www.oakvillebeaver.com 14 Living Oakville Beaver LIVING EDITOR: ANGELA BLACKBURN Phone: 905-845-3824, ext. 248 Fax: 905-337-5567 e-mail: angela@oakvillebeaver.com · WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2007 Bronte remembered as fishing village By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF It's Bronte, not Bronté. At least it was from 1890 to 1950 when most of the men from the village of 500 who called Bronte home hit the waters of Lake Ontario, rain, shine and everything in between, to eke out a living by fishing. While Bronte may be scaling up these days, those who remember their ancestors scaling fish in the shanties that lined Bronte Harbour are paying tribute to that era of Bronte's past. They're calling upon others to join them as the Bronte Commercial Fishermen's Memorial is officially unveiled this Saturday. The ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. in Fisherman's Wharf Park located at the foot of Bronte Road. The memorial has been several years in the works and its approximate $54,500 price tag has been paid for by a fundraising call that was answered by more than 90 private and corporate donors -- some contributing up to $5,000. Ward 1 Councillor Ralph Robinson worked diligently to get the fundraising accomplished while Bronte native Ken Pollock drove the historical work initiated by Bronte native Maureen Dobson. The Town of Oakville contributed lots in the way of services. It all began, according to Pollock, when a conversation on the boardwalk was overheard about Bronté. "It's Bronte, not Bronté," said Pollock who joined others committed to doing something to mark the village's fishing history. Though the road was fraught with potholes typical of a grassroots movement, the memorial has become a reality. The granite piece that stands six ft. high and 12 ft. long includes seven square plaques, etchings lasered in black granite depicting scenes from the fishing village. It also includes a tribute in words, and most prominent, an etching of a famous picture of former fisherman Tom Joyce clad in oil skins cleaning fish from box nets while sitting on the Bronte pier. Among the fishing families of Bronte were the Belyeas, Carpenters, Dorlands, Hintons, Ingledews, Joyces, MacDonalds, Osbornes, Pickards, Sargents, Skeltons, and Thomases. Pollock, who worked as a youth on the fishing boats in the latter days as the industry began waning in the 1940s, remembers the harbour lined with fish shanties. RON KUZYK / OAKVILLE BEAVER SALUTING HARD WORK: Ward 1 Councillor Ralph Robinson and Bronte native Ken Pollock who spearheaded the funding and building of the Bronte Commercial Fishermen's Memorial to be officially unveiled Saturday. This rendition of fisherman Tom Joyce, left, that was painted from a photo, will be on the granite memorial, along with other etchings of Bronte scenes when it was a fishing village. Pictured below, Bronte Harbour as it was lined with fish shanties. At bottom, a rendition of the memorial to be unveiled Saturday. It was to those shanties that the local fishermen returned each night, after having set out in the wee hours of the morning in all kinds of weather and lake conditions to fish. Some didn't return as they and, or, their boats fell victim to those conditions. Those who did return could be found at the dockside shanties cleaning the day's catch and packing it in ice to be shipped to markets, including some of the finest restaurants, in Toronto, Hamilton and New York City. Nearly two dozen boats regularly worked from the harbour. "Everything is gone," said Pollock wistfully as his eyes alight on the harbour and one just knows that in his mind's eye, he can still see the shanties of the bygone era. Now, the memorial will put forth to the public, the same type of picture Pollock envisions, as it, too, overlooks the harbour where the fisherman used to work. "Bronte has changed. Everything is gone, that's why there was such a fight to save Glendella. It was a stage coach stop between York (Toronto) and Hamilton," said Pollock. He ought to know. His family settled in Bronte in the late 1800s. The family owned a fiveplot farm that sat south of where Glendella sits on Ontario Street. When Lake Ontario claimed the farmland, the family handed it over to the Township of Trafalgar in return for five other plots of land, four on Belyea Street, which were later sold at $50 each, and one at 119 Jones St., where Pollock grew up (across from Sobeys). The farmland has since been filled in again and is now home to the marina. Pollock's uncle, Byron George, was one of the fisherman who drowned in the lake. Pollock worked on two boats during the summer as a youth, but himself became corporate manager of fire and safety at Petro-Canada and its predecessors. Having travelled extensively through his work, Pollock credits his wife, Lynne, with most of the work in raising their six children who included two sets of twins. It's for those children that Pollock said he has been tracing his family's genealogy and began writing a book several years ago -- so they will know their history and that of Bronte. Pollock's parents were John and Lila Pollock. His brother is Mark Pollock and his sister, Betty Redshaw Busby. His dad was a fisherman. See Times page 14