Francois 47:35N 56:45W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Sat 13 Sep 2008 14:25
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This is a little fishing village with two shops and
ferries bringing supplies and taking out fish. It is set at the top of a
very short fjord that keeps the swell out, unlike Facheux and Hare Bays, by
having a curved entrance. They go
straight inland and the waves roll in.
 It is extremely pretty but 80% of the population
are active fishing families and the others look after the place.
Those are not roads you can see. The nearest
road is 40 miles away.
There were two American yachts in here yesterday,
very friendly, I sat on both and drank beer and wine. You can always tell
an American yacht, they are the ones with no ensign flying. They do not
apologise for their foreign policy, but tell you directly which parts they
regard as mistaken.
They call themselves "Captain" on their business
cards because that is their qualification. In England the yachting
qualifications need a commercial endorsement to be used professionally (for
charter work) but are still separate from commercial shipping
qualifications. The US yachtsman's ticket is the same as
for merchant seaman. Even one of the wives was called Captain on
her cards.
 There are narrow lanes here for the quad
bikes, that give a very civilised (quiet and slow) form
of transport.
These lanes have been concreted but the steeper
ones soon become wooden structures, Canada has plenty of wood. Staircases
extend up the hill where it is steep.
 In the UK sex equality is in name only, here the
women get down to the hard work: That is a ten pound sledge hammer she is
wielding, to rebuild a concrete track.
Come to think of it, only the men go out fishing,
but the fish quay is entirely operated by women. The dock manager who
records the fish weight landed, the fish box handler who uses a mechanical hoist
to unload the little, one man fishing boats. The three from the fish
company, packing the fish in ice to be sent out on the ferry, they are all
women. Perhaps just a different distinction between
jobs.
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