We went to the beach at Parrsboro that day too,way up behind Ottawa House.It was not peak season for the beach.In fact it was very cold.My grandfather took a spade from the trunk of the car and dug some clams as we walked out on the sand.The tides there,at the head of the Minas Basin are very high and come in very fast.When the tide is low there is an expanse of sand that seems to go on forever,but when it turns,you have to pay close attention and get to higher ground without delay.
In the distance,a long way off over the sandbar,I could see a structure that looked something like a corral made out of tall upright poles and some kind of netting.At one side there was a small opening where you could walk in.The purpose of this device was to catch fish,which would swim in at high tide,then end up beached when the waters receded.Then the fisherman walks in and gathers up his catch.So,with fish still in mind we started off across the sand towards the corral.I have no idea if the corral belonged to my grandfather,but there is every possibility that it did not.We may have been raiding it,or it may have been that he had permission to harvest the odd fish from it.The later would seem most likely,as it would have been next to impossible to raid one of these corrals without being seen.Walking out to it,then back would have taken the better part of an hour and a person would be visible the whole time.
In the end it mattered not,as we were not able to make it to the corral before the tide turned us back.I was wearing rubber boots and somehow I managed to lose one while we were out on the sand.We visited a couple of more places that day and I recall my grandfather telling the people we saw how I'd lost a boot.
At last we came to a place that must have been somewhere near Five Islands or Economy,but not as far up as the provincial park.It was on the side of the road away from the water too,and the driveway went in in kind of a horseshoe shape,with the house halfway between it's ends.There was a lot of junk there too,as there usually is in a fisherman's yard.Old rusted cars and small boats competed for room along with various nets,traps,ropes and buoys.It was on the side of a mountain too,so there was not much usable land.
We got out of the car ,and this time I went in with the two men.At the door an old man appeared and we inquired as to whether he had fish to sell.Indeed he did.Inside the house,in a large galvanized washtub was a silver fish,an Atlantic Salmon.To my eyes it was big enough to have been a whale.The tub it was in was the same size and sort that my mother would have used to bathe us when we visited her parents farm,so that fish must have been nearly as big as I was.It filled up the whole tub.I tried to lift it and found I could not.
By the day's end,it's likely that we had traveled fifty or sixty miles.I don't recall in the end what happened to the fish.Likely my grandfather kept most of it,but I don't recall taking any of it home to Moncton. Still,we may have because it was a very large fish for one person.
On that trip I got to see how,when either my father or grandfather wanted fish,nothing was going to stop them from finding it.Over the next few years,attempts to get fish,to coax or coerce them out of the water would range from pleasant afternoons by a stream with poles in hand,to trips to the fish market on the way home from otherwise unsuccessful expeditions,to some downright bizarre and nearly heroic efforts to bring home fish.Eventually I discovered who the best fisherman in our family was,and it surprised me when I did.
But when my father wanted fish,he would not be denied.Nova Scotian to the bone!A creature that belonged to a province where you cannot stand upon land that is much more that thirty miles from some part of The Atlantic.
In the distance,a long way off over the sandbar,I could see a structure that looked something like a corral made out of tall upright poles and some kind of netting.At one side there was a small opening where you could walk in.The purpose of this device was to catch fish,which would swim in at high tide,then end up beached when the waters receded.Then the fisherman walks in and gathers up his catch.So,with fish still in mind we started off across the sand towards the corral.I have no idea if the corral belonged to my grandfather,but there is every possibility that it did not.We may have been raiding it,or it may have been that he had permission to harvest the odd fish from it.The later would seem most likely,as it would have been next to impossible to raid one of these corrals without being seen.Walking out to it,then back would have taken the better part of an hour and a person would be visible the whole time.
In the end it mattered not,as we were not able to make it to the corral before the tide turned us back.I was wearing rubber boots and somehow I managed to lose one while we were out on the sand.We visited a couple of more places that day and I recall my grandfather telling the people we saw how I'd lost a boot.
At last we came to a place that must have been somewhere near Five Islands or Economy,but not as far up as the provincial park.It was on the side of the road away from the water too,and the driveway went in in kind of a horseshoe shape,with the house halfway between it's ends.There was a lot of junk there too,as there usually is in a fisherman's yard.Old rusted cars and small boats competed for room along with various nets,traps,ropes and buoys.It was on the side of a mountain too,so there was not much usable land.
We got out of the car ,and this time I went in with the two men.At the door an old man appeared and we inquired as to whether he had fish to sell.Indeed he did.Inside the house,in a large galvanized washtub was a silver fish,an Atlantic Salmon.To my eyes it was big enough to have been a whale.The tub it was in was the same size and sort that my mother would have used to bathe us when we visited her parents farm,so that fish must have been nearly as big as I was.It filled up the whole tub.I tried to lift it and found I could not.
By the day's end,it's likely that we had traveled fifty or sixty miles.I don't recall in the end what happened to the fish.Likely my grandfather kept most of it,but I don't recall taking any of it home to Moncton. Still,we may have because it was a very large fish for one person.
On that trip I got to see how,when either my father or grandfather wanted fish,nothing was going to stop them from finding it.Over the next few years,attempts to get fish,to coax or coerce them out of the water would range from pleasant afternoons by a stream with poles in hand,to trips to the fish market on the way home from otherwise unsuccessful expeditions,to some downright bizarre and nearly heroic efforts to bring home fish.Eventually I discovered who the best fisherman in our family was,and it surprised me when I did.
But when my father wanted fish,he would not be denied.Nova Scotian to the bone!A creature that belonged to a province where you cannot stand upon land that is much more that thirty miles from some part of The Atlantic.
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