We interviewed Egbert Boertien on Dragger fishing. He started dragger fishing in 1952. He came to Canada from Holland as an immigrant. He immigrated from Holland because he didn’t have enough work there. At first he farmed with his brother, but he didn’t like farming so he decided to fish because it gave him more money. Egbert told us a story that his brother came to Canada first and they wrote letters back and forth. His brother told to him about how great Canada was. His brother said that money was growing on trees, and that you just had to shake the tree. Egbert came here but he said that he never found the tree with money growing on it!

He dragger fished between Souris and Cape North (Cape Breton). He sold his fish in the Souris area. There weren’t really any best fishing spots because everywhere you fished you got lots of fish. Unlike now in Canada there’s not as much fish as back then and catches are lower due to over fishing. For that reason the government put a quota on ground fishing. The government put a quota on the number of tons of fish you are allowed to catch based on a portion of the global quota. The fisherman in each area have a certain number of tons to catch but Egbert feels it isn’t enough to make a living. The fishery was over-fished partly because of the methods of fishing.

They used mid water trawling and they could adjust the nets in the water and it scooped the fish up and and it caught everything in the water and the fish had no way of getting out. It caught all species, and mixed fish. For example, they might be fishing for red fish and they were getting half of cod with the red fish so they’d throw the cod overboard and the cod would die.

In the days Egbert fished they used a method called otter trawling where the nets caught the fish lying on the bottom of the ocean and didn’t scoop up such large numbers of all species, but if it did they sold all the fish and didn’t throw any overboard. Otter Trawling is still used today. The difference between dragger fishing and other types of fishing is that you use a net to catch more than one fish at a time. When dragger fishing you catch different kinds of fish such as codfish, flounder and hake. Flounder were the majority and there were some hake. The reason they caught only cod, flounder and hake was because the holes in the nets allowed certain kinds of fish to fit through the holes, and escape being caught.

The names of Egbert’s boats were Marjorie and Mary Bell, Gloria May, Irene R., and North Bay. In the earlier years the boat was a 60 foot dragger. A sixty foot dragger would cost approximately $50,000 in 1959.The same boat today would cost approximately one million dollars. Licenses in 1959 cost about $5.00-$1000 now. The prices of fish back then were, haddock 5 cents, Cod 3 cents and Hake 1 cent. There is a big change in prices since 1952 compared to now. Today fisherman sell Cod for 70 cents, Hake for 40 cents and Flounder for 35 cents.

There were usually five people on the dragger as a crew. Egbert was a captain on the dragger, and the other job positions were mate, engineer, cook, and deckhand. The mate helps out the captain. The engineer works the engine and makes sure it’s working properly. The cook prepares the food for the fisherman, and the deckhand is responsible for cleaning off the deck and helping out where needed. The fishing trip would usually last 5-6 days. The hardest time to fish was when there was a gale of wind, because the water would be rough and you couldn’t do anything if you were out on the deck.

The seasons that Egbert fished in were Spring until late December. The best time to fish was in the Spring after the ice was all gone. Egbert retired from fishing in 1991, (ten years ago). He retired because he had a very sore back from doing hard work.

By Jalessa MacLellan & Alyssa Peters