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eland. I found them tough, fishy and horrible! There are probably people o
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While conducting fisheries patrol on the Grand Banks 30 years ago I had the
opportunity to taste sea birds. I would leave the ship to the XO and spend
some time on the Portuguese ships where the cook would chum for birds with
the cod insides and then salt them down in barrels. Not bad tasting but
rather oily. I think they were shearwaters. Of all the vessels we boarded I
was most impressed with the white fleet because they used everything, as
well as the cleaned fish they salted down the frames and the heads.
Peter Stow
Hubbards
In a message dated 10/10/2011 7:41:57 A.M. Atlantic Daylight Time,
sternrichard@gmail.com writes:
Hi,
I tried googling Rev. Donald John Gillies. It seems that his book on
St.Kilda is available on Amazon etc. He apparently has (or had) a daughter
living in Port Coquitlam, BC. I couldn't find any info about his life in NS, but
he apparently "traveled widely" after leaving Scotland.
I have read other accounts of St.Kilda - it sounds a fascinating place,
with the highest sea cliffs in Europe, the biggest colonies of several
seabirds anywhere, etc. I have seen pictures of the old inhabitants rappelling
down the cliffs to collect birds eggs (I can't remember where), and it looks
highly difficult and dangerous. It's possible, but not easy, and very
expensive, to visit there - there's a great web site all about the place at
_http://www.kilda.org.uk/Default.htm_ (http://www.kilda.org.uk/Default.htm) .
BTW I have eaten puffin (I think they were roasted) as a delicacy in
Iceland. I found them tough, fishy and horrible! There are probably people on
NatureNS who like "Turr" (Newfoundlandese for alcids in general) and they may
disagree.
Richard
On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Stephen R. Shaw <_srshaw@dal.ca_
(mailto:srshaw@dal.ca) > wrote:
This is only obliquely triggered, by Richard Stern's mention of fulmar
below. On the plane flying back from UK recently I'd been reading the memoir
of Rev. Donald John Gillies 'The Truth about St. Kilda. An islander's
memoir' [ISBN: 978 1 9065666 07 4; _www.birlin.co.uk_ (http://www.birlin.co.uk/)
]. There are other books on St Kilda but apparently this is the only
account of the privations on the outermost, very isolated western isle off
Scotland to have been written by someone who was actually raised there (the main
island is called Hirta or Hirte). On pages 7-10 he gives an account of the
birds of St. Kilda upon which the inhabitants depended for food, which
might be of interest to some birders and others on this list if it is not
already known here. Gillies' account includes:
Families got through the winter on a diet of 'salt mutton, salt fish and
salt fulmar'. His family had two casks (barrels?) of salted young Fulmar
laid down each year in order to make it through the winter. He doesn't say,
but these presumably were procured from nests on the cliffs by 'craggsmen'
on ropes.
The first birds to migrate in after the winter, in early April, were
Shearwaters (species not IDd). These were caught at night with the aid of a
trained dog (perhaps 6 birds in a night) and were considered delicious after a
long winter of fulmar.
The second birds to arrive were Puffins around May 1, seen earlier in
rafts of millions on the sea nearby. He mentions also seeing them elsewhere
after he left St Kilda, including near Bird Isle off Sydney, Cape Breton. The
sheath of the bill is discarded after the breeding season and was prized by
'Indians for making necklaces'. As many as 150 would be killed and shared
out among families who couldn't collect them for themselves. Delicious
barbecued, he says.
They also harvested Guillemots by lying inert on ledges on sea stacks at
night disguised in rock-matching clothing, picking the birds off as they
flew in just before dawn. All the collecting sounds dangerous. He alone
caught 42 in one expedition to a nearby island, others more.
There was a large colony of gannets on Stac Lee, and apart from the danger
of trying to land on this sea stack, these were trickier to surprise
because there was always a lookout bird ('kingbird') on duty that could give the
alarm. If this bird could be surprised and killed, the hunt would be
successful. Earlier, gannets were said to have been the main food item on St
Kilda.
There was also egg collection from the cliffs by craggsmen absailing on
ropes, though he doesn't give much detail apart from a couple of human
deaths.
Gillies left St Kilda in the 1920s for the mainland and eventually
emigrated to Nova Scotia as an ordained minister, and travelled widely after that,
returning to St K in the 1960s and in 1979. As young people left the
island after WW1 the remaining islanders could no longer do all the heavy work
required to survive (e.g. peat cutting, bird collecting) and petitioned the
British government to relocate them to the mainland. This evacuation took
place in 1930, leaving St Kilda uninhabited since. The book was compiled
posthumously from 6 rambling notebooks written by a man raised in an oral,
non-literary tradition. I wouldn't recommend it as a particularly gripping
read, but it contains some interesting social information about the
traditions of the St Kildians.
Does anyone know if anything is known about this Rev Gillies in Nova
Scotia, after his immigration here?
Steve, Halifax
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quoting Stern <_sternrichard@gmail.com_ (mailto:sternrichard@gmail.com) >:
Hi,
Brier was quieter today - still many birds and a different mix from
yesterday , but (so far) no real rarities. Fulmar and Leach's storm-petrel were
interesting on this afternoon' pelagic. Bonaparte's gulls were at N. Point
and Pond Cove.
Richard Stern
_sternrichard@gmail.com_ (mailto:sternrichard@gmail.com)
Sent from my iPhone
--
#################
Dr.R.B.Stern,
P.O. Box 300,
Port Williams,
N.S., Canada,
B0P 1T0
Richard Stern,
Port Williams, NS, Canada
_sternrichard@gmail.com_ (mailto:sternrichard@gmail.com)
###################
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<DIV>While conducting fisheries patrol on the Grand Banks 30 years ago I ha=
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opportunity to taste sea birds. I would leave the ship to the XO and spend =
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time on the Portuguese ships where the cook would chum for birds with the c=
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insides and then salt them down in barrels. Not bad tasting bu