SHIP OF A MILLION SEALS

Hokitika Guardian, 26 November 1925, Page 4

SHIP OF A MILLION SEALS

OLD-WORLD HARBOUR IN NEWFOUNDLAND. .M.R’S ADVENTURES. (Dr L. linden Guest, in “Daily Mail.”) To say that Newfoundland lives in a condition of rude and aboriginal isolation is mere; straightforward description. The service from England to St. ■Johns, Newfoundland, only goes about once in three weeks, and that tit irregular times. The service to Canada across the Gulf of St. Lawrence goes three times a week, but is a long and toilsome wav round.

But it is on looking upon the harbour of St. Johns that its remoteness strikes one so much. It is a long, narrow, but very dee]) harbour, entered between two great bluffs. Round the inner harbour is the town and its wharves and warehouses.

But moored against those wharves are vessels strange to British eyes. There is the sealing fleet, wooden sailing vessels with only auxiliary steam. _ Most of the other craft are sailing ships and they are to be freighted with the dried salt cod which is the chief output of Newfoundland fisheries for Spain, for Brar.il. for the West Indies, for the South Seas. For this is a. real ancient- harbour such as Jim Hawkins out of “Treasure Island” might have loved. ICE-LOCKED HARBOUR. We have pointed out to us in the harbour the ship which has brougt in one million seals. We are told how in the winter the harbour is locked in ice and how great icebergs float near the narrows by which the harbour is entered. Danger, difficulty, sudden death—these are commonplaces to men who think little of going 200 to 250 miles in an open dory on the Atlantic, fishing for days, and then rowing hack again. But. if Newfoundland is to keep step with the rest of the Empire it must raise its standard of life. Ihe fishermen themselves are deserting it and the best-equipped young men and women are annually migrating from Newfoundland to the United States to seek higher wages, the more interesting life, and the wider interests of the great continent. The adventure of the Empire Parliamentary Delegation on leaving Newfoundland adds a touch of personal piqitaey to the general reflect ions. The delegation arrived on a Sunday night at the port to find it steamer of about 500 tons awaiting them with places for 05 passengers, with 2-15 on board and with lifeboat accommodation for SO. A medley of crying babies and distressed mothers in the saloon made it inevitable that the M.l’.’s should vacate their bunks, which were soon overcrowed with mothers and babies. Another ship lying near also took off about 40 passengers, but it was slow, and it 11 on the second boat missed the train connection iit North Sydney, in Canada. So the M.P.’s who went to Newfoundland in state, travelled there in state, and were feted like princes travelled back across to Canada for a twelve-hours voyage on it rough sea, some huddled on chairs, some crouching for shelter on tile deck, some outstretched on the hare floor of the sail an or smoke-room, without rug or mattress or covering—and learning in that process sometliing more of the country than they had learned in padded railway carriages and at- state ha ni|iicis.