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Point. their summer salmon fishing station. The baby, who was less than a year old,
travelled in a plastic fish box to protect her from the spray and from falling overboard.
When we am\ed. I assumed the role ofmother's helper. one ofthe positions
filled by )-oung girls going on me Labrador. Marie and Susan shared the cooking at the
latters house (Figure 6). which was a shan distancc from Maric·s. lbc two womcn
appeared to be tcrritorial about the kitchen and cooking, so I did not help with either.
Ilowc\cr, I did help the ),oung girls \\;m clcaning the dishes and looking after the baby. I
did not do any inlervie\\;ng on my first night there because I was tired by the excitement
and stress. I think that they were a bit surprised when I returned \\;th Marie to her house.
Ilowcvcr, I was on a strange island and had not brought along a flashlight. One problem
that I experienced during my three day stay on the island was that I was allergic to fish
and the women were very concerned that I would ··starvc" on my suggested diel of
potatocs. bread, and tca. They scrounged around to sec what they could find for me and
substituted eggs and canned corned becf for fish whencvcr it was served.
I went out (0 the salmon net once with Richard. Thcrc was only olle salmon, a
"peel." 74 White we were out on the water, we visited the residcllts on Tiekcmluck Ishmd.
We spent one evening spreading capclin on the "bawn"" to dry for their winter food.
This was my one and only experience with fish on the Labrndor. Because the nics were
so thick. it was just as well to close our eyes whilc laying out the capelin because we
H Marie told me ··peel" was the name given 10 a salmon weighing less Ihan 5 pounds.
1$ In this case. "bawn" refers not to rocks that thc fishcnncn put togelher for drying fish.
but to the blnckbell)' bushes which supposedly gave flavour to the capelin. The word
comes from Gaelic and means ··white:· the colour the salt stained the rocks. The French
tcnn is "grove.·'
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