Once upon a time my grandfather, Victor William Annett, the seventh son of Charles William Annett, the grandson of William Annett, told me a story.
His grandfather William lived in the time of whaling in the Gaspé Bay, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Whaling was a tradition handed down from one generation to the next. His great-grandfather came from England with his wife Elizabeth Siddon in 1770. He was the first Annett whaler in Gaspé. In order to go whaling, one had to build a boat and make the equipment.
When a whale was spotted, the fishermen would get as close as possible and throw a harpoon by hand into the whale. The harpoon was made of iron with a barb on the end of it like a fishhook. This would prevent the harpoon from pulling out. The whale would try to escape, sometimes pulling the boat for many miles. When the whale would get tired they would haul the whale to the shore.
Once the whale was onshore the fishermen would cut blubber off the whale and ‘try it out’ or boil it in a large pot made like a soup bowl. This pot was about five feet across and about two and a half feet deep. There is still one of those pots at the old homestead. A considerable amount of oil was obtained by this method. The whale oil was very useful in the Gaspé area. For instance, the lighthouse in Cap des Rosiers in 1858 operated on whale oil for twenty years. A 30-gallon barrel of oil was worth about $30. The young humpback whale was considered as good as beef to eat. The skin could also be converted into leather.
Those Annett men were known to be tall and broad-shouldered. That would have been a considerable advantage. The first Annett who came to Gaspé was known as Captain Annett and was said to have been six feet, five inches tall and considered a giant in his time. The traditional whaling finished in the 1890’s.
Now with the whaling finished, William took up salmon net fishing in York Bay. In order to be able to fish he needed a smaller boat and a net. He had to knit the net by hand. He also had to have a boathouse. This was a small building in which they could eat and sleep in while tending the nets. This boathouse could also float up or down the bay with the tide. The salmon fishing with nets finished in the Upper York Bay in 1927.
In the summer months, William was kept busy with farming, along with whaling and fishing. In the winter months he cut firewood, which had to be chopped by axe into stove lengths. In 1908 he bought a saw machine, which was operated by horse thread. This would prove to be much easier than the chopping had been. In 1911, he bought a gasoline three h.p. motor, which weighed nine hundred pounds. It had lots of power to run the saw machine and the thrasher machine. The thrasher was used to separate the oats from the straw.
In winter months he also did trapping up the York River to where Murdochville is today. To be able to trap, he needed snowshoes that were made by hand. He also took a dog or two with a sleigh. He was very concerned about the weight of his load. He even considered the size and weight of the rope used to tie on his load. His sleigh was made with the lightest wood, being cedar. He would also take a tent and fold-down stove with telescopic pipes.
He also had small camps that he called fireside camps in which there was no stove. They made the camp with one straight wall and a leaning wall. There was an opening on the top for the smoke to go out. It would take about nine days to set traps and go about sixty miles, where Murdochville is today. Once they had arrived at their destination, they would stay and trap the area for about two weeks.
The upper part of the York River had only a jumper trail which is just big enough for a horse and sleigh to pass. Sometimes there was no trail at all. His trip would take about a month. My grandfather told this story about his grandfather on Sunday, November 14, 2004.