MARTINELLO: From Wheatley, casting a large web

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Crossing the fertile, see-forever expanse of the Municipality of Chatham-Kent, it would be hard to know that it is, in part, a bicoastal community.

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MARTINELLO: From Wheatley, casting a large web Back to video

But it is.

The east shore of Lake St. Clair forms almost half its western border; the north shore of Lake Erie forms its entire southern border. 

It would also be hard to know that Chatham-Kent is home to a world capital. But it is. Wheatley, one of Chatham-Kent’s coastal communities, has the nickname of “The Freshwater Fish Capital of the World.” 

Driving along County Road 3 on the east side of Wheatley, you’ll pass by Johnston Net and Twine. The ship’s wheel and the fishing tug, Dorothy J, painted on the sign and the ship’s anchor and marker buoys decorating the front yard are good clues that Johnston Net and Twine is related to Wheatley’s thriving commercial fishing industry. But by its outward appearances, it would be hard to know that Johnston Net and Twine casts a web that stretches as far north as James Bay and covers Canadian and American fishing ports on all the Great Lakes, as far east as Quebec. 

It’s 9 a.m. on an overcast Monday, March 27. Spring is seven days old and my truck thermometer reads 5 C, but my hands and face tell me it’s still winter.   

That’s when I meet Jim “Jimmy John” or “Jumbo” St. John. In the net repair room, cutting away the fine, almost invisible, monofilament mesh from the lead line – the line of rope, with lead weights attached, that’s at the net’s bottom – of gill nets in for repairs. Gill nets that have come from Batchawana Bay, Ont., more than 600 kilometres due north of Wheatley, on the north shore of Lake Superior.    

As Jim puts it, “We repair every kind of net. Gill nets, seine nets, trawl nets, hoop nets, trap nets. If you need it fixed, we’ll fix it. If you need a net built, we’ll build it.”  

Jim was born in 1956 in Leamington and has worked all his life in Wheatley. He followed in the footsteps of his father, Clifford St. John, and grandfather, Jack St. John. Both were Lake Erie commercial fishermen.   

As Jim describes it, “I was on my father’s boat, the Jimmy C, when I was two years old. Started working on his boat when I was seven in the summer, on weekends and holidays. Monkeying around, trying to pick fish out of nets. If I wasn’t in school, I was on the lake. 

“In 1968, when I was in Grade 7, I quit school and went right to the lake. Stayed on the boats until 1973. The last boat I was on was the Everett H, one of the Omstead Fisheries fleet of fishing boats.”  

In 1973, Jim’s mother, Vi, worked as a net stringer in the Net and Twine Shop of Omstead Fisheries. At the time, there was an opening in the Net and Twine Shop, so Jim left the lake for the shore. He worked at Omstead until it was acquired in 2011 by Wheatley-based Milo Food and Agricultural Infrastructure and Services. 

That’s when Jim took his skills to Johnston Net and Twine. A small historical note: Douglas Franklin started Franklin Net and Twine in the 1970s in Wheatley. It became Johnston Net and Twine when Doug and Rob Johnston purchased the company in June 2007. 

As he deftly cuts mesh from the lead line, I ask Jim what he likes best about his work. He quickly replies, “I get to work at my own pace. I get to put a little pride into my work. I’ve always worked in the commercial fishery. I’ve always liked it. It’s the only business I’ve ever known.”   

I then ask Jim what the biggest problem is in the net repair business, and it comes back to a familiar refrain: finding workers. 

As Jim describes it, “There aren’t enough people who want to work. Nobody wants to work with their hands anymore. This work isn’t for everybody. I know education has become a main part of our world. But you don’t have to have a great education to do this. You just have to show up and be willing to work. We’ve got work all the time.” 

It’s time for me to go. I ask one last question: “Is there anything else you’d rather be doing?” His answer is quick, “No. Except for sitting under a palm tree. I’m where I want to be. Doing what I want to do.” 

Knife and needle in hand, Jim goes back to work on the gill net from Batchawana Bay. Doing what he’s done for 50 years. Connecting Wheatley to commercial fishing ports all across the Great Lakes. Building and repairing nets that bring fresh-caught Canadian Lake Erie perch, pickerel and smelt to homes and restaurants across North America and around the world. 

An end note: There’s a story behind the name of every Lake Erie fish tug. The Dorothy J is named after Dorothy Johnston, mother and grandmother of, respectively, Doug and Rob Johnston. The Everett H was named after Everett H. Omstead, the founder of Omstead Fisheries in Wheatley in 1911. Neither Tracy Johnston nor Jim St. John knew the story behind the name Jimmy C, but it is very likely named after a man called Jimmy whose surname starts with a C.