MY RETURN FROM SCHOOL 33 



the Hudson Bay Company bought all or most of 

 the seals that were captured by the Esquimaux 

 Point sealing vessels, and this amounted to sev- 

 eral thousands, each of which was worth at that 

 time, about four dollars. The skinning, salting 

 the skins, cutting up the blubber and rendering 

 the oil, all done by hand, required much labor, 

 and for four or five weeks the Post had a very ani- 

 mated appearance. I found salmon fishing 

 pretty hard work compared to these times. I 

 had to rise at daybreak and begin the work of 

 visiting and cleaning the nets, carrying the fish 

 up to the curing house, splitting and washing 

 them carefully, and then salting them down in 

 big vats, where they were left to cure in the pickle 

 for four weeks and then packed in barrels. Two 

 or more visits were made carefully according to 

 the quantity of fish running, and rain or shine, 

 this had to be done. Whenever any gale threat- 

 ened we had to raise the nets and bring them 

 ashore to prevent them from being torn to pieces 

 by the heavy sea, and we were frequently swamp- 

 ed by the surf on landing. The beach was a fine 

 sandy one, and we did not mind that much. To 

 help me in this work I had one of my brothers, 

 nine years old, and a lad of sixteen, named 

 Simard, whom we had hired for the season. 



It was during this, my first year at Trinity 

 Bay, that I killed one of the largest hooded seals 

 that I ever saw. It happened in this way. We 



