Is a seal a fish?

February 2024

We’ve often heard that none less than the Pope, or a pope, or the Bishop, or a bishop, decreed that seals were fish – not meat – opening a food source for Newfoundland Catholics during Lent and for Good Friday during a hungry time of year. But is it true? The Church, and other entities, have reclassified various foodstuffs for various reasons, It’s still a month or so out from Good Friday (March 29); good time to ponder this question and perhaps organize another favourite option.

(Image: Seals on the Rocks, by Albert Bierstadt)

Fiction

NORTHERN DETACHMENT

BY Clancy Margaret

The wind was still, but the cold was biting all the same. Stepping outside made her sinuses burn and her eyes water. She brushed the snow off the seat of her snowmobile—a mid-nineties Ski-Doo, always giving her trouble. She surveyed the town as she waited for the engine to warm up. It’s squat vinyl sided homes glowed amidst the dim winter daytime. Snowmobile tracks crisscrossed on the road but not a person was in sight. She checked her handheld GPS. The coordinates lined up with somewhere northwest, about a forty-five minute ride under the blanket of dark. There were no stars today. It was always cloudy.