In an art gallery window on Harvey Road in St. John’s, a matted print is positioned at eye level. In the image, brightly painted wooden boats crowd a small, snug harbour, their cheerful colours reflecting wavily in the blue water. Inside the vessels are coils of rope, piles of net. To the left, striated cliffs jut toward the boats as though about to scoop them into a grass-topped embrace.
A small card, with text in calligraphic script, is propped against the window. It reads, in part, “Skiffs Before the Moratorium.” A second card explains that a skiff is a small wooden boat, twenty-five to thirty feet in length, that was once used in the inshore cod fishery. “[B]ut sadly today,” the card concludes, “many of the trap skiffs one sees are pulled ashore.”
