Fogo Island consists of ten communities (figure 9), and is linked to the mainland portion of the island by ferry.
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| (figure9) Map of Fogo Island. |
Until the past few years, all these communities had witnessed a prosperous fishery. The Fogo fish stages are curious survivals of the nineteenth century family fishery. Whereas in so many other parts of Newfoundland stages have completely disappeared for a number of reasons, these structures are still found and maintained on Fogo Island. In most communities there, the water is relatively shallow near the shore. If possible, individual fishing crews have always moored their boats near their dwelling areas. While simple wharfs make this possible in the deeper waters found in other harbours throughout Newfoundland, Fogo Island fishing has continued to rely for mooring on the individual family wharf connected to the stage. The solution to the shallow harbours of many Fogo Island communities was to build a long walkway--essentially a fish flake--out from the land; these would be referred to as "flakes" or "bridges". At the end of this long walkway would be the stage (figure 10), and at the end of the stage a ladder going down into the water--the stage head--where a boat could be moored.
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| (figure10) Leslie Coles' stage,
Deep Bay |
The stage necessarily had to be in deeper water so that fish could be unloaded directly from a boat into it for processing. But the long flake walkway out to the stage provided a convenient nearby work space where the initial steps in the fish drying process could take place.
The interior layout of the Fogo fish stage was essentially a two part space: one section for the initial cleaning of fish, the other for its salting and curing (figure 11).
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| (figure11) Plan of Dan Greene's stage,
Tilting. |
The basic work area where cleaning fish took place in every stage consisted of a specific space that had a number of fixed and moveable objects arranged in a standard pattern. This end of the stage contained the necessary artifacts to initially gut and split fish, and was always located nearest the water. The other end of the stage where split cod were spread, salted and cured could be as large as necessary, depending on the amount of fish to be processed over a summer. The more cod that was caught and processed, the longer the structure needed to be to hold the fish being cured. Each of these two spaces had their specific determinants: the section where cod were cleaned was influenced by the necessity for speedy work. The space where fish were cured was governed by cleanliness. Let me discuss these two spaces and their determinants each in their turn.
The first step in the processing of cod was unloading it from boat to stage. This took place from a bobbing boat that had been moored at the stage head--the ladder of the stage located at the end jutting out into the water (figure 12).
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| (figure12) Looking out over the splitting table through the doors of Dan Greene's stage, Tilting.
Boats unload their fish onto the stage bedding inside the sliding doors. |
Linguistically the importance of this part of the stage is obvious, for being called the stage head conveyed the primary role of this side of the structure. Cod were pitched up from the boat to the stage by a two-pronged pitch fork known as a prong--the same fork used to make hay--or a one-pronged fork called a pew (figure 13).
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| (figure13) Pronging fish from a boat into the stage (Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, October 31, 1885). |
Fish were unloaded through two large doors located at this gable end of the stage. These doors were actually called "window leaves", spanning from floor to wallplate and most of the breadth of the exterior wall, and generally opened by sliding along a track. Doors were fashioned to be opened in this manner so they would not be in the way when large piles of fish were unloaded into the stage. Sliding doors could be easily opened or closed, no matter how much fish was on the floor in this area.
As it was unloaded, a large pile of cod would soon form in this front section of the stage, close to where it was cleaned, and a small barrier was sometimes erected to keep the fish from sliding back out into the ocean if the doors were kept open. This wall was made by taking two small poles several feet in length and lodging them vertically into the stage bedding at either end of the open doors. Planks would then be nailed to these upright posts, forming a temporary wall. As Leslie Coles (figure 14) of Deep Bay remarked, the fish would " swab out (fall out) with ne'er a board across."
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| (figure14) Leslie Coles,
Deep Bay. |
Dan Greene (figure 15) of Tilting remarked that people who worked in the stage during the trap season "were stood up in fish".
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| (figure15) Dan Greene,
Tilting. |
