Gus Etchegary, one of N.L.'s fiercest fisheries advocates, dies at 98

Newfoundland and Labrador has lost one of its strongest voices on fisheries management and rural living. 

Gus Etchegary — fisheries advocate, corporate insider, author and athlete — died on Saturday, three weeks shy of his 99th birthday.

He grew up by the ocean in St. Lawrence on the Burin Peninsula, in a time before Newfoundland and Labrador was a part of Canada. He'd grow to become president of Fisheries Products International, a powerful and sometimes polarizing figure in the province.

Etchegary was active well into his 90s, advising Moya Greene and the premier's economic recovery team in 2021 on its future planning document for the governing Liberals.

"We made it clear to her that the situation at the present time completely lacks leadership in the province on the part of any other organization to effectively deal with the problem we have," he told The Broadcast. "Which is a resource that is on its last legs."

Etchegary's history with the sea was often rocky. He was five years old when his hometown was struck by an earthquake and tsunami.

He remembered a plate on the stove began rattling, then the house started shaking and his older sisters scrambled to pull him out of the house and up a hill. Hours later, they watched the unthinkable happen.

"The wave came in and it went back out, and as it receded out, the harbour practically dried out and the bottom of the ocean appeared inside the harbour, and then shortly after there was another huge wave. The second one was even bigger and it continued to destroy the premises of the fishermen," he told CBC-Radio/Canada on the 90th anniversary in 2019.

"That receded and still a third came and it really demolished most of the fishing equipment, which of course included the boats and the stages and the stores that the fishermen had."

The tsunami left 28 people dead and hundreds homeless.

Etchegary was an eyewitness to another ocean disaster Feb. 18, 1942. He was 17 years old when U.S.S. Truxtun and U.S.S. Pollux ran aground on the southern tip of the Burin Peninsula en route to the naval base in Argentia. A total of 289 men went into the water, with 203 perishing. 

Despite being a teenager, Etchegary sprung into action and helped rescue 186 survivors. He was the last living eyewitness to the tragic accident and heroic efforts of locals. 

Despite growing up near the sea, Etchegary's family worked in the mines at St. Lawrence and he initially followed in their footsteps.

Etchegary left St. Lawrence after 1942 to train as an electrician. He joined Fishery Products Ltd. in 1947 — in the era when fish plants were adopting refrigeration technology — and grew through the ranks to become a plant manager, and eventually the president of the entire company.