44 The Sea

employ in this work each summer. The block-maker, Arthur MacQuaid at Souris East, who lived in the early log house which stood on the site ofPeter McQuaid’s service station, and Thomas Perkins, Junior, at Souris West always had plenty to do in repairs and replacements.

The deep sea ﬁsherman, like all men who work at times a twenty-four hour day, were tremendous eaters. And they fed well, making quite a market for groceries and produce. Souris boys who visited the schooners at meal times remembered, seventy years later, the taste of American beans and brown bread. Pies made by bearded Gloucester cooks were far more deli- cious and altogether different from shore pastries.

The American schooners came to the wharf below what is now the Town Centennial Park. This wharf, called the Factory Wharf in later times, has since gone completely. Here they ﬁlled their puncheons very quickly from a spring. On the bank above, there was ﬁre water at Stone’s store for those who wanted it. Liquor was a standard item in stores whose owners held a government license.

Week-ends always found some ﬁshermen at anchor in Souris. But in stormy periods with northerly gales blowing the boats jostled each other for favoured anchoring spots. Even before there were any adequate harbour facilities,the ships found some shelter at what they called SOURIS ROADS. “Roads”, an ancient term meaning a place of anchorage off shore without harbour protection, pretty well described Souris without a breakwater. The land gave protection from the north winds. The thing was to get out quickly if the winds veered to the south west.

One’s imagination rather boggles at the size of the fleets as described by the old timers. And yet, here’s a quote from a Souris letter Hazard’s Gazette dated the 17th of September, 1851...and the ﬁgures must have been an actual count...“On the 1st of September, a ﬂeet of 93 American and 79 British mackerel ﬁshing vessels anchored in Souris Roads, and on the 15th, we were visited by a fleet of 219 ﬁshermen. They report that there are, at present, 400 sail (British and American) ﬁshing mackerel on the coast of this Island, the Magdalens, the Mouth of the Baie de Chaleur, and Cape Breton North Shore.”

Courtesy Pictures of the Paul by Itardl

Harvesting the Sea by Dory