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THE FISHERMAN
May 19, 1961
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
HALIBUT
The response has been excellent, they report. Vice president M. S. Duffus of Super-Value Stores, has written, "We are most happy to support this very important British Columbia industry, and will certainly be featuring halibut during this week, and will also make mention of it in our newspaper advertisement this same week." BC PROCLAMATION
A proclamation, issued May 9 by the BC cabinet and signed by provincial secretary Wesley Black and health minister Eric Martin, states "That it is considered desirable to appoint the week of May 21 to 27. inclusive, as Halibut Week in the province of British Columbia: And to recommend for this purpose a proclamation be issued under the Great Seal of the province of British Columbia, appointing the week of May 21 to 27 inclusive, 1961, as Halibut Week in the province of British Columbia."
The halibut cooking show, conducted by Mrs. Mary Allman Smith, federal fisheries department home economist, will commence at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, May 25 in the Fishermen's Hall. There will be no charge, and tea will be served. The family halibut supper will be held the same day, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., also in the Fishermen's Hall. Supper admission is $1 for adults, 50 cents for children,  with   pre-school children admitted free.
LADNER OLD TIMER DESCRIBES 1919 EXPEDITION
Sealing on the Fraser
i
By NICK STEVENS
WAS much interested in Win-jo's account of his seal hunting and trapping. It brought back to my mind my experience in hunting seals at the Sandheads. In May, 1919, my two brothers,
Sweet Home on a Lewis gun.
George served his time on the HMS Rainbow and Malaspina and
knew something about gunnery too, but the powers that be decided it was unsafe to trust three fishermen with such a dangerous
SEAL HUNTER Demetri Stevens, brother of Nick Stevens, author of the accompanying piece, has one seal aboard and is hauling in another. Picture was taken in 1919 during seal hunting expedition.
George and Demetri, and myself decided to do something about the seals which were very numerous that year. In fact, we counted from three to four hundred on the sandbars south of the Lightship at one time.
We tried to get a permit to use a machine gun as brother Demetri had put in his time in tjie machine gun section in France 1914-18 and said he could play Home
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weapon so we had to fall back on rifles and shotguns.
WE had some success in killing the seals. We used to cruise down the outside of the sandbars and then turn suddenly straight toward the herd at full speed. The old bull sentinel on the edge of the herd would give the alarm and the whole herd would head straight toward us to get to deep water. At the time we chose, zero tide and low water, they had to splash through about 50 yards of very shallow water to get past us. We had three automatic rifles and three shotguns all loaded up and managed quite a bombardment while they were unable to dive.
We figured we killed 16 one day but recovered only six of the carcasses. We went back next day with a hundred sharp sturgeon hooks fastened about three feet apart on a line and using two boats to tow, we managed to gather up four more.
After a few trips like that, the
seals got to know our boat and we couldn't get near them any more.
The bounty then was $3.50 but we skinned the brutes and sold the skins to Leckie's Tannery for $3.75 each, rendered down the blubber to oil and sold it for 25 cents a quart to the farmers in the Delta for harness oil.
Leckie's shoe factory made work boots out of the seal skins and they were on sale in some stores. One of my friends bought a pair in a Ladner store and he said he just could not wear them out. They were waterproof, too.
Times were hard and although we killed about 40 seals altogether we did not make a fortune, but it was a diversion from fishing to hunt seals.
*    ★ ★
AFEW years ago, my son-in-law Frank Radoslovich, his brother Andrew, and I tried it again with a different approach. Andrew stayed in the boat while we crawled over the sand bars from the upper or north side.
We thought we could fool the old watchman seal so we cut up a gray blanket and made a kind of robe of it so as to look like a seal. We laughed ourselves sick watching each other crawl a foot at a time over the sand. I think we could have got closer but the rifles made it awkward trying to keep the barrels out of the sand.
The old bull seal watchman was soon aware that we were acting very queerly as seals and got suspicious. I think he stretched his neck a foot longer than usual watching us, and then with a loud snort, he wakened all the sleepers and they took to the water. Well, that wasn't the end of it; we crawled to the edge of the bar and heaped up some sand as a sort of a trench and waited.
The young seals were curious and kept coming in to take a good look at these strange creatures
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THREE VICTIMS Huntsman George Stevens is pictured here in i91a, staled before his Fraser River seal kill. The seals were unloaded at the Deas Island fishing camp. George, now dead, Demetri, and Nick are brothers, the latter Homer Stevens' father.
that were lying on the sand. So we shot a couple of them when they came within a few yards of the shore.
THEN the tide started to rise.' We were soon up to our knees in water with the current nearly sweeping us off our feet.
We signalled to Andrew to come for us with the boat and, horror of horrors, he was anchored half a mile away and couldn't start the engine. There we stood and I don't ever remember being more scared in my life. There was one lone pile out there and I was wondering if I stripped off my boots and clothes whether I could swim that far.
Once in a while we could see a puff of smoke from the exhaust as Andrew frantically tried to start the old car engine in the boat. Finally, when the water was up to our waists, he got the thing started and — happy ending — he came and picked us up. I will never forget the helpless, hopeless feeling, out, it seemed, in the middle of the Gulf with miles of water in every direction.
Now, Winjo, don't try sneaking up on sleeping seals—there's always the watchman at the end of the herd and he is always on the alert. Seals are very intelligent animals.
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