“Wherever you went, you either walked or rowed on Change Islands. Everybody had a punt,” said Calvin LeDrew. Born in 1942, his father Harry was a fisherman and boat builder from Change Islands, and his mother, Lucy (White) was originally from Comfort Cove. Calvin moved to Purcell’s Harbour on South Twillingate Island in the 1970s and spent his life working as a fisherman. “I’ve been at everything clear of the shrimp, I was never at that. Cod, turbot, lobster, mackerel, herring, squid… whatever you could make a dollar at,” he said.
Calvin is the third generation of LeDrews to fish off the coast of Labrador. “My grandfather had a schooner all his life. Fifty years he went to Labrador, never missed a year.” Calvin’s father spent most of his life in the Labrador fishery, and Calvin himself has been going to Labrador for over twenty years. “The people are really good to us. And the fishing, I love the fishing down there.”
Calvin started building boats after moving to Twillingate in the 1970s. He’s built more than half a dozen boats, including motor boats, speed boats, row boats, and repaired a forty-foot longliner that he used for fishing.
“Some of the older people showed me some, and the rest I picked up on me own. When I started, every now and then there’d be someone older – someone you know was used to it – to show me what I didn’t know. I don’t know it all yet.”
