Charting the Past

Matthew Griffin heard a lot of fishing stories growing up, after all his grandfather, dad and several uncles were commercial fishermen.

“Who doesn’t love a story?” he asked. “Even if you have heard it more than once, and you envy those who are hearing it for the first time.”

That love, in Griffin’s case, was fanned by his grandfather Alexander “Allie” Griffin’s gift as a raconteur and his subject — fishing and Chatham, the town that turned toward the sea.  

Nine fishing schooners were sunk by a submarine on Aug. 10 (1918) on the southeast part of Georges Bank about 160 miles from Cape Cod. Although about 20 dories were sent scurrying about in the ocean as the U-boat sent vessel after vessel to the bottom, there were no casualties, as far as can be learned. Weather was reasonably calm and inside of 36 hours all dories had been picked up by other vessels and their occupants brought safely to shore.

Captain Lynch, lately skipper of the Anastasia E. told the story to a reporter the other day as breakfast was cooking at his home, 81 Summer Street. A modest man of few words, he nevertheless, injected a wealth of drama into the yarn, while leaving much to be filled in by the imagination. Listen to him:

With all our modern emphasis on developing wind and solar power, and all the controversy about what offshore turbines might mean for commercial fishing, it’s worth remembering that both innovations harken back centuries, and served as crucial support for Cape Cod’s dominant, historic industry.

As proof, witness Cape Cod saltworks.

Although not fond of snakes, Joseph Nickerson spent several summers catching eels in eel pots and selling them to a company owned by a couple of really well-dressed brothers who came down from Gloucester every other week and transfered the harvest from eel car to tank truck.

“They looked like two guys getting out of the truck in tuxes,” he said. “They were first class.”

In the 1980s, Alex Brown was in the East End of Provincetown when he met a fellow who, finding out Brown was a fisherman, started talking. The man’s name was Steve Kennedy.

Brown asked him if he was any relation to the noted photographer and painter of the same name. Brown said he had an oil painting by Kennedy of the well-known Provincetown fishing dragger Barracuda – she had a red, toothy mouth painted on her green hull – hanging in his living room. 

Howard Blackburn was born in 1859; he “crossed over” in 1932. His birthplace was Nova Scotia, Canada. He emigrated to Gloucester as a teenager and started a career as a mate aboard fishing schooners.

In 1883, he sailed aboard the Grace L. Fears on a winter trip to the Grand Banks, an historic fishing ground 100 to 200 miles east of Newfoundland; they were in search of halibut. The schooner would return safely to Gloucester, her holds full, but Blackburn would not be aboard.

Forty years ago — that Old Testament number meant to connote a long time (raining 40 days and nights, wandering in the desert 40 years) — Walter Baron built his workshop on a side road in Wellfleet. He knew what he wanted to do, he did it, and he still does:

Build boats.

If “jumbo shrimp” is an oxymoron, what is “very small shrimp”?

Whatever you call it, shrimp with the Latin name pandalus borealis, or Arctic shrimp, is big with flavor and eye appeal.

This crustacean does not come from the warm Gulf of Mexico or the coasts of our Southeastern states. Neither is it “farm raised” like cousins tiger and brown shrimp. Arctic shrimp are exactly what they sound like, a creature of the cold and dark waters of northern oceans.

Every year around this time, some of us think back to when skiffs from Stage Harbor to Ryder’s Cove were outfitted with bay scallop dredges.