Consultation is the key

I didn’t get out jigging this summer.

The closest I got was one brilliant sunny day last week. My neighbours were drying some fish in the backyard, an electrical cord running from their shed out to an electric fan on full-bawl to keep the bugs off.

Ingenious.

While my feet may have stayed on land the buzz we heard all over the peninsula was that the cod just weren’t biting.

As this week’s front page suggests, our old friends at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans picked the wrong time of year to grant us leave to go fishing.

Other media outlets reported huge cod being caught down by St John’s and Conception Bay as soon as the season opened, but up here on the Northern Peninsula? Not even a nibble.

When you’ve spent your life on the water like most folk in these parts, it’s safe to bet you know when the fish are — and are not — going to bite.

Scientific research is one thing, but generations of practical experience is quite another.

When’s the last time you saw fisheries and oceans minister Gail Shea steam out to drop a line off the coast?

Yes, yes — that’s what the scientists are for.

But, as we all know, science isn’t always golden.

So wouldn’t it be grand to combine science with local knowledge to formulate the best recreational groundfish fishery dates for each region? Isn’t that a sensible thing to consider?

I’m not suggesting everyone sit down over a cup of coffee, share a packet of jam-jams, have a laugh, pick a date then all go our own merry ways, happy as you like.

But surely some consultation is better than just being told.

As teenagers we all hated being told what to do ... then we all started creeping out our windows and making the kind of friends parents didn’t approve of.

At the very least the DFO should give the local fishermen with regional knowledge a little bit of input.

Gee whiz, it’s the GG

There are some pointless positions in this world held by the kind of people who swagger about in self-deluded importance, saying things like “don’t you know who I am?” and demanding upgrades from airlines.

Then there are those who hold themselves with such level-headedness, such grace, that you can’t help but admire them.

The Northern Pen was lucky enough to get an invitation to theGeorge R Pearkeslast week to attend a book launch alongside the Governor General, Michaëlle Jean.

Ever since I saw the GG at the Vancouver Winter Olympics I was impressed. And let me say after seeing her in real life I’m even more so.

Arriving through the soupy fog onto the Coast Guard vessel moored in St Anthony harbour, she arrived — immaculate — to a hum of wide-eyed excitement and plenty of polite applause.

A former CBC journalist and broadcaster, Ms Jean and her family fled from Haiti to Quebec. She has achieved bachelors and masters degrees, founded shelters across Canada for women fleeing domestic violence, made some films (not without their share of controversy) and brought to the position an air of distinct style.

She’ll be finished her five-year term in October but last week on theGeorge R Pearkes, a distinct chill in the air as she shook hands of former lighthouse keepers and the like, she had the warm respect of all aboard.