A community's memory won't be found on dusty pages, but heard in well-worn tales of empty cod traps, poor bargains, births and deaths - memories shared at the wharf, over a bottle of rum or a cup of tea.
But memory is plagued and molded by the same forces that cause the original events - death of its caretakers, pride and exaggeration.
Nursed on Ship Cove's memories as a child, Len Tucker followed the military out the harbour mouth to return decades later, bearing a passion for history and quoting Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellers.
"I was tired of the swarming faceless crowds."
His military mind wanted facts, dates and hard proof to match the tales of his childhood. Mr. Tucker plunged into old census records, tidbits of Ship Cove found in captain's logs and whatever else The Rooms in St. John's would furnish for his history. Along the way he found an ally - 94-year-old Roy Decker, a former Ship Cove resident spending the autumn of his life in St. John's.
Between Mr. Decker's memories and Mr. Tucker's research they've compiled a mountain of history dating back centuries and telling of the area's three names, sometimes used interchangeably - Western Head, Ship Cove and Cape Onion.
The area is first identified on a chart from 1713 as 'Cap d'Ognon', which would be translated to the English 'Cape Donagen' before becoming Cape Onion.
Mr. Tucker is stuck between two possibilities for the origins of Ship Cove.
"There was a Ship Cove in Port de Grave with a similar lay to the land, but the area was also a haven for schooners waiting out storms."
Written records have fared better than memory. Mr. Tucker finds the Manuel family perched solitarily at Cape Onion in 1851, though other records speak vaguely of fishermen travelling to the area during the 1700s from Conception Bay, Bonavista Bay and Notre Dame Bay.
The Manuels couldn't have had an easy life, but company is often some solace for lonely labour - Luke and Anne Manuel were soon born to the family. As well, Abel Decker appears at Ship Cove in 1872 records as a guardian of the French fishing rooms.
A story of Mr. Decker paints for us how precarious were the ties binding body and soul together for these people living alone in a hard land and taking a living from the sea.
He took the schooner Emma Jane into the ice sealing during the late 1800s. He was trapped and drifted south before his boat was wrecked off St. John's. We'll never know how, but the crew made it to shore.
Mr. Tucker's history lists many tragedies.
In April of 1945, Gordon Tucker and his younger brother, William Tucker Jr., were sealing off Western Head. They worked with a dogteam for hauling pelts to shore. Gordon was caught amongst the traces and hauled into the sea when the dogs fell through the ice. Young William was later found by a rescue party, sitting sadly on a small ice pan.
But Roy Decker won't allow all of Ship Cove's history to be painted with the stern brush of tragedy.
He remembers long winter days cutting wood and riding dogteams back to warm houses with steaming meals. Doors would later open as men with full bellies walked out onto the ice to play soccer into the night. In the spring there'd be baseball games as the community waited for the fish to run.
"Then all summer it would be cod, cod, cod and nothing else," remembered Mr. Decker.
His memories largely circle around schooling - a path that would make him the principal at Harriot Curtis Collegiate in St. Anthony, then the head of mathematics at Prince of Wales College in St. John's.
A single teacher was shared between Ship Cove and Raleigh - rotating between the communities for five months at a time. Mr. Decker and other youth would work with the men fishing and cutting wood when not in school.
"But we had a good life."
Time has taken its toll on Ship Cove - from nearly 300 residents in 1981 it was reduced to 95 souls by 2006.
There's only one stage left in the community, excluding the government wharf. The quiet sends even Mr. Tucker into sentimental thoughts.
"The hills and beaches were our playground - after Sunday school a crowd of us would all be out combing the beaches looking for bobbers or anything else that might have washed up."
(Do you have an idea how your community was named? The Pen wants to hear about the origin of placenames on the Northern Peninsula and in Southern Labrador. Write and tell us about it. E-mail info@northernpen.ca or fax your submission to 709-454-3718).
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