8 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



sugar, declared that he could eat 10 pounds at oue time, while at an 

 other time I was offered a bet of 2 shillings G pence by a fellow who said 

 he could eat 1 pounds of raisins at a sitting. The paradise of a Labra- 

 dor man seems to be enough to eat and plenty of tobacco. The New- 

 foundland men, when coming' to Labrador, do not differ much. 



While we are talking two boats with two fellows in each who have 

 been out all the morning looking for fish approach the stage-head evi- 

 dently deeply loaded. An ordinarily constructed stage-head consists of 

 a platform raised upon piles driven into the mud or sunk with huge 

 stones for ballast to the bottom where, at high tide, the water is from 

 to 10 and at low 2 to 3 feet deep. While the men are unloading their 

 fish, by throwing them from the boats on to this wharf with huge pitch- 

 forks, it might be of interest to follow a party of fishermen just going 

 out to the fishing-grounds and see what luck they have. The boats used 

 in the ordinary fishing are of two kinds ; those called " novies," or Nova 

 Scotia boats, being long and narrow, shallow, and carrying no ballast, 

 which, should she overturn, it would be impossible to sink her since she 

 would immediately right again even if full of water; and those called 

 " Yankee barges,*' or boats brought here from the States, or made here 

 but to a similar pattern ; these are very wide for their length, and cor- 

 respondingly deep. With the barges the seats are so arranged that they 

 form five partitions, the center one is heavily ballasted with rocks. Of 

 course, should one of these boats be upset or fill with water, it would 

 instantly sink to the bottom. Strange to say, the barges are in more 

 demand than the novies, from the fact that while the former hold S 

 quintals of fish freshly caught, the latter hold only 1, or one-half the 

 quantity. The men choose to risk their lives rather than lose their 

 fish, and principally for this reason, that when the fish bite well they 

 can load their boat without stopping to run several miles home in a 

 calm, pulling at the oars all the way, to un'oad and return, often to find 

 the fish gone or darkness approaching. Fish are uncertain creatures; 

 the fisherman must take advantage of every possible chance to secure 

 enough to procure him his winter's supply of food, as well as to pay up 

 the old debts and what he is consuming during the summer. 



I have said that most of the fishermen use the barge, but since many 

 of them still prefer the novie from its lightness and the ease with which 

 it is managed, as well as the expense, which is about one-third less, let 

 us suppose that two parties, of two men each, go out fishing together, 

 the one in a novie and the other in a barge. As no ballast is required 

 for the former the inside room is divided iuto four partitions, with seats 

 between, while the latter has live, the middle one containing the bal- 

 last. Each end of each boat contains a "cubby," or sort of low shelf 

 closet, boarded around at each end (at both bow and stern), wherein are 

 deposited the oil clothes and the dinner of 'bread and butter and salt 

 pork, with a small keg of fresh water — since the men often start out at 

 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning not returning until the same time in the 



