Page 78 - Bulletin 7 2003

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A COMPARATIVE SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE FISHING COMMUNITIES
OF ROGGE BAY, SIMON’S BAY, HOUT BAY AND KALK BAY

A PERSPECTIVE

Barrie Gasson

On the Peninsula the presence of communities engaged in the harvesting of marine
resources extends back to the Stone Age. There is evidence in countless places of

shell middens and cave deposits, and, in a few places such as Kalk Bay, of fish traps
in the form of boulder dams constructed on gently-shelving shores. Beach-trekking

with nets dropped by beach-boats propelled by oars, line-fishing farther off-shore

th
from larger sail-rigged boats, and whaling, were established during the 19 century
as small communities consolidated at favourable places along the coast.

By 1900 fishing was a significant livelihood along many parts of the Cape coast and
also a cheap source of protein, particularly for the poorer communities. At this time

Rogge Bay had the largest fishing fleet on the Cape coast, and Kalk Bay the third
largest. (Algoa Bay’s was the second largest fleet). Few of these communities exist

as intact fishing-based communities today. Some, like the Rogge Bay community,
lost their beach landing areas to railways and harbour expansion from 1915 onwards;

all had to contend with the process of industrialization which compelled the

transition from small sailing boats to larger motor-driven craft; industrialization also
led to a shift in control from small family enterprises to the progressive centralization

of control in a few large fishing companies; most of the endogenous communities
underwent social and geographic disruption due to Group Areas removals in the

1960s. Consequently, most members of fishing communities have lost direct contact
with the sea, as well as familiarity with the traditional skills of the sea handed down

from one generation to the next.

The purpose of this talk, then, was to look back into the four main Cape Peninsula

fishing communities through the eyes and experiences of those who knew of them,