(Dedicated to my dear and unlikely friend, Howard Morry Sr. But for our shared love of sheep and Newfoundland we never would have met in this lifetime. Thank you for your lifelong commitment to the sheep and shepherds in our province. God bless you always.)

The Island Sheep

In Newfoundland 100 years ago
When the winters were long and dressed in snow
The farmer was called the fisherman
Men were called b’ys and them boys was men.

Sheep in the sheds on back of the house
Survived off nothing but snow and brouse.
They waited for spring ’round the end of May
When the ice pans would melt or float back out the bay.

The fishermen came and sang out “Come Nan.”
Sheep knew them well and to them they ran.
The men walked them down to the salt beach
With a boot in his punt, a fellow stretched back to reach.

Then the man on the land lifted each sheep
To the man in the boat on the ocean deep.
One by one every sheep was passed
Into the wooden punt until at last

There were no sheep left on that shore
And the little boat couldn’t hold any more.
The b’ys pushed the boat off the beach rock
And launched that boat with the fisherman’s flock.

One buddy in the bow, one buddy was rowing.
The sheep looked ahead to where they were going
To the island of grass surrounded by shore,
Their green island home every summer before.

The sheep got carried every spring over water
Like them fishermen’s grandfather’s grandfather’s father.
But time changes life, 100 years swept that shore.
That island’s still there but sheep don’t live there no more.

Years washed through harbours like waves in the storms.
They hit hard and strong and came in all forms.
Time carried away the boats, the b’ys and the men,
Along with the way things always had been.

Now sheep don’t be floated and carried over the sea,
To their summer’s island home where they used to be.
Time melted Newfoundland sheep from the bay.
Like ice pans in the harbour ’round the end of May.

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