Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1941 Jul
Contents
The National Geographic Magazine some 250 ships were sailing annually to St. John's to fish and trade. When New York was an infant colony an official thus wrote home: "Tryalls have been made severall times this Spring for codfish ... a small ketch sent out by ye Governour hath founde severall good fishing bancks . . . not three leagues from Sandy Hook. Presently a vessel to goe to Newfoundland to get fisher men, lines, hooks and other necessaryes for fishing." By 1645 there was an extensive trade be tween St. John's and New England. Ships sailed from New England with corn, cattle, and rum to barter for fish and fish oil, or for brandy and sail canvas brought in for trade from European ports. Seagoing Wine Improved in Flavor Once a vessel of an old Devonshire business house trading in Newfoundland took a part cargo of salt at Cadiz, filling up with wine from Oporto. The wine was discharged in Devon, but in some way several pipes of port were left embedded in the salt and were dis covered only on the discharge of the cargo in Newfoundland. This wine was sent back to England the fol lowing year, but the flavor was found to be so much improved by the two voyages across the Atlantic and the winter in the cool climate that it became an established practice to ship port to Newfoundland. Quantities of the famous "Newman's Port," so named for its importer, may still be found maturing in the old firm's bonded warehouse in St. John's. The city, population now about 50,000, is on the north side of the harbor and mounts up on wide, steep slopes. Many of the streets are hilly. The environs are impressive, espe cially the magnificent hills that ring it in. On the highest of them Marconi received his first wireless message from across the At lantic. Walk down the principal business street, Water Street, a winding cobblestone thor oughfare. On the seaward side after each block of shops and office buildings, not more than four stories high, is a wide square or cove. There one catches a glimpse of the busy harbor beyond-the spars and rigging of sailing craft, steamers lying at anchor in the stream, puffing tugs, sailboats. The wharves are really the shops' back doors, for most of the whole island's business passes through them and the neighboring warehouses. Probably the strangest thing you will notice is the number of horse-drawn vehicles-the high-sprung trap of the country farmer, the massive wheeled long-carts, and low, flat drays piled high with casks of cod oil, drums of fish, barrels of port and beef, molasses puncheons, boxes of all sorts. The clatter of wheels over the rough pavement is deafening. One has to shout to be heard. Old-fashioned? Yes, but weaving among the carts are modern American and British motorcars (page 115). Customs and manners of past and present are found here side by side much more obvi ously than on the mainland. The past dies slowly. The present grows apace. Traffic moves with moderate speed always to the left in St. John's. Posters on the shop windows proclaim shipments of fruit and vege tables just in from the States. In the dry goods stores wares are displayed as in the days of Victoria, and the clerks-"clarks" have that Victorian courtesy. People walk home to dinner. A man may be seen here and there carrying home a large unwrapped codfish. The shops look English to American eyes, though an Englishman would find little suggestive of the Old Coun try about them. Fish and Fisherfolk Everywhere St. John's, with its public buildings, parks, and modest residential district, is rather dif ferent from the rest of Newfoundland, but then Newfoundland is full of contrasts. And even in St. John's, but ten minutes walk from Government House-the local Buckingham Palace, where lives His Excellency the Gov ernor-one finds the fishing stages, the boats, and the fisherfolk, and their weather-beaten houses perched on the hillside at the entrance of the harbor. An early riser can hear the motorboats going out to the traps, just as in the thousands of outports all around the island. But ever more frequently now is heard the droning overtone of airplane motors as big flying boats patrol the waters far beyond this North At lantic rampart and new bombers take off for the fighting front in Europe. Newfoundland's future is tied to the suc cess of its fisheries and the degree to which the people in the fishing villages can be made self-sufficing. But social and economic changes taking place as a result of the war will doubt less have an important effect upon Britain's oldest colony. The Index for Volume LXXIX (January-June, 1941) of the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE will be mailed about July 15 upon request of members who bind their copies for reference. 140
Links
Archive
1941 Aug
1941 Jun
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page