INFORMATION

Clip Title: "... More than exercise, boy, twas murder."  Work in the Salt Fishery: Walking to Lance Cove for bait. 
Length: 55 sec.
Credit: Heber John Keel
Year: 1994

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Mark Ferguson:  Good exercise, I'd say.

Heber John Keel:  It was more than exercise boy, twas murder, that's all I call it ... For a boy like that, I mean, who was a young man, 15 or 16-year-old, and had to start in at that -- you know -- if I had to take my son down there now, I'd almost shoot 'en first, yeah.

MF:  If you had to go back?

HJK:  If I had to go- Yes my son. Take that on your back like that?! I say, no boy, better to drown you -- almost, than put you through that -- yeah, Yes siree.

MF:  It was that bad eh? Wow.

HJK:  I can remember- well Lance Cove from here [over a mile] ... well you take a one o'clock in the morning now and take that [gully stick and tub] on your back like that, and take a cast net and your oil clothes and go down over that bank at Lance Cove, and catch that tub of caplin and bring it up on the bank and get a smoke, and then put it on your back, in the dark, coming across the hills ... and lug that across and lug it to your, bring it across to your punt ... at one o'clock in the night, you can imagine what it was like now -- and the sweat coming off ... couldn't see nothing- and not taking it off your back -- right on -- just change over. "All right, change over!" "Ok, change over." Walk on, in the dark. Come up like that. Now I did that -- not only me, but a lot of boys was growing up like that --.

INFORMATION

Clip Title: "The Figure-Eight Effect: The sign of a good  splitter."
Length: 20 sec.
Credit: Heber John Keel
Year: 1994

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Heber John Keel:   But splitting was different -- taking the bone out ... Everybody can't split good fish... You had to split to the tail, right down to the tail, then take the bone out ... father used to say when he'd look at it, you know, `figure eight' he used to call it, right here where the bone was cut, see, it's just like an eight... where the bone was cut off, it's just like an eight eh he'd say -- `a good cutter, a good splitter eh' ...

INFORMATION

Clip Title: "The importance of `putting away' the fish quickly."
Length: 35 sec.
Credit: Heber John Keel
Year: 1994

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Heber John Keel:  You come in perhaps with a boatload or two boatloads of cod-fish.... That had to be put away -- especially in the summer -- so quick as ever you could put it under salt -- otherwise you're gonna have, like I said, bad fish. It had to be good- the harder it is with pickled fish -- the better it is. Or salt bulk fish same thing. See once it gets soft on you, like I said, when it's falling away from the bone, you cannot do it ... you know. You can't do it. The sun is getting at it? You can't -- no way ... the quicker you can get it under salt, the better. You got hard, nice, hard fish. Well when you got good hard fish, salted right it's gonna come out right.

INFORMATION

Clip Title:  "Women worked harder than the men!"
Length: 42 sec.
Credit: Heber John Keel
Year: 1994

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Heber John Keel:  The women worked harder than the men! Because they had their daily work- they had to wash and they had to clean. Kept you clean. [MF: and cook] And they had to cook, and they had babies to feed. See? Clothes was not like it is now... diapers then! ... They had to wash out that now and keep it clean...heave it... you No, they had a hard life boy, the women had a hard life, worse than what the men had ... plus that they had cabbage up there planted. Poor old mother I can see her now, you know, and Gertie- comin' up here...comin' up here...me and father...
Gosh, I can see poor old mother now, to the table - every now and then, small fish eh, she'd chop off the puddock of the fish, see, right full of caplin eh? [MF: oh yeah] A small puddock, and throw out in the tub out there see? Now you know what you had to do -- when you see that goin' on you know what you had to do. You had to come up here -- if it was twelve o'clock in the night, with them three tubs on a cart, and the dogs, for her cabbage, put it on her cabbage, that was her fertilizer see?

INFORMATION

Clip Title:  "Handle that now like you handle your baby."
Length:  17 sec.
Credit:  Laura Whiffen
Year:  1994

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Laura Whiffen:   Oh you had to be careful how you handle it. Mrs. Whiffen used to say to us: `You handle that now' -- 'cause they was great big ones -- `You handle that now like you handle your baby.' That's what she'd tell us. I never forgot that. 'Cause they fish used to be so big and you had to be careful how you'd handle them.