Description

In April, 1903, a reporter from the
Charlottetown Daily Examiner
witnessed a spectacle that most Islanders
would still have found somewhat
exotic, the opening day of the Island
lobster season. The resulting account,
which appeared in the April 25, 1903
edition of the paper, is re-printed below.
The annual event lost nothing in the
re-telling. The now-unknown reporter's
article combines the romance of the
sea, the excitement of a yacht race, and
the fascination of the unusual. In its
way, it is a rather romanticized portrait
of the undertaking, full of night
sounds, and white sails, and hardy
seamen. Missing are the less colorful
realities of running the lines: the often
bitter cold, the drudgery, and the heavy
manual labour. Nevertheless, it was
the spirit of the event that the reporter
set out to capture, and in that, he succeeds.
He also intended to inform as
well as to entertain, and in doing so, he
has left us a valuable record of a major
turn-of-the-century Island industry.