John & Freida are what you call “True Islanders”. Freida was raised in Tignish, PEI in a fishing family, although she is the first to tell you that she prefers the land to the sea. When she married John, they moved to Rustico, where John was raised. John is the only son of a 5th generation fisherman and now John owns the family business. Fishing is all he knows. It is his life. He eats, drinks, breathes, & lives for fishing and fishermen rights and for the old ways of fishing.
Ironically, he only fishes for lobster 2 months out of the entire year….May & June. He has licenses to fish for mackerel, cod, & other fish, but it’s not as profitable as lobster. John & Freida own a restaurant….the Skipper’s Café….but he cannot bring his lobster to his own store. It’s illegal in Canada to do that. He must sell his lobster to buyers and then buy lobster for the restaurant from the buyers….THAT should be illegal, in my opinion. The restaurant is only open from June to September. Then tourist season is over and the Rustico harbor begins to close down for the winter.
During the winter, John builds his lobster traps and Freida works as an accountant. During the summer, Freida is one of the restaurant’s cooks. Most of the recipes are hers, however, she admits baking is not her thing, so someone else does all the baking. While we were there with them, we had steamed mussels and seafood chowder. It was delicious. We were given a bowl of 30 mussels and a tiny little fork. You use your fork to pull the meat out of its shell and dip it in melted butter. They tasted similar to cooked oysters. The seafood chowder is made fresh everyday with mussels, lobster, shrimp, potato, & onion in a butter/milk/cream broth. They purchase all their foods from PEI sellers. They want to support their island.
After lunch, John took us out on his boat. The day had been rainy, but the rain had stopped by then.
However, the waves were still choppy from the wind. It was quite the ride and it was so fun to watch John do something that was second nature to him. Freida sat on the bench, staying very quiet & trying not to get sick. She was right…she definitely prefers the land. Once her feet were on solid ground again, she perked right up.
Lobstering is hard, hard labor. A fisherman leaves early in the morning to check all his lines. John fishes 7 miles up the coast & 7 miles out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. His area is large because his family is one of the most prominent fisherman families. The traps weigh about 100 pds each and they must haul in 300 traps per day. He uses a small machine to help him pull in the traps. After the traps are emptied, they are re-baited and set out again to be checked the following day. He gets back to the dock early afternoon, always the first one back.
One of the hardest things was knowing that when John dies, his trade dies with him. They have no children, although I think they would like some, but have not been blessed with any during their 12 years of marriage.
Our goal in coming to PEI was to see the real PEI, not just the tourist side. Today we accomplished that. We met completely real, truly genuine, fiercely passionate islanders.
It made the island even more beautiful.
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| Standing at North Rustico Bay |
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| North Rustico Lighthouse |
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| A blue lobster: occurs 1 in 1-3 million |
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| North Rustico harbour: fishing boats & shanties |
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| John's boat |
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| Sammy (Freida's niece), Freida, & Deb |
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| John taking us out to sea |
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| The Skipper's Cafe |
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| Sitting inside the boat...you can see that Freida's not doing so well on the boat. |
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| Lobster traps stored for the winter; John's shanty is the gray one on the left |
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| The Jensen's & the Peter's....new friends. |
