming to a foreign place, far from home. I wondered if how I felt was the way they felt on the other end of these cross-country trips, when they arrive out west for another stretch of work.

The folks who picked me up at the airport remarked upon the phenomena, commenting on how happy these people must be to be home. In my pre-KFS ignorance, I thought this practice of going far from home to work was a new one, something that had grown out of the collapse of the cod fishery and the booming of the oil industry in the west, developments that rather neatly coincided. But here in Keels, I’ve learned that “going away” is not new at all. Newfoundland families have long faced the reality of leaving home to find work. It does make one wonder: why not just move away? Why not leave permanently and find stable employment somewhere else? Some have, and do. But many choose not to. For them, some of them right here in Keels, this place is home, and there is no other like it.

A view of Keels from the west. Several people from Keels must go much further west to find work. Photo: Kristin Catherwood

Actually Facing the Field

Let me just start with: Conducting an interview is hard!

Today saw my induction into the art of the successful interview. I wouldn't say it went badly. The recording device didn't run out of batteries. The memory card was definitely big enough. I didn't forget my notes, and my informant didn't clam up from nervousness. I was lucky that my first interview was with a friendly man who has been offering since our group first arrived to tell me anything I need to know for my fieldwork. There were certainly no disconcerting disasters, but there are many aspects of it I really wish I could do over.

An Interview Setup
Modelled by Kristin Catherwood

Photo: Alicia Farnham

The challenge lay in holding myself in check, trying to remember and follow all of the tips I'd been given repeatedly in the last two weeks of classes and conversation with experts in the field. I have discovered, as of this morning, that where many people nod or make some sound of agreement in regular conversation, I giggle! After listening to twenty minutes of it, I now despise giggling! It was painful to listen to myself as I wondered, if I had stayed quiet at that moment would he have said more? If I hadn't made that horribly corny joke (that he did laugh at), would he have said something himself much more worthy of the memory space? If I had braved that awkward silence for two seconds more, would he have thought of something else  to add? Did I take over the flow of the conversation too much with my giggles and prompts? Did I let him tell his own story, or did I shape it too much with leading questions? Reviewing the resulting audio is proving to be a roller coaster of self-confidence, doubt, and criticism.

My conclusion? Interviewing in the field is not for the faint of heart. I wish I could snap my fingers and go instantly from a green graduate folklore student reading about interviewing skills to being an experienced fieldworker who speaks little, listens much and comes out of an interview with a treasure trove of information and only half the self-recrimination. Only one more reason to be thankful for the Keels Field School experience: I can start out in a less informal atmosphere as a newbie making mistakes and work toward excellence without the pressure of a thesis or a doctorate hanging in the balance. What a relief!

Baydreamin'

A fog of lace. (Photo: Erin Whitney)

I could spend hours looking out through these lace curtains. A different view through each small hole – a patch of grass, a pink clover, the tip of the wharf, a lazy soaring gull. Shift focus back and a fuller picture emerges but not quite clear, fuzzy clouds of lace obscuring my view. It's a drizzly day, the air warm and close, wrapped around me like a blanket and keeping me from feeling fully awake. I drift along the roads and paths of Keels, walking right through the puddles, rubber boots sinking into the soft wet grass.

It's a day that is resisting getting things done. A few doors knocked on this morning, appointments made for interviews tomorrow, one set for this afternoon already put off. Tomorrow will be busy, but today remains soft and open, keeping afloat in milky tea, reading, writing, preparing, thinking. Maybe I've still got some fog in my lungs from my hike along the Skerwink Trail in Trinity East yesterday morning. The springy comfort of forest floor underfoot, gulping in the scent of pine, moss and juniper like an addict, fog so thick it would catch you if you lost your footing on the cliff.

One more week - do we really have to go back to town? To the concrete and crosswalks and coffee and classrooms? I want to offer my surrender to the bay – to the boats and bogs and berries and bonfires. Maybe I'll bring these lace curtains back with me. Wear them over my head like an errant mummer, a fine foggy filter between me and that dirty old town. 

A day obscured. (Photo: Erin Whitney)

Facing "The Field"

Our time is quickly slipping by. During this last week, we are all working at linking place and people, faces and friendships, insiders and outsiders. We learn about these dichotomies, we sometimes try to keep boundaries clear, but realize they often become blurred. Ethnography becomes that messy business where we end up wondering about this field work. Work that is play, work that is learning, work that is frustrating, rewarding, exhilirating, terrifying, or fun. We are in a place far from the familiar, a place different. But soon the reality of this place will become memory, and our memories of these three weeks will be of sounds and conversations and faces. We will write about our time in academic ways, but we will know how inadequate that way of writing often is. What will remain will be these faces from our field.

 

All photos Jerry Pocius

Ed, Kiyomi, Kayla and Ster

Kristin, Erin, Claire and Wins: accordion heaven

Alvin with treasures



John supervising Kristin, Ed and Erin

 

Noah getting the details from Alicia and Claire



Alicia and friend at The Cape

 



Percy and another kind of fish at the Ryan Premises

 

Wilson Hayward remembers: three pies

Phonse at the nets

Noah records, Phonse describes



Bonavista Social Club: the new NL