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Updated: May 3, 2025
The fish schooled in great shoals off Nanaimo, around Gray Rock, the Ballenas, passed on to Sangster and Squitty. And the fleet followed a hundred strong, each day increasing, Indians, Greeks, Japanese, white men, raking the salmon grounds with glittering spoon hooks, gathering in the fish. In early June MacRae was delivering eighteen thousand salmon a week to the Terminal Fish Company.
They were what he fully expected to behold as soon as the southeaster ceased to whip the Gulf, the Bluebird and the Blackbird, Jack MacRae's two salmon carriers. They were walking up to Squitty in eight-knot boots.
There are always plenty of roads open to a flank attack on people like that; many levers, financial and otherwise, can be pulled for or against them. So MacRae, knowing that Stubby must protect himself in a showdown, set about fortifying his own approaches. For a first move he hired an engineer, put Steve Ferrara in charge of the Blackbird, and started him back to Squitty.
Greek and Japanese, Spaniard and Italian, American and Canadian and there are many of each who follow the silver-sided salmon when they run in the Gulf of Georgia, these know that Poor Man's Rock lies half a cable south southwest of Point Old on Squitty Island. Most of them know, too, why it is called Poor Man's Rock.
"We can send our own carriers there to buy at far less cost." MacRae smiled. "You can send your carriers," he drawled, "but I doubt if you would get many fish. I don't think you quite grasp the Squitty situation." "Yes, I think I do," Robbin-Steele returned. "Gower had things pretty much his own way until you cut in on his grounds.
He cocked his eye at a cloud-wrack streaking above, driving before a wind which had not yet dropped to the level of the Gulf, and he said to himself that it would be wise to stay in the Cove that night. A southeast gale, a beam sea, and the tiny opening of the Jew's Mouth was a bad combination to face in a black night. As he stood up along Squitty he could hear the swells break along the shore.
So Jack went back to Squitty and stayed in the old house, talked with the fishermen, spent a lot of his time with old Peter Ferrara and Dolly.
Even when American buyers trailed MacRae to the source of his supply their competition hurt Gower instead of MacRae. The trollers supplied MacRae with all the salmon he could carry. It was still fresh in their minds that he had come into the field that season as their special Providence. But the blueback run tapered off at Squitty.
"Remember that when the canneries open, then," MacRae said dryly. "There is not going to be much, of a price for humps and dog salmon this fall. But there is going to be a scramble for the good canning fish. I can pay as much as salmon are worth, but I can't go any further. If I should have to pull my boats off in mid-season you can guess what they'll pay around Squitty."
And all around the mouth, in every nook and crevice, driftwood of every size and shape lay in great heaps, cast high above tidewater by the big storms. So Squitty had the three prime requisites for a harbor, secure anchorage, fresh water, and firewood. There was good fertile land, too, behind the Cove, low valleys that ran the length of the island.
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