LONG TRIP
I sometimes find it difficult to believe that the French and English - even before our l607 Jamestown and 1620 Plymouth adventures, our unsuccessful 1588 try to set up a colony on Roanoke Island - had flourishing fishing locations on Newfoundland and up the St. Lawrence River in what is today part of Canada. We hasten to add however that they were temporary installations, used for for a season then abandoned,
Those settlements were a part of the gigantic surge of fishing the French,in particular, as well as others, undertook in the early decades of the 1500's. The fishing industry was an important one to maintain European dietary needs and the waters of the Mediterreanian Sea, the North Sea, Atlantic coastal regions were inadequate having been fished intensely for centuries. They found a new and phenomenal commercial source of sigh in the banks south a nd southwest of the land which had come to be know as Newfoundland. There are conflicting accounts of who discovered the island and the commercial fishing paradise along its shores. The area had a good supply of floating icebergs in the early spring when the fishing boats first arrived. Once the fish were found a setting of many sails and banners of several nations began.. Some, based on existing records, attributed the discovery of it all to the Norse, or Vikings, if the story was to be considered as being romantic. There are also claims the St. Brendan, out of Ireland, had discovered the area long before the Scandinavians ever set heel to the rocky shores. Certainly the French developed fishing. They seem to have been dominant, ,although some fearless Bristol England fishermen made the trip more or less regularly.
History books I read make references to the cod fish as having been the mainstay of the fleets success. Other fish are mentioned but one account alludes to them as being considered on for use as bait to ready hooks to catch cod. What also sounds like a “fish story ”is the instance that the cod of that era - the mid 1500's - weighed in at from 150 to 200 pounds per capita. The first time I read that figure I wondered who might be pulling my fin, or just who had made a mistake, how b-b-big and how long ago? The breed was larger, it seems, and it was a favorite to ship back to European markets.
Time was a telling fact on in the fish market of those days, and cod could be handled either “wet”or “dry.” A fleet could, working together, fill several returnees with fresh fish while the others would be stocked with sun-dried slabs of cod, salt-processed on the shores and stored in ramshackle lean-to wharf buildings. With favorable winds the trip back to the Le Harve area of France or the Normandy shore took about three weeks.
The French had one processing advantage over others .They brought their own salt with them - tons of it - from the sun-drying pits which prospered along the south shore of “ The Flemish Channel” back from the tip of Normandy as far as Dieppe.
The profit motive was the driving force behind the unusual venture and heroic efforts at sustaining a major industrial venture for that time. To go that far to fish, especially to some of us, for cod seems bit too much.
We, today, undertake long trips in acquiring certain things we desire, and many think it foolish that we even entertain ideas of importing materials from various bodies in Space.
With Man being what Man is, it has to be tried.
Now is the time for young minds to be pondering on what we might meet within such ventures. I have found one historian who faults the French fishing men of Newfoundland's Grand Banks for not having made use of the icebergs among which they often worked. Simple: a layer of ice; a layer of fish; a layer of ice; a layer of fish – but no on saw it! Refrigerated fish!
If, in your mind, you are planning a “long trip” for our nation, keep your idea box tuned to the “Well, now, it-could-just-be-that -” channel. Nothing is impossible except something which has not been rightly tried.
A.L.M. November 17, 2004 [c720wds]
