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magazine / apr08
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April 2008 issue |
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Into Battle (page 2)
As Earle guides us from the Seal Store
to the Pork Store to the Salt Store, he
points out architectural niceties like the
oakum-caulked seams and close-studded
construction, as well as the graffiti doodled
on the beams in ochre and chalk by
bored 18th-century crews. Amy Flynn, a member of our group who was born in
a Newfoundland outport, says "even the
smells are right."
Battle Harbour may exude an air of
nostalgia now, but for the ordinary family,
it was a hard place to survive. Merchant
barons kept families in what amounted
to indentured servitude through the infamous
truck system. They outfitted the
fishermen on credit in the spring in
exchange for dried fish in the fall. The
trouble was, prices for fish were low but
the cost of essentials was absurdly high.
“A century ago, fishermen were getting
three cents a pound for salmon, but a pair
of rubber boots cost six dollars,” explains
Earle. “If you had four sons, you needed
to bring in 1,000 pounds of salmon every
year just to pay for boots. Nowadays, a pair of rubber boots is still only six dollars
at Wal-Mart.” The truck system pinned
families to Battle Harbour “like insects,”
says Earle. They were never free of debt.
To help feed his large family against
these odds, one enterprising man crawled
under the building in which the molasses
was stored and drilled a small hole in
the floor and then through one of the
molasses barrels. When he had filled his
jug with the oozing treacle, he plugged
up the barrel till next time. His subterfuge
was not discovered until the barrel was
nearly empty.
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Destination: Battle Harbour
For those with a taste for times long past,
Battle Harbour offers a one-of-a-kind
experience.
From mid-June to mid-September,
visitors can board the ferry to Battle
Harbour from Mary’s Harbour, on the
Labrador mainland, accessible by road,
sea and air. The MV Iceberg Hunter departs
on the scenic hour-long boat ride twice a
day, and visitors may catch a glimpse of
whales, dolphins or icebergs along the way.
Admission to Battle Harbour ($8 for
adults, $6 for seniors and $4 for children
under 12) includes a two-hour guided
tour of the buildings and artifacts.
Visitors can also explore the island at
their leisure on boardwalks, old cart
roads and well-worn paths.
If you opt for a longer stay, bunk
down in one of seven faithfully restored
buildings, complete with period furnishings.
For solo travellers, there’s the
hostel-style Cookhouse-Bunkhouse for
$35 a night. Families and larger groups
can rent an entire house. The RCMP
Detachment, at $370 a night, accommodates
seven comfortably. One of the
rooms is a converted jail cell. Some of
the residences are even lit by oil lamp
and heated by wood.
www.battleharbour.com
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Today, Slade and his fellow members
of the Battle Harbour Historic Trust also
have to think ingeniously. The government
seed money is gone. The tourist season
is short. Half a dozen more buildings need to be restored. To help the place sustain
itself, several of the houses double as
inns, making this Canada’s only National
Historic District where you can spend the
night. And there have been other creative
compromises. A few years ago, an
American entrepreneur visited and fell in
love with the place. He agreed to cover
the cost of restoring one of the houses in
exchange for being able to stay there for
a few weeks a year with his family.
Battle Harbour has always attracted
the influential. The Rockefellers visited
on a tourist cruise. Humanitarian Wilfred
Grenfell tried to establish a competing
store with more reasonable prices but was
persuaded to shut it down in exchange
for being allowed to build a hospital here.
(It burned down in 1930.) Explorer
Robert Peary, like other polar adventurers
bound for the eastern Arctic, always put
in at Battle Harbour. It was from this
marconi station that he announced his
triumph and started the Great Polar
Controversy.
The drizzle stops, and the tattered
rags of fog begin to thin out by the
time we enter the General Store, with
its antique cash register and modest
souvenirs. Upstairs, a snow crab feast
has been prepared for us. We sit at long
tables as Earle demonstrates how to coax
out the meat by breaking open both ends
of the shell and squeezing the flesh out
like toothpaste from a tube.
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