Checking fish nets in the old days

I recall as a child riding in the “putt putt’, a boat that was made for carrying passengers, goods, dead animals for food and commercial fishing.

Sometimes the weather was inclement and other times it was clear and sunny.

We youngsters would feed the great flock of seagulls flying high above us days-old bannock. These were the days when our late father was a commercial fisherman. It was a simple life.

We would follow the fish, to the cooler spots in the summer.

In winter, we would use an underwater jigger. An implement used to put a fish net in the water below the ice surface.

This is a very ingenious device, handmade of wood. Both our parents worked hard to make a living for nine of us children.

Often in summer time, I would watch our parents make nets of twine or fine synthetic nylon.
There they used another ingenious implement, a wooden net making instrument It was a long process. Quite often I was shooed away far from the net, as to not tangle it up.

Our father would take his catch to the Garrick’s fishhouse or either into the hamlet of Hudson at Bowman’s Fisheries for sell.

I was very proud of our father and mother. It became as a great loss to us when we could no longer commercial fish.

In the early seventies, mercury was found in Lac Seul waters. Therefore our parents’ means of making a living was terminated.