“This isn't going to last long. But we're happy enough to do it.” — Whyman Richards, Iceberg Wrangler
REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Janna Graham
When everything falls apart, Whyman Richards says, there's no time for standing around. You gotta "go big or get out." That's what Whyman did when the job he loved — fishing cod in a small open boat — disappeared.
After the Canadian government declared a moratorium on fishing cod in 1992, Whyman and his younger brother Dale knew they were looking at hard times. Tens of thousands of fellow Newfoundlanders were leaving the island, searching for work. But that wasn't an option for them. Whyman had dropped out of school after grade seven; this was home, and boats and fishing were what he knew.
What he and Dale needed was a vessel that would take them farther off shore, for longer periods of time, in pursuit of species other than cod. So they "went into the bush," cut down timber, and built a stronger, bigger boat. It took them three months to finish the Cape Richards, a 38-footer "you wouldn't find in a shipyard." They've used it to chase all manner of prey — shrimp, crab, capelin, lumpfish, seal.
The Cape Richards is "built solid," Whyman says. And that's a good thing. In the spring of 2007, while out on the annual seal hunt, the Richards brothers found themselves trapped when the thick ocean ice suddenly heaved and closed in around them. The Cape Richards was stuck for three days. Other boats on the hunt were destroyed, but the Cape Richards wasn't damaged at all.
Whyman and Dale are a lot like their boat: built solid, from local materials, and not easily wrecked by forces larger than themselves.
They're also not afraid of work. Whyman says he'll give anything a try. That's what he told Marshall Dean, a businessman in nearby St. Anthony, when Dean asked if he'd be willing to steer the Cape Richards toward some of the most dreaded hazards fisherman face in these waters.
Dean's company, Canada Ice Enterprises, plans to ship its funky, iceberg-shaped plastic bottles all over the continent. Inside the bottles, of course, is water melted from the bergs that break away from the giant Greenland ice sheet every summer. The company's publicity says its "80 Degrees North" water has "a velvety smooth taste with no added minerals and one of the lowest total dissolved solids you will find in any water on the blue earth."
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