LIFE ON THE GRAND BANKS 



In the New Eng- 

 land States this type 

 succumbed to the de- 

 velopment of other 

 industries. Its rep- 

 resentatives deserted 

 the seaside farms and 

 went west or into 

 the cities, where life 

 was less arduous. 



Nowadays, the men 

 who built and sailed 

 the American sailing 

 marine of 1800 to 

 1862; who made of 

 Gloucester, Boston, 

 Portland, Province- 

 town, New Bedford, 

 and Nantucket the 

 great fishing and 

 whaling ports of 

 America having dis- 

 appeared, their places 

 have been filled by 

 those of their breed 

 who have succeeded 

 in resisting the allure- 

 ments of the shore 

 industries and the 

 cities. 



These latter are 

 the Nova Scotians 

 and Newfoundland- 

 ers, and they form 

 the greater part of the 

 crews of the Bank 

 fishermen, with a 

 sprinkling of Scandi- 

 navians, Portuguese, 

 and native -born 

 Americans. Thus it 

 is that when a Gloucester fishing schooner 

 is lost, mothers and widows in Newfound- 

 land and Nova Scotia remain to mourn 

 the majority of the vessel's dead. 



THE SEA IS BEFORE HIS EYES FROM 

 INFANCY 



Physically, your American deep-sea 

 fishermen are strong-muscled and able to 



Photograph by Herbert B. Turner 



ALONGSIDE THE GLOUCESTER DOCKS 



During the first half of the nineteenth century, the heyday of the 

 American sailing marine, Gloucester, Portland, Boston, Province- 

 town, New Bedford, and Nantucket were the great fishing and 

 whaling ports of the United States. 



bait fishing gear. In the summer months 

 the boys usually go shore-fishing or lob- 

 ster-trapping. The sea is before their 

 eyes from infancy ; the roar of it in their 

 ears and the smell of it in their nos- 

 trils. 



Clean air, good, wholesome food, and 

 hard work create a sturdy, hard-muscled 

 youth who usually breaks away to sea in 

 endure hardship. They are not slum or a Bank fishing vessel ere town lads are 



city products, but are mainly raised m 

 sea-coast villages of the Canadian prov- 

 inces and Newfoundland. 



At an early age they learn to handle an 

 axe, to work on the land, and to rig and 



through grammar school. When he 

 knows enough to "hold his end up" in a 

 dory and aboard a fishing schooner, he 

 makes for Boston and Gloucester, at- 

 tracted by the good money made in Amer- 



