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DRUMLIN DICTIONARY
- Mackerel Sky
This sky is dappled with rows of small white fleecy clouds, typically cirrocumulus. It is an indicator of moisture and instability which can lead to rain showers or thunderstorms. In the winter it is often said to precede snowstorms and flurries. There is an old saying, "Mackerel sky, mackerel sky. Never long wet and never long dry."
The phrase 'mackerel sky' came from the fact that the sky looks similar to the markings of an adult king mackerel.
In Europe, a ‘mackerel sky’ can be referred to as a ‘buttermilk sky’. This term can be found in, ‘I died my Petticoat Red’, where a young woman is sitting on Buttermilk Hill, a place to ponder and gaze up at the sky.
- Drumlin
A drumlin is a streamlined, elongate hill composed of glacial drift. Drumlins are often found in swarms with their tapered ends pointing in the direction of the glacier advance. Famous drumlins in Nova Scotia include Citadel Hill and Georges Island, but if you watch for them, you will spot them in many places.
There is still some debate about how drumlins were formed, but the most widely accepted idea is that they were formed when the ice became overloaded with sediment. When the competence of the glacier was reduced, material was deposited, in the same way that a river overloaded with sediment deposits the excess material. The glacier may have experienced a reduction in its competence for several reasons, including melting of the ice and changes in velocity. If there is a small obstacle on the ground, this may act as a trigger point and till will build up around it. It is difficult to understand how the material could have been directly deposited in the characteristic shape of a drumlin unless the ice was still moving at the time, but it may also have been reshaped by further ice movements after it was deposited.
- Rote
The rote is the sound the surf makes when it breaks on the shore. When visibility is poor, fishermen stop their engine and listen to the rote to determine where they are along the shore. This skill has saved many lives in foggy weather or times of poor visibility. Fishermen have the rote of familiar beaches memorized like the notes in a familiar tune.
- Stog
To stog a leak is to plug it up. You can stog a leak with anything handy, even a heavy undershirt.
- Fish Without Scales
The fishermen of Seabright jokingly referred to themselves as ‘fish without scales’.
- Bowline
A bowline is a knot used to form a loop, which will not slip, at the end of a piece of rope. It also can refer to a line for controlling one of the vertical edges of a square sail.
- Half-mast
The position, roughly halfway down a flagpole, to which a flag is lowered as a sign of respect when an important person dies, is called half-mast.
- Chantey
This is a rhythmic song chanted by sailors as they work.
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