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For the first time, Jasmine Paul is joining her parents for the season, with an eye on her own fishing future.
As a teenager, Jasmine Paul wanted nothing more than to, as she says, "get clear" of the outport fishing life in Newfoundland and head to Toronto.
She got as far as St. John's. In recent years, however, visits back home to Come By Chance made her feel nostalgic about her rural roots.
"It made me realize what I was missing," Paul said.
"And so now I'm really anxious to spend more time with my parents and my grandparents and do stuff that we did growing up."
At 31, Paul has come full circle: she's decided that the fishing life she once loathed could be her future. This season, for the first time, Paul is learning the ropes as a harvester under the guidance of her parents. |
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Paul has happy memories of being on the water with her parents, who both fish for a living. It's a lifestyle that many of her friends in St. John's know nothing of. Many people her age don't regularly eat fish, she said, and have never even been in a boat.
"I just totally kind of took it all for granted. It was just so everyday to me," she said.
The decision to seriously consider that lifestyle for herself came from a conversation with her parents during a visit home at Christmas. Her parents told her they could use an extra hand in the boat and invited her to join them, and Paul decided to accept the offer.
Her mom, Kathy Paul, is behind her daughter all the way.
"I'm sure she can do it. She can do anything she puts her mind to."
Jasmine Paul will be doing it with the benefit of her mother's knowledge to help her. Kathy Paul has fished since 1997, heading out in the boat alongside her husband as soon as her youngest daughter was old enough to be left with her parents.
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