La Scie
We wake on Sunday to a beautiful warm day and, once again, know we cannot stay but must make the 19 miles to Harbour Round while the weather and the wind are in our favour. At least we know we can return here, even by car, as the town is road accessible. Harald visits some fishers who have just come in with their catch and secures our dinner of fresh turbot.
The southwest wind brings another pleasant sail. We are in lightweight pants and windbreakers, ball caps and no gloves. Perhaps we are now getting our summer!
La Scie is just another three miles from Harbour Round so we continue on, expecting we will be able to access amenities in the larger harbour which was on our list of places to visit. The wind is perfect to drop the sails as we run down the channel toward the harbour, passing the dramatic Sleepy Point and the tremendous hills on both sides.
We know La Scie is “the saw” so we are on the lookout for what we think might be a rock formation that gave this town its name so many years ago. I see and snap photos of what I think could be three different possible scenarios! (Only later to learn it was the rough edges of the trees, resembling saw teeth, all around the town that gave it its name.)
The harbour is a busy place with about 2 dozen wharfs, some private, some smaller than others. The fish plant was razed last year but their wharf is surrounding a demolition site and doesn’t look favourable for docking. The floating docks are filled with small local fishing boats. We head to the largest wharf, with yellow rails so we know it is public but it is also filled with longliners. There is an empty spot ahead of a vessel, but it is near the wharf crane and we know that is not favoured if a boat needs to be emptied of fish. It is Sunday at 3:30 and there is nobody around to suggest we have to move so we decide we’ll stay even though the conditions aren’t perfect.
The washrooms in the new harbour master’s building are clean and modern with $5 showers. First order of business!
La Scie was part of the French Shore, Petit Nord, from 1504 to 1904, being fished by the Basque and French fisherman. It was then settled by Irish and English fishermen who had been guardians previously for the French who owned the fishing stations around the bay.
In 1891 there were 104 residents, mostly fishermen. In 1984 over 700 people were employed at the fish plant, processing cod, herring, flounder, squid and caplin. In 1989 22 million pounds of fish was processed here. Fish coming in now is loaded on refrigerated trucks and taken elsewhere for processing. Even without the fish plant, this is obviously a very busy harbour.
I prepare the fresh turbot with mushrooms, fresh ginger and onions fried in sesame oil and serve it with brown rice and salad. (That head of romaine just keeps on giving!)
The evening is disturbed by ATVs and motorbikes using the dock area to show off? We’re not sure of the reason but they run up and down long into the night. (Clyde, the harbour master, later told us this is a known problem here in the afternoons and evenings and once he counted one rider pass by 77 times in one afternoon.)
Monday is sunny and very warm. The forecast commits to a high of 32’C with the humidity. We don’t know what hit us but liken it to that first vacation morning in January when you wake up in Cuba.
Clyde, tells us we can stay where we are as he isn’t expecting any boats. He will open the laundry for me and explains about the pricing for our stay: $1.20 per metre of boat, $7 for hydro per night and laundry is $6 per load. It is really just sheets I need to wash as it seems time to shed the flannel and move on to the summer linens.
The laundry started, we head out to explore the intricacies of La Scie.
Our first stop is the Duggan Cemetery, surrounded by wild roses. Daniel Duggan was hired as a “gardien” in 1826 to protect the fishing gear left behind by French fishermen when they returned home in October each year. (Abandoned fishing premises were an easy target for theft at the hands of the English settlers.) Mr. Duggan became La Scie’s first year-round resident. In 1883, the British colonial government was concerned with the potential for “unruliness within the expanding population along this coast. They appointed Daniel Duggan’s son as La Scie’s first magistrate - the first official representation of law and order in the area.” (From the story board at the cemetery)
The oldest headstone we can read dates back to 1842. We expect those hidden within the rose bushes could be even older.
We stop by and read about the “Newfoundland Fishing Skiff” and take in the view at Duggan’s Hill Lookout, surveying the harbour below.
Tilley’s General Store was opened in 1958 by Doris and Whitfield Tilley as a grocery store and restaurant. Soon the restaurant section was closed and stocked with dry goods, footwear and seasonal items. Their son took over the store in 1981 but was forced to close it’s doors in the early 2000s when he could no longer compete with the larger chains. This type of store was typical in the outport towns of old, where one would find all they needed in the general store, including hardware and furniture.
Just around the bend, though, we find Burton’s Hardware & Furniture. We had been told it was a place to visit even if we didn’t need to buy anything. It seems the general store of old may be alive and thriving! Harald did find a pair of heavy rubber gloves for anchor work while I wandered the aisles to find everything from shoes, yarn and sewing supplies, bone china giftware, small appliances, ATV parts, jewellery and watches, fertilizer and power tools.
The grocery store has all we need to restock the food supplies but the bags aren’t very light as we head back to the boat in the midday sun and 30’C temperature. We are only several metres along our way when a car pulls up and the driver asks if we would like a lift. We throw the groceries in the trunk and jump in. Marge drives us back to the wharf, chatting all the way as if with old friends but first she drives by her house so we know where to go if we need a ride anywhere else.
Clyde greets us at the wharf telling us there is a longliner coming in for repair so we will have to move. We noted there was a spot cleared at the end of the floating docks so with the help of Clyde and another gentleman who just happened by, we eventually spring off and Harald backs us out of the tight spot at the head of the wharf. The wind is southwest making it difficult for even the large boats to maneuver but we go the short distance to the smaller docks and secure ourselves knowing this will be a quieter and more pleasant smelling place for the remainder of our stay.
Lukey’s Boathouse seems the best place to grab some lunch on our way to the lookout on the east shore. The ladies working and the two having their lunch are all related. We take in some fun stories and one of them even sings us part of a little song called “Lukey’s Boat”….when we ask about Lukey. The pizza is too large for my lunch so we ask them to box it and we’ll pick it up on our way back from our walk.
The east shore is filled with lovely homes and gardens and many stages of all colours and decoration. We pass Morgan’s Bawn, the beach used by the French for drying cod. Soon we are climbing higher and higher, some gravel walkway and some boardwalk and stairs. We are now at the end of the channel, overlooking Sleepy Point, the harbour and town below and to the north, the Horse Islands and open Atlantic Ocean. Stunning, but not one whale spout in all of the miles we can see to the horizon.
It is so warm and the sun continues to shine but we must stop at the treasure-trove of blueberries beside the walkway. All we have is a plastic grocery bag to carry them in, which we do every so carefully. (We make note to carry berry containers on future hikes.)
The walk now is much slower after a stop at the liquor store….”where is Marge Martin when we need her?”
Too tired to prepare dinner, thirsty but not very hungry, we munch on cold pizza while we visit with grandkids and watch a spectacular sunset at the end of a very wonderful day.
Our last day in La Scie is again warm and sunny as we make our plans to move to Round Harbour. I walk up the short road behind the harbour master’s office to check the sea state, which looks favourable. As we are finishing our preparations, a man appears beside the boat and starts asking “where do you belong? Where are you headed to?” I invite him aboard and he sits with us for an hour telling us his story and in the end, selling us his book, “The Diary of a Fishing Master”, as told to and written by Eric Colbourne. Harald had almost picked up a copy in the store yesterday but buying it directly from Keith Bath will bring more pleasure to the read.
Keith is a fisherman on his longliner, Ocean Billow, he points out to us across the harbour. He was born on the Horse Islands but his family resettled under the government plan in the 1960s. He has a kind, warm smile and he speaks softly, but it is his eyes that tell the listener, he has seen more than we can even imagine.
The foreword of the book is written by a retired Search and Rescue Coordinator for the Canadian Coast Guard. Mervin Wiseman writes, “…the Baths were the ones who boldly challenged the sea and came out on top. They were always the men who loaded their boats before anyone else and the men who were successful when others came home empty-handed.”
Whether it was seal hunting through the ice floes or assisting in daring rescues at sea, Keith Bath is a man recognized for his character, leadership and adaptability. Perhaps that is why he was asked to run the charters to the research vessel working on the site where the Titanic sank. He, very humbly, tells us of this and explains it was during Hurricane Andrew.
He also relays the story of finding a 36 foot sailboat adrift while fishing off the St. Pierre Bank. I can’t wait to read the details in his book, but he did tell us that after dealing with the RCMP and the insurance company, according to Maritime Law, the boat now belonged to him. He didn’t think his busy fishing life would allow time for pleasure cruises so he offered to sell it to the insurance company when just moments later a friend of his called to say he had heard the story and would like to buy it from him. Oddly, the friend was Jim Miller. I have contacted our Newfoundland sailing friend, Jim Miller, for confirmation that he is one in the same Jim Miller and that he bought his Sea Vagrant from Keith Bast. It took a few days waiting for an internet connection but Jim did confirm and asked us to send his greetings to his good friend.
Our departure from La Scie has been delayed but we leave feeling grateful to have met Keith, to hear his stories and to have his book - his diary of decades of his life living and working in this very unforgiving sea.
We slip away from the dock at 1:30 and I take us back through the two breakwaters, past the jagged rock on both shores, around Sleepy Point toward Cape St. John - the last of the big capes for this year’s journey. This was indeed a stop to remember.