Every summer

Seventy-one years ago, when Harry Samson was nine-years old, there were some 40 families in Matthew's (Matty's) Cove and Trap Cove.

The houses, sparse along the rocky edge of the cove, others farther up on the hill, were made of fresh wood. On the other side of the grass hump, in Trap Cove, the houses were fewer still.

There was a school down past the hill, where trails from both villages met, just before the cemeteries on the trail to Indian Cove.

Today, more history of Matty's Cove can be found on the tombstones than the archives.

One of the older tombstones, which is difficult to find because all the rocks take the same gray, mossy shape, reads: Russell, James b. in Dorset, England, d. 9 Apr. 1865 age 78.

The hard, heavy wind blows cooly off the ocean and claws the patches of tall grass, which, bending, surrounds rusted anchors and gray, rotting boats which resemble coffins.

The wood everywhere is gray, silver when the sun hits the right angle, save for the roughly 10 houses that have been restored or are in the process, the houses that have come back to life.

There may be a day, if the day hasn't passed, when the names on the tombstones - the Murphys, the Pyes, the Rumbolts and the Smiths - may be lost.

For some of the families, however, the past isn't so long ago.

"Well b'y, I got all kindsa memories I suppose," said Harry, now 80, in the warm porch of his restored home, which he believes to also be about 80-years-old.

"All was going then was fish and fish and fish, never had any time to get anything in your mind," he laughed. "Good fish. Good place for fishing. But there was lots of bad summers. Summers there wasn't enough fish you just scraped around for enough to live on. You won't find any money burried round here."

The home of Harry's youth, across a 100-foot stretch of tall grass, has grayed like most of the houses, its windows boarded up, waiting for a storm that has either never come or never left.

"B'y I can't tell you much more than you can see, everything that's fell down now, most was here has died and gone."

Harry and his wife, Emma, who was born and raised in Battle Harbour, across a 100-yard strait, held their wedding reception in the old house, which he points out through the window.

Since first arriving as a boy, Harry has never missed a summer in Matty's Cove.

That's 71 years.

Every summer?

"Every summer," Harry said.

"Every summer," Emma echoed.

"Seventy-one years, haven't missed a summer yet," Harry smiled. "It's where I was reared up to and I always used to come back here," he said, simple as that. "Not many rocks round here I never walked on. Walkin' round here for 71 years."

Plenty of work went into restoring his home, which he bought some 50 years ago, he ventures (this isn't the place to be exact), from a Rumbolt or a Smith, relatives of both, surely.

"It was like that one when we moved in here," he said, pointing toward his childhood home.

Aubrey and Pauline Russell's house, which was built by Pauline's parents, Clarence and Mabel Rumbolt some 53 years ago, wasn't as whithered as the majority of houses.

"We always came back in the summertime; this was like every other fishing community along the coast, this is where they came to make a living," Pauline said. "This was a beautiful little community at one time when everybody lived here, because everyone kept their property up. Hopefully one of these days it'll be a nice little community again."

Aubrey and Pauline decided nearly five summers ago to restore the old house, and have returned for the past three summers to work on it.

At first glance, the house needed too much repair, having rotted some inside and out.

But it could be done.

The couple replaced virtually everything while keeping the same layout.

"We didn't want to change the layout, because we wanted to keep it as much like it was as possible," Pauline said, adding that she wanted to return for sentimental reasons, to live a traditional lifestyle.

Harry and Emma walk down over the rock ledges to the wharf to say goodbye to a crew of visitors from Mary's Harbour.

The boats buzz out of the cove as Harry and Emma wave and shrink in the distance.

Harry must think: Those foolish weekenders; haven't missed a summer in 71 years.