146 Epilogue

On shore, the ground was covered with two or three feet of snow, no place to fasten the rope. I kicked the snow and found a spar frozen in, tied the rope around it and they all got ashore. We were safe but wet and cold on a rocky island. An old lady heard our sails slatting and got a man to come for us in a dory. I can see the Nutwood yet, lifting and the potatoes coming out her stern.

I was wrecked in December the next year at Poverty Beach near Murray Harbour, on the old St. Ann owned by Captain Billie MacDonald. There were five boats in Georgetown harbour, at the time, quarantined with smallpox. No matter what I said about not belonging to those ships, I couldn’t get anyone to take me home, couldn’t get a meal even. I walked all the way to Rollo Bay and my uncle came for me. Two days later I shipped out with an American captain. I was gone for six months. Home in time for lobster fishing. ”

William (Bill) Poole: “I came to Souris in 1902. Fished lobsters for Donald Leslie and Charlie Stems at East Point in a double Shelbume dory, fourteen feet long. Had 300 traps, 19,000 pounds first year and 20,000 the next. Paid $1.10 per hundred (lobsters). These traps were just two headers, no parlors in them and easier to haul than the present traps of four foot laths. All the dory could carry was ten at a time. The year my daughter, Molly, was born, nineteen five or six, I hauled my traps and then I rowed home to Souris. O, I could row in those days!

I was second oldest of seven sons. My father was William Poole of Cape Ray, Newfoundland, married to Mary Ford. Both are buried at Souris West. My grandfather, John Poole, came from England and settled at Pointe aux Basques.”

These were the fishermen of an earlier time. Their sons and grandsons continue in the industry today, putting out from Souris’ manmade harbour with more modern ships and equipment.

# it t It i It i t t It i i ill

The following are some verses from a poem written in 1895 by John J. MacDonald of Souris West (Brother Willibald, uncle of the late Lt. Governor W.J. MacDonald.)

Fair Souris, loveliest village of this Isle,

The first on whom the glorious sun doth smile When it arises crowned with golden light

To drive away the darkest shades of night.

Enshrined upon the banks of Colville Bay, Its gentle beauty stretching far away

To the horizon where unto the eye The ocean seems united with the sky.

With ships and vessels sailing to and fro According as the wayward breezes blow

Their snowy canvas spread to catch the winds. Bearing their produce off to foreign climes.