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School is not held regularly year after year, but only by fits and starts, so
that results are poor.... all the people who have taught up here say the
children are so anxious to learn that there's no question of discipline ....1
The dispensation of post·secondary education on the island had 10 await the twentieth
centuty.2
3.2.5. The Fisheries
To gel an insight into the workaday existence of Newfoundlanders, one needs to
revert to its fishery where we started. Settlement and dwelling, community and family life,
work and play revolved around the fishery. The infertility of the soil and the shortness of
the growing season meant that until the development of a diversified economy in the mid
twentieth century Ihe majority of Newfoundlanders derived their subsistence from the
ocean. In this peasanl economy, dependency on nature resulted in the seasonality of work
and play. While the inshore coo fishery was the mainstay occupation all over the coastline,
different fisheries were prosecuted depending on regional weather conditions and
availability of resource. Beyond these circumstances, the precariousness of fishing
remained the most pervading feature: the only certain thing about it was its uncenaimy.3
3.2.5.1. The Inshore Cod Fishery
All lewfollndland cOl1uTIunities were primarily dependent on the inshore cod fishery.
The season lasted from May 10 September or OctOber, its shonness making it a period or
intense activity. A ramily would have to live through the year on its product. In the early
days or the inshore cod fishery, men fished the shore in small flat-bollomed "dories" and
other boat types. 4 Before the marine motor was introduced in the 30's, they rowed or
sailed distances between five to eight miles, and had to put up with dense rogs, high seas,
sudden Stonns, racing tides as well as offshore rocks and shoals. The renowned stability
of these small craft was yel far from ensuring safety:
The dory, despite her sprightliness and buoyancy cannot rise all a broken
sea: no boat can. Instead, while her bottom is floating on finner water,
1From a letter to her parents, dated June t8, 1920. MU FLA ms 82·189. folder no. 2.
2Rowe 30.
311ilda Chaulk Murray, More than 50%: Woman's Ufe in a Newfoundland OutPOrl. /900-1950
(51. John's: Breakwater. 1979) 8.
4See David Taylor, "Boalbuilding in Winterton: The Design. Construction and Use of Inshore
Fishing Boats in II Newfoundland Community." MA thesis, MUN, 1980, p. 97·146.