The Prince Family Fishing History

The Prince family have been involved in fishing for two hundred years. Ancestors came from England to settle in Newfoundland and fish off the Grand Banks and coast of Labrador. The Prince brothers together, had several boats. One, The Fullers Queen was lost in a gale of wind which the Newfoundlanders called a "Seventh of June Storm." This same storm claimed a half dozen boats. One of the brothers owned a boat called The Royal Prince. These two boats were used for cod trap fishing and hand long line or hand trawling. Levi Prince, great grandfather, built a boat called The Blanche. It was named after his daughter. It was also used for the same type of fishing.

In 1910, Adolphus Prince, grandfather, came to the Pacific Coast and started a career of fishing which spanned 50 years and has been carried on by father Roland and his brother Ray.

In August 1910, Adolphus signed on as a dory fisherman on The Celestial Empire.In 1910 The Celestial Empire was involved in a fishing strike. Many men were brought from the East Coast by box-car to Seattle, to fish from The Celestial Empire and other company ships. When the fishermen learned of this they went down to the docks and hammered on the box-cars telling the Easterners what was happening. When the Easterners heard the story they all went up and joined the union thus ending the strike.

After several years, Adolphus worked on The Kingfisher which also was a twelve dory, halibut long liner. Two years aboard her and then he returned to The Empire for another year. The New England became home for another year then Adolphus went to Prince Rupert on the coast of British Columbia where he worked for several skippers for about six months.

1918 was the first year Adolphus had a boat of his own called The Vienna. He had purchased her with his two cousins. They renamed her The Shrub after an island in the Hecate Straits. Unfortunately, because of an error by the Customs she was registered as The Scrub. In Ketchikan where Grandpa Prince went to clear customs, several officers were very indignant to see a boat registered as The Scrub flaunting the name Shurb on her bow and stern. A quick explanation of the error soothed ruffled feathers but the boat remained The Scrub.They fished halibut out of Prince Rupert until 1928. Then The Scrub was sold and adolphus Prince had The Violet Prince built at Coal Harbour in Vancouver by Bill Menchions. The Violet Prince was the first halibut boat of her type registered out of Victoria Harbour. She was named for grandmother Violet Netta Prince. Her first duty was packing pilchards. She followed the seiners about and was used for packing. Following this she was used for freighting around the coast for three years as well as running a store business from the boat.

In 1933, Adolphus earned his masters ticket for 150 ton freighters and tow boats. Following this The Violet Prince was used to pack salmon for Seattle on commission for Kyuquat Trollers. She was also a charter boat for the B.C. Packers for nine years. After this she fished out of Prince Rupert for halibut in the Hecate Straits.

In 1946 Adolphus had The Vinetta Prince built in Coal Harbour. Bert Benson was the shipwright. The Vinetta went right on halibut and made two trips to Hecate Straits and two trips to Alaska.

In 1947 Adolphus and his sons, Rupert, Ray and Roland were dragging the bottom trawls with both The Violet Prince and The Vinetta Prince and for quite a few years averaged between one to one and a half million pounds of fish with each boat per year. The Vinetta Prince had the largest load of skidsgare sales landed in Vancouver in the late forties.The Violet Prince struck a mine in 1949 off Estevan Point at 1:00 A.M. and luckily it didn’t explode.

Late in 1953 both boats were converted to crab boats and fished until 1957 on the west coast and in the Hecate Straits selling out of Port Edwards. Ray and Roland were running The Violet Prince and Adolphus and Rupert were running The Vinetta. Both boats were converted to the drag operations again. Adolphus Prince retired or "swallowed the anchor" in 1959 and became a land lubber in James Bay, Victoria.

In 1959, Roland bought The Gale Roberta named after his only daughter at the time. He outfitted her for the halibut fishing but unfortunately she exploded and sank off Baker Point, Vancouver Island while enroute from Bull Harbour to Port Hardy. Luckily, Roland was not injured and he then returned to The Violet Prince as engineer. He continued on The Violet Prince bottom trawling, dragging until 1970 when he bought The Top Knot which he renamed The B.C. Canadian. Roland began salmon trolling on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Ray fished aboard The J.P. 11 salmon trolling the west coast. Rupert became the Deputy Minister of Fisheries in Newfoundland and was Chairman of the Bargaining Committee for fishermen and companies in St. John’s.

NOTE: This story was told by Adolphus Prince in 1976 to his grand-daughter Gale. It was given to Kathleen Sebastian by Roland’s wife Pauline Prince. Kathleen was kind enough to forward a copy to Geraldine Prince in Princeton, Newfoundland. A big thank you from the Prince Family on the east coast to the Prince Family on the west coast.