Sealers' Song (III), The

DESCRIPTION: "It caused a great sensation ... To see those little puppy seals in Codroy River Bight." Those who go after them are not experienced sealers and have all kinds of disasters. Besides, it was out of season: "now the puppies must be spared"
AUTHOR: Hughie O'Quinn (according to Bennett/Downey-JeromeJustOneMoreSong)
EARLIEST DATE: 1980 (Bennett/Downey-JeromeJustOneMoreSong)
KEYWORDS: hunting injury ordeal law poaching river humorous animal
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Bennett/Downey-JeromeJustOneMoreSong 21, pp. 129-135, "The Sealers' Song" (1 text)
Roud #24302
RECORDINGS:
Jerome Downey, "The Sealers' Song" (on NFJDowney01)
Hector MacIsaac and Jerome Downey, "The Sealers' Song" (on NFHMacIsaac01)
Hector MacIsaac, "Sealing Song" (on NFHMacIsaac02)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wearing of the Green" (tune)
NOTES [266 words]: The song ends with a complaint against the seal hunting law, by analogy: "Why, I'm sure some day a demagogue will write up in a book The proper way to stun a cod before he takes the hook." - BS
Sealing was a Newfoundland tradition from the early days, and indeed, seal meat kept many people alive in Newfoundland springtime, and the oil and pelts were one of their few exports and sources of trade. Although not as important as cod, without seals, Newfoundand probably would not have been economically viable. But -- apart from the ethical issue of killing intelligent mammals -- the seals were overfished, and by the 1920s, the population was a fraction of what it had been a century before. There was a prolonged and bitter fight about just what level of harvesting was sustainable -- but there is no question but that the harvest had to be limited. But the sealers didn't at all like being told that.
This is obviously a song of "landsman hunting" -- that is, of people setting out to the ice from near their homes, rather than being employed in a large sealing boat. According to James E. Candow, Of Men and Seals: A History of the Newfoundland Seal Hunt, Canadian Parks Service, Environment Canada, 1989, p. 138, "The recent history of the Newfoundland seal hunt has been characterized by the increased importance of the landsman operation." This was particularly true for the people outside St. John's, according to Candow, p. 139, although he places it more in the north and northeast of Newfoundland, rather than the Cordray Valley area on the southwest where Jerome Downey lived. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.4
File: BeDo129

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