All in all, it’s no wonder Kelland’s composition has been adopted across Canada.

Now nationally revered, Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary’s has thrived. The song’s earliest days are shrouded in mystery, but it probably spread locally at kitchen parties and other gatherings in towns and outports where, in the 1940s, electricity, radio and recordings were not often available. As improvements such as electrification and the establishment of CBC Radio arrived in The province’s rural areas, more opportunities arose for residents to listen to and learn Let Me Fish and other local favourites.

The folk music revival of that period brought great interest in the folk songs of the Atlantic provinces, with researchers “collecting” songs in remote villages such as Cape St. Mary’s. Kenneth Peacock, one such researcher, heard Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary’s from local singers during his 1951 song-collecting field work in Newfoundland. He turned his research over to St. John’s businessman Gerald Doyle, who published the song in the 1955 edition of his enormously popular book “Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland.”

Although Let Me Fish had still not been recorded, it was further spread by two more songbooks which introduced it to audiences outside Newfoundland: firstly, the 1958 songbook “Favourite Songs of Newfoundland” by the influential Canadian folksinger Alan Mills, featuring piano arrangements by Peacock, and secondly, the 1964 volume “The Folksinger’s Passport to Canada.”

Interest in Let Me Fish spread rapidly after Mills’s songbook was distributed to schools across the country, but it wasn’t until 1962 that the first known recording of Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary’s was finally made on the LP “Songs of the Anchor Watch,” a collection of Kelland’s compositions sung by Leonard Meehan on the Citadel label (CTL111).

As the song spread, musicians far and wide recorded their own versions. Among many Newfoundlanders who recorded Let Me Fish are Dick Nolan (a 1963 country version); the St. John’s CJON glee club; actor Gordon Pinsent (1968); and folk musician Harry Hibbs (1971). Recent covers include those by singer-songwriter Kim Stockwood; jazz singer Heather Bambrick; and Juno nominees Rum Ragged.

Among the earliest “come from away” musicians to record Let Me Fish were folk singer Omar Blondahl in 1971, and the RCMP Band. The popular Irish-Canadian folk band Ryan’s Fancy performed it on their 1977 TV show and later sang it for Queen Elizabeth II; Denis Ryan also recorded a heart-wrenching version with traditional Irish-style ornamentation. Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Stan Rogers recorded Let Me Fish in 1983, and Juno-winning cellist Ofra Harnoy has recorded an instrumental version.

Interestingly, Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary’s became a protest song when The province’s economy was overturned by the 1992 cod-fishing moratorium.

Kelland’s daughter Jocelyn Kelland told an interviewer, “It’s heart-warming that this song and his works still mean something to people today.”

Songwriter, author and model shipbuilder Otto Kelland, born in 1904 in the small coastal community of Lamaline, Newfoundland, was a member of the Order of Newfoundland and the Order of Canada. He was a police officer and became supervisor of a penitentiary. He died in 2004.

Text by Betty Nygaard King