Gaspé Fisherman-Dealer Ivan Annett
by Sandra Dinsmore
We saw older farmland with houses set back from the road. The terrain changed again from being way up on a ridge, we would swing clear down to the water.
After interviewing and photographing Cutler fisherman John Drouin last June, photographer Richard Stern and I drove for two solid days to meet, interview, and photograph fisherman/dealer Ivan Annett, who lives and works in Douglastown, Quebec, about midway up the coast of Gaspé Peninsula.
Much of the trip was boring: trees, some houses, and blueberry barrens. (Though the barrens were marvelous looking in November, they were just blah in June.) To Richard, though, a great traveler who has been to the Gaspé before, going through the boring part of a trip is simply part of what you need to do to reach your destination.
After leaving Cutler, we took Routes 191 and US 1 to Houlton and then crossed the border into Canada. From there we took Route 2 north to St. Leonard, across the border from Van Buren, where we picked up Route 17. Route 17 took us across New Brunswick to Campbellton.
At Campbellton, we crossed the narrow end of the Bay of Chaleur and from New Brunswick to Quebec and the Gaspé Peninsula where the landscape became just beautiful, and continued up the Gaspé coast on Route 132 to New Richmond. We were now clearly in a country where French is the primary language. Fortunately for us, just about everyone living there is bilingual because Richard speaks some Spanish only and my high school French is pretty pathetic.
Maybe 30 or 40 minutes past New Richmond the terrain became hilly and framed with mountains, and at New Carlisle we saw older farmland with houses set back from the road rather than being all jammed up close to the highway. When we passed through tiny little Port Daniel on June 24, the lilacs were in bloom, which said something for the length of Port Daniel’s winters.
But as we pressed on to Douglastown, the terrain changed again and became far more beautiful. From being way up on a ridge, we would swing clear down to the water. We were surrounded by mountains: old, rounded, worn down ones. The views were spectacular, though in some areas it looked as if the flatter land had been swept clean and that small, modest houses had been deposited on it. When we saw mature trees by a house, we knew the house was older than the trees. In time we learned the area has an aging population and that a lot of the houses had been built for summer use.After maybe 30 or 40 miles of driving on flat land by the water, all of a sudden we were back in hilly territory, the road swooping high and low, building up to a mountainous terrain surrounded by high mountains. The beauty of the mountainous areas was worth every mile of plain old trees and little houses set right by the highway. Maybe the contrast of everyday followed by sublime gave us a deeper appreciation of the sublime.
We finally arrived in Douglastown late one afternoon. As it happened, although we had called ahead, the fisherman-dealer we planned to meet, Ivan Annett, had a delivery to make, so he and his wife, Sandra, asked us to come back in an hour and to stay for supper, which we were delighted to do.
As soon as we arrived back at the Annetts, Sandra started pan-frying fresh codfish, something we Mainers don’t see, and shortly thereafter we all sat down to a delicious kitchen family supper.
Ivan told us that his people, the Annetts, with the accent on the first syllable, were shipwrights who emigrated from England to Prince Edward Island in the mid 1700s. From there, the Annetts moved to Miscou Island, New Brunswick, in the outer Bay of Chaleur, and then farther east to Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. Ivan claims Annetts built from 100 to 150 big square-rigged ships, that some Annetts are now carpenters and jacks of all trades, and that Canada has between 220 and 230 Annett family members.
Ivan’s people, the Annetts, were shipwrights who emigrated from England to Prince Edward Island in the mid 1700s. Richard Stern photo
Ivan, who completed two years of drafting school and was a machinist, had been in the construction industry; but in 1977, after the Montreal Olympics, he said there was so much uncertainty that construction dropped, and he started lobster fishing. He said he caught 8,000 lbs. in two months’ fishing, adding that gas then cost him only $2 a day. He said gas was only 77 cents a gallon back then, that he fished 200 traps, and that his small motor used only 4 gallons a day max. He said fuel is now about $5.34 a gallon.
But Ivan is a salesman, so it was inevitable that he began selling his catch. In 1992, he started to take what he caught, along with some he purchased locally, to Montreal to get a better price. Other fishermen from his area used to drive to Rockland to sell to now retired lobster dealer Bill Atwood.
Ivan then spelled out what makes him willing to drive the 12 hours one way from Douglastown to Montreal to sell his seafood by explaining that Montreal fish markets buy in volume. He takes a bigger load to Montreal, where the buying public is willing to pay for more expensive lobster. “They want luxury,” Ivan said. However long and tiresome the weekly trip, volume seems to work for this Gaspé super-salesman.
He and Sandra recently sold what Mainers would call a mostly wholesale fish market, although Ivan still works for the new owner and, as a self-proclaimed “people person,” he is content to do so. Ivan simply refers to the fish market as “the plant,” explaining that he buys and sells anything in the way of seafood to tourists in season, which, in the Gaspé is only seven weeks long: from July 1 to August 25.
The plant’s tankroom holds 13,000 lbs. of various sizes of lobster and snow crab, as well as many species and sizes of fish, which he buys from five or six fishermen and from other buyers. “It’s not the number of lbs.,” Ivan explained; “it’s the size to meet the market needs.” He also made clear that his Annett uncles, from Anticosti Island and Septilen, on the north side of the St. Lawrence, developed the snow crab industry.
Returning from Douglastown to Maine, we came back to the Campbellton, Quebec, area via route 132, but just before reaching Campbellton we picked up New Brunswick Route 11 at Bathurst, Route 9. Route 9 took us to Miramichi, Fredericton, and St. Stephen on the Canadian side of Calais. Once in Maine again, we continued on Route 9 to Aurora, where we picked up a very dinky Route 179, which we took to Ellsworth, from whence we drove our last several miles.
Driving for two days each way to get from Eastern Maine to and from Canada’s Gaspé Peninsula was a stretch and some areas were just plain boring. Nevertheless, the beauty of much of the landscape and the magnificence of the Gaspé’s mountains and sea made for permanent memories and made the trip worth every mile.
• R E C I P E S•
Sandra Annett’s Pan-Fried Cod
Although her recipe is simplicity itself, we think Sandra’s secret is frying the fish quickly and lightly.
1. Rinse fish pieces then dry using paper towels
2. Roll dried fish in flour with salt and pepper to taste, then in 2 eggs mixed with a splash of water.
3. Heat two inches of vegetable oil to medium high heat in an iron or electric frying pan.
4. Fry to light or medium golden brown, about three to five minutes per side.
5. Drain fried fish pieces on brown paper bags.
6. Serve with vegetable, starch and salad.
* * * * * *
Sandra Annett’s Nanaimo Bars
Mix together:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
4 tablespoons cocoa
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup melted butter or margarine
Add:
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped nuts
Press all into a 9 x 9-inch pan and refrigerate for 15 to 20 minutes.
In a separate bowl mix:
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
3 tablespoons vanilla instant pudding powder
3 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup melted butter or margarine
Spread on top of first mixture in pan and refrigerate for another 15 to 20 minutes.
In a double boiler
Melt 1 tablespoon butter with
3 squares of semi-sweet chocolate
Spread like icing on top of the two layers of refrigerated mixture.
Refrigerate until cool and solid.