Weather lore in coastal Newfoundland, has always been a valuable part of everyday life for fishermen eking out a living on the ocean. A determining factor for safe voyages, understanding the various indicators of weather was…

When the Pettens needed a new larger fishing boat, Henry Petten began to consider who they would hire to build her. “We’ll do it ourselves,” said his son Vernon. Having built a number of smaller boats, known as flats, Vernon Petten began…

“I was one of the very few girls down in the stage…” said Rhoda, sitting at the table in her home on Pinhorn’s Beach. It overlooks the landwash where her family operated their fishing premises for decades. “I used to love to get the prong to help with the fish…”

“When I started fishing first, there was one fish in the water. That was cod,” said Vernon Petten, fisherman and boat builder from Port de Grave, Conception Bay. He started fishing when he was old enough to get aboard the boat…

Edwin’s enthusiasm for boat building reaches back many years into his childhood. “I think I can honestly say that everywhere there was a boat, I had my nose into it somehow,” he explained. Edwin grew up in Heart’s Delight…

Prior to the seventeenth century, Winterton (originally named Scilly Cove) was seasonally inhabited by migratory fishers working the waters of Trinity Bay. At the end of the fishing season, fishermen would return to England with their catch.

Samuel Andrews built this four-oared punt in Winterton during the 1930s-1940s. It measures 15’6” long and was used during the winter for hunting seals and…

Samuel Andrews was born in Scilly Cove, now known as Winterton, in September of 1877. Known by most as “Uncle Sammy" Andrews, he and his wife Jedidiah had four children: Rachael, Wilson, Sarah, and Nehemiah. Samuel was a fisherman and like many others…