The Village Squire, 1981-07, Page 8'e►
Changing
From the time he was 15 years old, Don
McLeod has been riding the fishing tugs
out of Bayfield, a unique village on the
eastern shore of Lake Huron.
The Bayfield McLeods are fishing
McLeods and with the exception of a
10 -year stint as a welder for Dominion
Roads in Goderich, Don has followed a
longstanding family tradition.
Through a quarter of a century, for
better or for worse, in fair weather and in
foul, he has carved out a living in a
profession about which songs are
written. In most of those ballads the
glamor outweighs the grind. For most of
the Don McLeods, reality presents a
different set of lyrics.
Technology has come to Bayfield as it
has to other centres that boast a
commercial fishing trade, and Don
McLeod has watched the changes.
"When I started out we fished in open
wooden boats," he says. "Before that
they didn't even have motors. My father
sailed. Back then there were cotton and
linen nets, then nylon. Now we've got
monofilament. The fish can't see them
and they don't rot. My dad used to mend
nets all winter. Now we just cut out the
web and put in a new one."
The wooden hulls have given way to
steel and most of the tugs are of the turtle
variety, which means they provide their
crews with closed -in work areas. And
almost all of them have heat, in some
form or another. to warm the weathered
hands that tail the puller or do the pickin'
or the settin'.
But technology can do only so much
and McLeod concedes the actual fishing
operation remains basically the same. So
do the elements. over which captains and
computers have no control.
PG. 6 VILLAGE SQUIRE/JULY 1981