DAY 87/ Two names are prominent in Trenton when the lobster fishing industry is mentioned.
Living in Trenton, building their traps and boats, grandfathers, fathers, sons, brothers and cousins all made their living from the hard work required in the business.
Generations of Dicksons and Polleys were in the lobster fishing business for decades, beginning in Trenton in 1913. They plied the trade pulling the heavy traps by hand in the early years and later used the mechanical winch apparatus for easier landing of the loaded traps.
Reuben Dickson came to Trenton from the Magdalene Islands in 1913. Ironically, his daughter Jessy, who was born in the Magdalene Islands, came to Trenton with her parents at the age of four and joined the other lobster fishing family of Trenton when she married Bert Polley in 1934.
Reuben and his son Archie won the trophy for largest catch in the Northumberland Strait at the Pictou Lobster carnival in 1935. Bert Polley won the largest catch award in 1950.
Bert and his sons, Donnie, Freddy and Sandy, held four separate licences at one time and fished over 3,000 traps in one year. Donnie started fishing in 1958 and Freddy and Sandy started fishing in 1961.
“It kind of looked unusually because we build a huge amount of lobster traps and we were living up in the hill in Trenton, they were piled out in the yard,” said Sandy. “There was 600 traps, we had two lots and they were filled with lobster traps.”
Sandy said his father, Bert, helped develop the scallop fishery in the Northumberland Strait in 1950.
“Dad (Bert) was the first one to fish scallops here,” said Sandy. “That was in 1950. He went to Digby and bought a scallop dragger.”
The Polley family held licences consistently for 65 years.
