Coves and Harbours

We talk at length here on the Cansobreezers about the Cove, which of course is Manthorne’s Cove, named after those indomitable pioneers, who set their sails at Port Medway and sailed before the prevailing wind, until they reached this pile of rocks we love and call home, and of course, Drum Head Cove, where the Burke’s put down their roots, not at the cove as was later the case, but at Betty’s Cove in winter and Island Harbour in the summer.  The reason the early settlers chose to settle the islands, (not only around home, but all along the coast) was because the islands were closer to the fishing grounds. That may not seem like a big deal today, with a high horse power diesel driving the boat at up to nineteen knots, but it was a huge advantage when one was on the loom of a twelve foot oar, on calm mornings, when heading out to the grounds.

 When I was a kid there were seven old foundations on the front part of Island Harbour. ( That is the side toward Drum Head. ) Over the years the slow but relentless encroachment of the stunted cat spruce have obliterated any trace of habitation. The foundations are still there, in the shadow of the thick spruce limbs, the chinks between the moss covered stones a haven for field mice.

I  sometimes stop to consider what tremendous difficulties they certainly must have had to face when they first arrived. Where did they get the lumber for their building? ..mills on the shores of Country Harbour? Where did they live until their houses were constructed. ?? I have walked around the foundation of Fenton’s mill,  which was situated on, or near Fenton’s farm, and I believe the foundations, or parts of them can still be seen.  This site is on the west side, just across the river from Hadley’s and Obie Fenton’s which, as many of you will know, is the big house next to where Marion and Havelock Mason now reside. The old mill-site is  accessible by the road that goes to the telecommunications tower from the iron bridge. There probably was a mill on Stewart’s Brook, as well. Exotic wood was imported ( by Sweet? ) for the houses of the Merchant Princes and sea captains, a carpenter name of Jadas (?) was the man to get to do the wood parquet and other fancy joinery. The Cox house in Isaac’s Harbour,  now owned by Peter Klaus, is a prime example, with doors of teak, a full two inches thick . I remember well the excellence in craftsmanship found in the Sime Giffin house, owned at one point by Dr. Mendis.

We never speak of those who lived on the east side of Seal Harbour; Saul Fanning,
John Adam Beiswanger,  Eldon’s grandfather, and others. I can recall my dad telling me that the east side was all cultivated fields and crumbling homesteads when he was young. Even when I was a boy, some of the fields were still evident, but falling prey to the encroachment of the firs and spruces, interspersed with raspberry bushes. Does anyone know who the Warrington was who lived at the head of Seal Harbour ( east of East Brook ) at the cove so named. The old folks around home called / pronounced it “Warntin”. One of the descendents, Bill, kept a rooming house in New Glasgow. Mom and dad used to visit Bill and his wife. The rooming house was just above the CNR station and I saw my first train ever from their window.

In the same vein; who was the name sake of Peter’s Hill. ? Who was the Davidson that Davidson’s Head is named for??

Dad gave me a good run down on the way it was in the fishery. When he was young, those who fished from Crooks’s  Cove had no wharves, although grandfather, as did Dave and Andrew Fanning, had a short breakwater to protect their slipways from the southerly sea heaving in on that exposed area of the shore. Traces of these structures can still be seen. They kept their whaleboats on moorings, and would boat the fish ashore round, dress (clean) them on the beach, split them, wash them, carry them in hand barrows to the shed,  salt them in puncheons,  when ‘struck’, water had to be carried up in buckets, to wash the fish and the final step; drying. The latter task fell to the women. The Drum Headers did it the same way. Think of the work involved !!

It was an endless cycle. When the women had ‘ made’ the fish and when the shed could hold no more of the dry product, time would be taken to carry the fish down the beach again, reload them aboard the flat, unload them into the whale boat and sail with them to the merchants in Goldsboro    ( S. R. Giffin’s ) Receive a ‘due bill’ and sail home again and begin the cycle once more. The lobster boats were much smaller than the whale boats, sail and oar powered they ranged about eighteen to twenty-two feet in length. The catch was sold to the factory down on the point where Arth Crooks lived; now Kymlicka’s.  Again a due bill was given, It was a cashless society. Who owned that factory and when was it built??

The due bill was a thing of evil, a thong that held the people in bondage to the merchants. This system was used all over the New World and the Newfoundlanders were the last to be freed from it’s yoke.  Seven’squires’ only, had all the fishing rights on the South Coast and I have been on tankers that delivered oil to the the fish plants owned by the descendants of two of these, Garland’s in Gaultois and Penny’s in Ramea. On the northeast coast they used ‘fish money’ which could only be spent at the issuing merchant’s store

My dad would tell me that he seen the family work the whole summer, catching, salting, and drying, and when they delivered the dry fish to Sime Giffin’s wharf and loaded their winter’s staples
his father would receive a due bill, which,  in most years was a debit, after the groceries were paid for. For an extremely big summers work a fisherman might receive twenty-five dollar’s credit, but rarely any cash. On the up side was the merchants would never see a fisherman ‘stuck’ and would see them through a ‘broker’ year.


In mid September, fishing would cease until the fox berry harvest was completed. When I was about twelve or thirteen, dad and I went on a rabbit round with snares, and he pointed out a lot of spots where, when he was my age, he and others from the two villages would pick fox berries.  One of the better spots were the barrens west of the Shingle Hill. These barrens lay northeast of the Eastern or as some call it, Three Corner Lake. He said that they would use pillow cases to carry the berries in.  Good barrens also at Bunkers Hill, Half Way Hill, and GrandmotherÆs Hill. All these barrens are long since grown up and in some instances have been harvested of their stands of pulp.
After berry picking had ended, fishing would resume into the month of October, and the season of fall gales had arrived; with no significant shelter for the boats it was time to haul them out for the winter and fall to at cuttinging wood for the next years fuel, catching rabbits and hopefully some one would have the luck to bag a moose. ( The Virginia White Tail Deer had yet to be introduced.)

My grandparents, I think, were probably the first postmasters in Seal Harbour. The post office desk is in  Vernon ZwickerÆs possession I believe. Also,  grandfather gave the land for Hillside Cemetery. In later years dad sold,  for a nominal fee, some of the property to Granville / Marie; Miff / Reta as building lots. I would like to know how these early settlers acquired their land. Was it a part of the Major Wright  grant. ?? I wish I lived in Halifax (not really) IÆd spend one whole lot of time on research at the Public Archives of NS. There must be some records somewhere of the early doings in our communities; maybe not a day to day, blow by blow account, but a few high lights here and there. When the first breakwaters were constructed, for example; old government records may still exist.  We know that Ai Luddington had the contract for building the second light and dwelling on Green Island. We donÆt know the year, but it would be after uncle Henry BurkeÆs tenure as keeper.
Ray Luddington was, so far as I know the first keeper in the new ( second ) establishment, he was followed by Tremaine Cooke of IsaacÆs Harbour who was the keeper until my dad took over in 1928.

We do know that the third establishment was built in 1962. The contractor was Eastern Wood Workers of New Glasgow. Victor Luddington had the contract for towing the machinery amd material with ô Peter L.ö Forty three years later, the only thing remaining of that political debacle is the light tower, and what was once the engine room. The light is now solar powered. The reason I refer to it as a debacle is because even at the time of it was building, the world was poised on the threshold of quantum technological advances, and the old establishment could very well done the job until the first nav/sat was placed in orbit at the end of the seventies or thereabout.  We had a SatNav receiver installed on Irving Birch in 1980, Albert Myalls put his sextant away for good.

The immutable rocks of the capes and headlands that  guard the harbours and coves where we grew up, have seen, even in the space of the few years that we have dwelled on this third rock from the sun, unbelievable change. They will continue change. These rocks that form the headlands seem the same now as when we were young, but even they, be it ever so minutely, changed as does all things under the sun. In the eons that are the future, these rocks will have disappeared. Eroded away to nothingness or melted into lava in some cataclysm  beyond our imagination.  Perhaps man made. Be that as it may,  the coves and harbours served us well in our time as a place to live and love.

Seanachie.