written by his grandson, Joseph Seward
When we moved to Southport and while Dad was building our new home, we lived with Grandfather Caleb Ivany and his second wife, Patience Avery Martin. In September, I started my second year of school at the United Church school. Dad fished, and during the evening, built our house. With a lot of help from our neighbours, we moved in in September 1941.
Dad went to work at Buchans mine in central Newfoundland. He worked underground but did not receive his medical examination until several weeks into his job. When the doctor arrived and performed the checkup, Dad was diagnosed with a leaky valve in his heart. His career as a miner was over, and he returned home in time for Christmas.
Grandfather Caleb Ivany was born on Sunday, 2 January 1881, at Fox Harbour, now Southport, Newfoundland. All his grandchildren called him Pap Ivany. His father, Mark Ivany, was born at English Harbour in 1848 and came to Fox Harbour via Thoroughfare in the 1860s. Mark married Jemima Rebecca Avery; they had six children. A seventh child, Joshua, was Mark’s son by an unknown woman. I traced Joshua’s birth to Thoroughfare in 1888, but I could not find his mother. Jermima accepted Joshua, who grew up as her son.
Pap Ivany married Mary Eliza Langer (1885-1924). The daughter of Joseph Langer and Lucinda Dean. They had four daughters and one son. All died at an early age, from two to forty-eight years old.
When I joined the Canadian Army in 1952, I was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 118 pounds. When I was seven years old and started fishing with my grandfather, Ivany, I was about 3 feet 9 inches tall and probably weighed 80 to 90 pounds. I travelled in an open boat, and with any wind, the ocean water sprayed over the sides. Protection from rain and rough seas was achieved by wearing a waterproof suit. Dad could not find a commercial suit that would fit me, so Mom made one for me from flour bags.
First, Mom removed the dye from the bags, then shaped and sewed the pants and jacket, complete with pockets. She then boiled the suit in linseed oil. The boiling process took about eight hours; the then-waterproof suit was hung on a clothesline to dry. Jacket sleeves touching seawater, as well as wrists, can cause water boils. Some fishermen wore brass wristbands to protect their jacket sleeves from chafing against their skin.
Pap Ivany was a fisherman for most of his adult life. Not having a cod trap or a powered boat, he fished as his forefathers had in the 1700s, using a five-meter rowboat that he rowed every day to the fishing grounds several kilometres away. When the wind was blowing in the right direction, his trip would be augmented with a sail. There, he fished with a baited hook or a cod jigger.
In June 1942, I was seven years old, and Pap Ivany asked me if I would like to fish with him during July and August when school would be out on summer break. To say I was excited to be asked to fish would be an understatement. I did not sleep very much that night. I spent a lot of my time with Pap Ivany, playing around the wharf and in his boat.
Finally, the day of my debut came. Dad awakened me at 5 am, and I was ready. He had breakfast ready, which I devoured quickly, and I walked down to the stage head to wait for Pap Ivany to arrive. This was to be the most important day of my young life.
Pap Ivany arrived, and we boarded the rowboat. As he rowed it out of the harbour, I was snugly wrapped in an old coat, and I settled in the bow of the boat for protection from the cold Atlantic wind. During our trip to the fishing grounds at Heart’s Ease Ledge, there was not much conversation. Pap Ivany was busy rowing, and I was daydreaming of jigging my first codfish. Fishers used powered boats that were much faster than rowboats and would pass us on their way to haul their cod traps or trawl lines.
As Pap Ivany rowed toward our destination, I enjoyed the boat’s gentle motion, as if it were guiding us along. We rowed past Western Head and the eastern end of Green Island. After ten or fifteen minutes, Pap Ivany pulled in the oars and cast out the anchor. We had arrived at Heart’s Ease Ledge. Letting the rowboat drift downwind to a point lining up with east and west markers, he secured the anchor line. We were in the prime fishing spot, and I was given my first lesson in cod-jigging.
Pap Ivany passed me my fishing reel with line and a jigger attached. He then taught me the essential points in jigging a codfish, i.e., playing out the line until the jig hits bottom, then pulling it up a fathom (two metres), and with strong pulls on the line and some patience, you may jig some cod. A few moments later, I hooked something, but I had a difficult time getting it up to the boat. Pap Ivany took my line and said. “Let me see what you have on the line.” After hauling it in a metre or so, he passed the line back, saying, “You’ve got a big one there, keep hauling it in.” Excitement grew with every metre I gained on the line. Finally, I saw my catch near the surface. Pap Ivany pulled it in the boat. I had jigged a thirty-centimetre (12 inches) tom cod by the tail. The difficulty I had getting it to the surface was caused by the tomcod swimming downward, trying to escape. I was just as determined to get him in the boat.
Shortly after, Pap Ivany reached into the cuddy1, took out the bottom of a cast-iron stove he used as a galley, and placed it on the gangboards.2 He made a wood fire on which he set a pot and put in a few pieces of salted pork. While the pork was rendering, he chose an appropriately sized cod, cleaned and skinned it, and put it in the pot. In a few minutes, he drained the hard bread (hardtack) that had been soaking overnight and added it to the now-cooked fish and salted pork. When all was ready, he pulled out two wooden spoons that he had carved earlier. We sat there and enjoyed our meal of fisherman’s fish and brewis. It was a meal like this that I would enjoy many times over the next four summers, with someone I loved, respected, and admired. I loved being with my Pap Ivany.
It was the custom in those days for young boys who were starting to fish to cut a V in the tail of each cod they caught, and so it was with me. When the fishing season was over, and the cod was cured, it was taken to the local merchant, where it was culled, i.e., graded. The fish with V-cuts in its tail was placed to one side; it was mine. There always seemed to be more fish in my pile than I ever caught.
Pap Ivany and I would repeat our trips to the fishing grounds six days each week for the next four summers. During that time, I became more adept at fishing tasks. On our way to haul our trawl, we would stop at Kline’s Cove and cast for caplin, which we used as bait. I learned to row the boat, and this helped us get from one fishing ground to another. I also learned to cut bait and to coil a baited trawl. Sometimes we would row across the Arm to Random Island, where we fished along its shores until we reached Ford’s Head. From there, if the winds were favourable, we raised our sails and sailed home to Southport.
After arriving home, we would gut, behead, split, and salt the day’s catch. I did not split 3. It was a skill I never achieved. When all was completed, we would clean the stage and prepare for the next day.
About two weeks after I started fishing, Pap Ivany gave me a new Green River knife, the best you could buy at that time. I understand they are still available today. Now that I owned a knife, I had to learn to keep it sharp with a honing steel, a skill I would put to good use after I retired from the RCAF, when I was employed as a meat inspector with Agriculture Canada.
My father, Martin Seward, having just fished for a season, his last on the Labrador, with Skipper Allan Tucker. Dad decided that after four summers of fishing with Pap Ivany, I was trained, skilled, and knowledgeable enough to join him in fishing for different types of fish. So, I became a member of Dad’s crew; I was on my way to a lifetime of doing what I had always dreamed of doing: becoming a professional fisherman. For the first season, I received a half share,4.
My time with Pap Ivany was over, but he was not out of my life. For the remainder of my time living in Southport, I would see him regularly and attend church with him on Sunday evenings. On occasion, he accompanied us if we were to be home that night, on our mackerel excursions. During my previous summer in Southport, my brother Garfield accompanied him on fishing excursions.
Times were changing.
Newfoundland had recently joined Confederation with Canada. Before then, old-age pensions were six dollars per month, paid every three months, for a total of seventy-two dollars per person per year. To qualify, one had to be seventy-five years old and pass a means test. After Confederation, pensions were set at $30 per month, payable at age 70, with no means test. These 720 dollars per year, per couple, were enough to keep Pap Ivany and Grandmother comfortable.
After I left Newfoundland, I went to see them whenever I came home on vacation. The last time I saw Pap Ivany in early October 1957, he had had a heart attack and was admitted to the Come-By-Chance hospital. He seemed to be coming along well. I was with him for about an hour. I did not think this would be the last time I would see him. Shortly after I returned to Camp Aldershot, Nova Scotia, I received a telegram from Mom telling me he had died on the 27th of October 1957. My step-grandmother Patience died one week later. They are buried in the United Church cemetery in Southport.
I will never forget the valuable lessons I learned from this quiet, wise, and soft-spoken man, nor the love, admiration, and respect I had for him. I am now an elderly man myself, a great-grandfather, but I still miss one of the most important men in my life.
Sources:
- Cuddy is a small compartment in the front or rear of the boat, used for storage.
- Gangboards: boards covering the fish-holding pound, used to protect the day’s catch from the sun and usually located midships.
- The process of removing the backbone, sound bone, of a codfish.
- The season’s catch was traditionally divided, with half going to the boat and half shared equally between the crew members. In Southwest Nova Scotia, this system is still in use today.