Facing mounting bills and a vanishing season, some crab fishermen are defying the union and heading out to sea

It's been more than a month since crab fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador decided to keep their boats docked in protest of this year's catch price of $2.20 — and for some, the tie-up has gone on long enough.

Terry Ryan of La Scie is one of them. He and his son, who work together, have decided it's time to head out on the water, defying the advice of the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union.

"We gave it the good fight when we supported the tie-up that was orchestrated by Jason Sullivan," he said. "All we're getting out of this now is lost fishing time, lost money. We've got bills to pay, bank payments to make, and we've come to the conclusion that $2.20 is better than zero. Zero is your revenue off crab if you don't fish crab."

The union has said fishermen can't afford to fish at $2.20 a pound — a fraction of the price offered during the last two years in a booming fishery — but Ryan said he can turn a profit.

"Not a big profit, and I'm not happy with $2.20 a pound. I'm not happy at all — I was much happier last year at $7.60 a pound. I had a fantastic year. A bumper year. A record year — an undescribable year, profitwise, last year, " he said.

"And I've been in the fishery long enough to know now that you can't have those record years every year. I wish you could. The fishery is up and down. It's up and down."

He comes from a long line of fishermen, he said, and the business has always been cyclical.

"If you cannot live with that, if you're not happy with that, then in my opinion, you should not be a fisherman," he said. "Get a job at something else, maybe a teacher. I was a teacher one time. I knew what my salary was going to be every year.… If you can't take the fluctuation and plan and budget for the fluctuations, maybe you should consider another job."

Fellow La Scie fisherman Jimmy Lee Foss plans to keep waiting, though, calling $2.20 a "devastating" price.

"I'm kinda fighting for my life here. that's what I feel like," he said. "It'll probably put me out of business if not this year, it'll definitely put me out of business next year. I won't be able to sustain a couple years with prices like this. There's no way."

La Scie is divided, said Foss, and everyone has to make their own decisions — and he plans to keep holding out.

"There's a lot on the line," he said. "Some guys can make it work on $2.20, I guess, but more can't. I can only speak for myself on this."

But Ryan isn't the only one deciding to defy the union by going out to fish. He credits La Scie fisherman Jamie Mouland, who — in a Facebook post on the weekend — outlined the reasons he decided to fish, including his desire to provide for his family, help his crew members provide for theirs, and help support workers in fishery-related industries, including processing plant workers and truck drivers.

"I think Jamie Mouland needs to be nominated for the Order of Newfoundland and then the Order of Canada," said Ryan.