DAVE WHITE
The Western Star

More sunny days have followed more frosty nights of late.

Winds have lulled at least a while and double-digit temperatures up to 11 degrees C are forecast and rain showers. However mixed, the weather otherwise and hopeful outlooks warm Bay of Islands spirits this week.

Area fish plants at Benoit’s Cove, Cox’s Cove and Curling are running day and night shifts to meet production requirements. Hundreds of workers are grateful for the boatloads of life-sustaining product, namely herring, coming ashore from the western waters of Newfoundland and Labrador during the past two weeks and for some part of the fortnight ahead.

The Barry Group and Allen’s Fisheries enterprises equate with centuries of expertise in front-end, primary processing in Bay of Islands. As quietly as the human resources and noisy processing technology in modernized plants will allow, they again go about their business in tried and true fashion.

Fishers at sea and processing crews ashore, local men and women carrying on generations of outport history, local tradition and regional business values, are making the final push to help meet global demands for some of the best food anyone anywhere can eat, omega 3-rich North Atlantic herring.

A growing moon on calm waters offers a strong finish to this year’s harvest of pelagic species — capelin, mackerel and herring. Fresh-frozen herring packs and pickled chunks and fillets are standard fare to close the season.

Some 1,000 metric tonnes of the school-fish species remain to be caught on the western gulf quota, according to the latest figures heard attributable to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, manager of the free-swimming resource in Newfoundland and Labrador coastal waters.

Helping friends, neighbours
Joys typically associated with the coming holiday season are occasionally lesser felt by some families in our rural communities. Some tragically so. Family, friends and neighbours in Bay of Islands recognize that any measure of help and support for those negatively impacted by misfortune and illness is welcomed. And, they do what they can to ease such burdens.

In that spirit of goodwill, a fundraising-prize card game is planned for Saturday 2 p.m. at the Gillams senior citizens club in aid of Kip Kenny, who last week sustained multiple injuries when involved in a tragic automobile accident. He is currently being cared for at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s. With Christmas coming up, Kip and wife Angela and their two young children are in the thoughts of many.

On Sunday, at the Summerside Lions Centre, a merchandise bingo will be held at 2 p.m. in aid of the family of five-month-old Tailor Gough, who is scheduled to attend medical appointments at the Janeway Children’s Hospital in St. John’s on Dec. 8. Tailor is the daughter of Jennifer Gough of Hughes Brook and Trevor Wheeler of Summerside. Prize donations for the cause are being accepted by the extended family.

More community pride
As all goes well, rural Bay of Islands will be represented at a national-level softball tournament in Moncton next summer.
In support of costs associated with travel and accommodation for members of the provincial Division E slo-pitch championship team based from Cox’s Cove, a mixed-doubles darts tournament will be held at the Cox’s Cove community hall at 6 p.m. Saturday. Teams of three men and three women, with each having no more than one top-ranked darts player, will compete. Pre-registration for the tourney is being handled by Wade Park (688-2518).
Also on Saturday, the St. Nicholas Church ACW group holds its annual fall sale of crafts and baked goods fundraiser at the church hall, beginning 2:30 p.m. Related events include an afternoon soup and sandwich luncheon and a prize card game at 8 p.m.

Dave White welcomes your Bay of Islands news and events information at 688-2003, or
by email at: daver.9@netzero.com