Cape Cod: Articles: Fishing, Provincetown -- post an article

Fishing: A Hard Life

Provincetown is still a fishing town although its whaling days are over. The fishing industry is carried on chiefly by the Portuguese. These men are daring and hardened to the discomforts and dangers of their work.

Facing storms and gales, they go far out into the Atlantic where they labor for hours, catching and filling their boats with codfish, flounder, lobsters and haddock.

When they reach shore, their oilskins icy, and faces and hands numb they still have more work to do. The frozen fish has to be tossed from their boats into large baskets which are swung from the wharves; then cleaned, packed in ice, and finally loaded onto trucks which take the fish to city markets.

It is a long and hard day for the Provincetown fisherman. When his day’s work is done, he is ready to go home to a warm fire and his evening meal, which is often fish he caught that day.

When I was commercial fishing years ago, we fished out of Provincetown quite a bit. The Portuguese fishermen there were a great bunch of guys. Even though I am not Portuguese and at first I was an outsider, they took good care of me up there. I learned allot from them and I have tons of respect for those guys.

• tell-a-friend • link to this post •