fim Bruce

The vessel is perched high in his Elmira yard in drydock. Up, down...he's lying on his side checking out an angle one minute, and then he's back at the stern for a piece of gear the next. No creaky joints or stiff muscles for this octogenerian.

Back in the warm house with his wife Pearl he talked about his past and his dory fishing parents who wanted him to be a farmer.

“| had no more notion for farming than wings for flying," said the fisherman who remembers hanging a line over the edge to pretend fishing when he was little more than two feet high.

“No, my mind was made up," he said, and there was hardly a day he didn't climb a 60-foot spruce to catch a glimpse of the water. "When | got lonesome and wished to see the sea, that's where | went." And on a fine day he could see from Black Pond to Kingsboro.

He got his wish and was on the sea at 17. By 1930, at age 20, he was in navigation school in Halifax where he earned the highest grade of 29 students. He was offered a job with Cunard Steamship lines that year and could have undoubtably ended up as master of one of the great liners, but turned it down to come home to his northside port instead.

There he married Pearl Croucher and together they raised seven children. Of the seven, five including one daughter (Walter, David, Gordon, Glen and Fern) have gone to sea. Also fishing are son-in-law Cor Keus and four grandchildren.

“Il took them out since they were babies and that's where they stayed," he said.

Over the years, Mr. Bruce has fished all commercial species in these waters and enjoyed every one. Even the non-fishable 90-foot sperm whales sunning themselves on the fishing grounds brought thrilling pleasure.

He remembers one giant which submerged so close by that its tail brushed the boat, leaving a swash of slime on the bow. Another charged his vessel in a scare guesture when fishermen entered its area during mating season. They turned a dirty bilgewater hose on it as it dived under the boat just in case it might surface beneath them. They won't hurt you intentionally he maintains and although one did swallow Jonah...that was just a case of “have-to."

Clive Bruce is probably the most well-known across the Island for his ability to forecast the weather. This veteran sky-watcher has been interpreting the tides and times for the last 50 years...pretty close to the mark, | might add.

He gained his prowess from old Tom Poole, a friend of the deep water schooners. The old seaman would walk out in the evening with his pipe alight and stand on something elevated. Turning a complete circle, he could tell to the hour what the weather would be.

"| always remembered the signs he used and slowly got to know what was going on,” said Mr. Bruce.

Then in '39, the young apprentice got his first storm glass and took it to Old Tom on the shore who taught him to understand the concepts of barometric pressure. Now if | mark weather from the glass every four hours, | can predict it for a good 48 to come," he said. He doesn't read books on the subject, just goes by the glass and the moon. However he did hand out some general rules that are handy for any seagoing sort. For intsnace if the wind is coming ashore on a rising tide, it will fall when the tide goes. But he warns, if it comes in on a falling tide don't play foolhardy, because you will get two or three more tides of wind and a storm for sure coming on.

Mr. Bruce has never been seriously ill apart from a bout of food poisoning years ago and a touch of arthritis now and then. The latter he nips with applications of WD-40 which cures it everytime.

This spring he is working on his fibreglassed wooden boat, which is as sound as a bell, just like its owner. He'll get her all spruced up, and try and sell her, and if there's no sale he'll take her back on the water again.

"No sir, he's not going to sea anymore," contradicted Pearl with a grin. "| worried over him for 63 years...that's enough and | left it in the Lord's hands at the last of it."

She said God has been good to them and blessed them through all the years and now it's time to settle.

Well who knows? Maybe they'll do some more travelling now. They've already been to the west coast and every capital in the Dominion of Canada except the Magdalens. They have driven to Florida and around the U.S. and have travelled to Scotland to find their roots.

Mr. Bruce's tales are many and long inviting you into a wonderful world of the sea and past. As | sat listening, | watched his eyes snapping with fun at their recounting and was reminded of a line from Walt Whitman. "O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on its self...". And | thought how well it describes this man.

Children:

69. i David Clive Bruce born Nov. 17, 1942.

70. ii Daniel Walter Bruce born Sept. 23, 1944.

71. iii Fern Elizabeth Bruce born June 14, 1946.

72. iv Gordon Everett Bruce born May 29, 1947.

73. vIris Pearl Bruce born March 12, 1949.

74. vi Elliott Glen Bruce born October 21 1950.

75. vii Janet Dawn Bruce born Dec. 29, 1958.

Gordon, Glen, Fern, Walter and David Janet, Clive, Pearl and Iris

Ohe Bruce Gramily of Red Point Prince Edward Asland 1840-1999 46