for every
single individual person there is in the whole population of the
island. After this, numbers seem rather to weaken than strengthen the
argument. But it is worth mentioning that there are nearly 80,000
local fishing boats of all sorts actually counted by the governments of
Canada and Newfoundland, from little rowboats up to full-powered
steamers of considerable tonnage; that nearly a quarter of the whole
number in 1913 already had gasoline or other motors; that the total
length of all the Canadian and Newfoundland coastlines is nearly equal
to that of the equator; that, excluding all parts of the Great Lakes
within the American sphere of influence, the fresh-water fishing area
of Canada exceeds the total area of the British Isles by more than
100,000 square miles; and, finally, that the {159} mere increase of
value in the fisheries of the single province of British Columbia,
within a single year, has exceeded the value of the total catch
marketed in several of the smaller states of Europe and America.

The two principal salt-water craft that have a history behind them and
a sphere of active usefulness to-day are the schooner and its tender,
the little dory. A schooner is a fore-and-aft-rigged vessel with at
least two masts and four sails--mainsail, foresail, jib, and the
staysail generally called a wind-bag. The schooner rig makes the
handiest all-round vessel known. It can be managed by fewer hands in
proportion to its tonnage than any other, and its sails do the greatest
amount of work under the most varied conditions. Other rigs may beat
it on special points; but the general sum of all the sailing virtues is
decidedly its own. It takes you more nearly into a head wind than most
others, and scuds before a lubber's wind dead aft with a maximum of
canvas spread out 'wing-and-wing'--one big sail to port and the other
out to starboard.

The dory is a two-man rowboat which possesses as many of the different,
and sometimes contradictory, good points of the canoe, skiff, punt, and
lifeboat as it is possible to {160} combine in a single craft. It can
be rowed, sculled, sailed, or driven by a motor. It is the first
aquatic plaything for the boys, and often the last salvation for the
men. The way it will ride out a storm that makes a liner labour and
sinks any ill-found vessel like a stone is little short of marvellous.
It has a flattish bottom, sheering up at both ends, which are high in
the gunwale. The