VISIT TO THE SOUTH COAST OUTPORTS 151 



women attend to the home croft, and the planting and care 

 of the land. In August most of the fishermen return and 

 reap the hay or rough corn, which is only used as cattle 

 food. On the east and west coast, in September, if the men 

 are acquainted with the interior of the neighbourhood of their 

 homes, they are often employed as "guides" for caribou 

 hunting ; at this they can earn from one to two dollars a 

 day, sometimes even getting parties in October for the 

 second season. No shooting parties — that is, sportsmen — 

 enter Newfoundland from the south coast or northern penin- 

 sula, so this does not apply to them. 



Thus we see that on the whole the Newfoundlanders, 

 except the poor of St. John's and the islanders of the east 

 coast, are exceedingly well off in the literal sense of the 

 word, and would be in clover were it not for the over- 

 powering taxes, for which they get absolutely nothing in 

 return. 



Cod-fishing being the principal industry of Newfound- 

 land, it may be as well to briefly survey the various 

 methods of taking this fish.^ The men of the outports begin 

 to fish about the ist of May, for it is at this season that the 

 cod move in from the ocean. The usual method is to fish 

 from "bankers," small ocean-going schooners, carrying little 

 boats with trawls. A "trawl" is not such as we understand 

 it in England, but five dozen cod-lines, each 30 fathoms 

 long, and baited in spring with herring. This method goes 

 on till about the 15th of June. Then a large number of 

 men desert the "bankers" and employ "cod-traps," seine- 



' Cod rarely exceed 60 lbs. in weight, but there are authentic records of 

 fish of 90 lbs. One was taken at Smoky Tickle, Labrador, in August 1906, which, 

 according to the Newfoundland newspapers, was said to be 9 feet long when spit, 

 and 5 feet broad. It is said to have weighed, when dry, 230 lbs. Doubtless 

 these figures were exaggerated. 



