I'VE SMOKED LOTS OF SALMON

I'VE SMOKED LOTS OF SALMON

Before we moved to St. Lewis we lived in Deep Water Crik. There wasn't many families lived there. I don't know how long my family lived there, it was only a small place. We was the last family to live there. I was just old enough to remember when we left, but I don't know how old I was at that time. I was thinkin' 'twas in the early '30s. We left because all the other families left and we was the last ones there, so I guess 'twas too lonely, nothing left, nothing worth stayin' there for.

My dad fished in the summertime and was in the woods in the winter. Dere wasn't much on the go den for anybody. Movin' up to St. Lewis was much better den livin' in the Crik alone, much better. It was different just like comin' into a new world, you know, livin' amongst a lot more people. Compared to livin' in the Crik, there was lots more company, lots of 'um. But still dere's not'ing up here 'cause not'ing to do only fish summertime and in the woods wintertime and huntin'.

After we left the Crik it was along time before we did go to school. There was nare school here. There was a small one over there by Vern's (daughter Verna Smith), he wasn't much bigger than a skidoo house and that was suppose to be a church and school in one. Used to have church and people used to get married there, but we never had many people come in because wasn't room enough. Could be dere was more listenin' outside than was inside where it was so small. There was a wood stove stuck up in the middle and it didn't take very much to heat it up because 'twas so small. Of course, we didn't go to school dere wintertime. We had the same teacher here as we used to have up in Lewis's Bay, and we used to have them old fashioned writing scribblers, time tables on the back of everything. I never got very far, only as far as Grade Six....

My favorite thing was berry pickin'. I could get up in the morning and go up on the Burn Hills and stay up there all day. I done dat lots and lots of times. Yes girl, bring me berries home on me back. I enjoyed every minute of it. I'd start off wit' blackberries 'cause that's one of the first berries would get ripe, that'd be around the middle of July up to the first week in September. When frost would get in the blackberries they were spoiled. Around the middle of September to the first week in October I'd be out pickin' partridgeberries. Mornings I'd clear up, pack me lunch and go up in the Burn Hills and walk all day, walk right up to the Crik every time, maybe 2 to 3 miles, 'cause 'twas right down over to the nor'east cove hill. That's a long ways, where they used to have cod traps summertimes when we lived there. I'd pick bakeapples, stay all day, wouldn't even get back 'til in the evening. I could stay there all night if I had someone foolish enough to stay wit' me.

I've smoked lots and lots of salmon, too. I wish I had some of 'um today. First thing I'd do, when it come time for salmon, I'd go around the hills and collect sods. I'd take a pick and a shovel and dig sods, and I'd pick blackberry bushes, then I'd come back and get the wheelbarrow and wheel it all home. Then I'd spread 'um all out and in the evening of the next day I'd go down and cut 'um all up wit' an axe, small, so I'd have no trouble to get 'um in the stove, down in the smokehouse. That was a lot of work because you had to keep spreadin' 'um out in the morning and takin' 'um up again in the evening. When I'd get it dried enough den I'd cover it up wit' canvas.

For smoke we used to have the top part of an oil drum, down on the ground, cut a big hole in the top where you'd put the sods and the bushes down, light it wit' a bit of paper and away she goes. The smoke would curl up pretty good.

You'd get some little sticks and twine and tie it to the heads, a scattered time the tails, of the salmon and hang 'um up in the roof [ceiling] of the smoke house. I used to smoke anything; salmon, trout, caplin and fish [cod].....

MARGARET CURL
ST.LEWIS - 1994

THEM DAYS VOL. 22.3