File: cousinsjohn-oh-islandsounds_M.mp3
Speakers:
JC – John Cousins
JC: Speaking of sounds, not only music of course – The sounds of the farm, the traditional farm on PEI will probably never be heard now because they were never really recorded. The sound of a team. This farm never had a tractor on it. The man who owned it worked with horses all his life. No one will ever hear the sound of a – What it was like for a team and a steel tired wagon to go back the lane; or the sounds of the farm-yard, which there was a big barn out here and there were a dozen and one buildings here when we came, all [then] in decay. And they'll never hear – This is even closer to me. My father was a fisherman and when I was a child every morning you could here at 5 o'clock the single cylinder boats when they would leave the cove. Now, these boats were hauled on the beach at the end of each day. They were lanched in the morning. They had motors in them but they were launched with capstans, which was an intricate arrangement. And we didn't call them capstans, we called them a "caps'n." But anyway you'll never hear the sound of the caps'n, the creaking old caps'n. You'll never hear the sound of those seven or eight or nine fishing boats when they would leave the shore on a still morning. All that sound has been lost
