When I sat down at my computer to write this short snippet,a memory about outport life, I reached back in my thoughts and found something that happened, not too long ago. The memory is still as clear today as it was on the day it happened when I was working at Marine Electronics, doing repair and installations with Canadian Marconi in St. John’s. (When my wife brought my first paycheck to the bank, the teller asked "Your husband works at Canadian Macaroni?"...but that is another story.)

As I recalled the event, I realized that “not too long ago” was longer than I thought, more than 30 years in fact, and those years have gone by faster than I want to admit. The event that I will relate was minor but it gives a glimpse of how some people in the outports lived. It was a very awkward moment at the time. I can now laugh about it but I also feel a little sad that this piece of our unique Newfoundland culture is fading away, replaced by more modern ways.

Some of you can still remember that when you wanted to make bread, you had to chop wood for the stove, carry well water into the house in pails, and spend half a day kneading and making the bread. That was just the way things were. Life was simple but it was hard, maybe it was simply harder but those people were hardy and thrived in their rough and simple ways and long work days.

It was near dawn in the early fall of 1977 when I drove the Marconi van west on the Trans Canada Highway to Whitbourne and took the exit to Highway 80 on the right. My destination was a still a good ways up but I took my time and admired the beautiful scenery along the way as I drove through Dildo and Hopeall (where my father in law lived). It did not take long before I passed through the communities of Heart’s Delight, Heart’s Desire, and Heart’s Content. I enjoyed the beautiful scenery, the clear fresh air, the deep blue water of Trinity Bay, and the unending twists and turns through the vibrant green “var” trees that covered the many hills and valleys. You can rarely see more than a couple of hundred meters ahead of you before the next dip, sharp turn, or rise in the road, beautiful to drive on an early sunny autumn morning but the same road is dangerous on a foggy night, with moose around.

What caught my eye more than anything else on this morning was the piles of brown and white reflections shimmering from almost every small garden patch near homes all along this coastal highway. Dozens and dozens of gardens, all topped with the same kind of fertilizer...king crab shells. In those days, with the cod fishery in full swing, crabs were considered a nuisance, they were not only worthless, they fouled nets and a lot of time was wasted untangling them before the gear would be ready for another trip. Nobody would eat those crabs, and there was no market to sell them, so people spread their carcasses on their gardens as fertilizer. How times have changed since the collapse of the fishery!

My destination today was Winterton, about 10 km North of New Perlican and my task was to install an automatic pilot on a 55 foot long liner that I found tied to the smartly to the wharf. Her skipper, with a simple nod, welcomed us aboard his sparklingly clean boat. The kettle was already boiled and we enjoyed a good mug up before setting to work. 

Of all the jobs I did as an electronics technician, installing autopilots was the worst one of the lot. It was a long, difficult job, and even with a helper the installation would take almost 15 hours not counting the time we would spend with the skipper when he took his boat out to try his new gear. The worst part of the job was installing the electronics on the rudder to let the autopilot know the rudder angle. For those not familiar with long liners, access to the rudder is just abaft the fish deck and is usually piled with big rocks, used for ballast. There is barely enough room to crawl in this small slimy space, lying on rocks that have received many years worth of waste from the leftovers of gutting and cleaning fish. Most fishermen will not willingly go down in that hole. For this job, I usually wore only a pair of coveralls, that I threw away at the end of the day because the ground in slime would never come out.

My installation was going good and before I knew it, the skipper appeared on the bridge and asked us to "come up to the house for a cup of tea." It was just after noon when we sat at the kitchen table. The skipper’s wife had the kettle boiled and quickly filled our mugs with strong hot tea. Then she put a small plate piled with sliced white bread on the table. The bread did not stay on the table long, a few seconds maybe, but not longer than that. That quiet old Newfoundland fisherman jumped up from his chair, grabbed the plate and with an exaggerated heave, threw the bread - plate and all, into the garbage pail beside the stove. His face was beet red as he glared at his wife and growled, “I brought the Marconi man up here fer a cup ah tea and you gives him baker’s fog to eat. Wats wrong wit yer skull? Wats dey gonna tink of us after dis.” His voice was almost cracking when he glared at his sullen wife and ordered, “Now maid, when we comes back fer our tea, dere’ll be bread.” Then he turned to me and my helper and said, “Come on b’ys” and with that he stormed out of his own house, leaving our untouched tea on the table. Silently, we both followed him back to his boat where he left us to continue our work.

A little before 5 o’clock he returned to his boat and said, “give it up fer a while and come up to yer tea.” (in Newfoundland, “yer tea” and a “cup of tea” have completely different meanings - if you don't know the difference, ask someone from Newfoundland to explain it to you) We walked up to the house and I can still remember the strong smell of fresh home made bread as we entered the kitchen. She was a good cook and we enjoyed our tea. To this day, the smell of home made bread makes me think of that weathered old fisherman and the Baker’s Fog. That is what store bought bread was called by many in the outports and anybody who had it in their home was considered to be "too lazy to make a bit of bread"...he really believed it was an insult to put store bought bread in front of us to eat. I guess he didn’t realize that we were townies and store bought bread was normal for us, the age of making your own bread was already passing in the big city of St. John’s. 

The installation was finished later that day and the skipper was happy with how his new autopilot performed in the choppy waters of Trinity Bay, staying neatly on course with nobody at the wheel. We were happy too and two weary townies got back in the Marconi van and headed South towards home after a long day's work. 

The incident with the bread was not funny at the time but now when I think of what happened to that plate of bread and the look on his poor wife's face, I can't help but chuckle. 
Sadly, their generation is gone and their simple way of life is almost gone too. It is part of the price we must pay for progress.