Date:  Wed, 14 Feb 1996 10:38:24 -0500

From:  Donald Larmouth <LARMOUTD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GBMS01.UWGB.EDU>

Subject: Re: two questions: boink and fish shanty



The term "fish shanty" has two meanings in my experience. One is an ice-fishing

shanty, either for fishing with hook and line or for spearing (e. g., sturgeon

spearing on Lake Winnebago). The other meaning refers to a commercial

fisherman's cleaning and packing house. I believe this term is still used among

the few remaining commercial fishermen on the North Shore of Lake Superior in

communities such as Knife River and Grand Marais. I know that in the late

1950's Mel Bugge and the Mattson family referred to their fish-processing

buildings as fish shanties, as did Rudy Carlson in Grand Marais. I believe I

also heard Dick Eckel use this term in Grand Marais, but it may have been his

brother Tommy. At one time, these people harvested lake trout, lake whitefish,

and "bluefin" herring (a large lake cisco), but now their enterprise is pretty

much restricted to harvesting ciscoes and herring, and some of them import lake

trout from Canada for smoking. The term "fish house" is also current in the

same region, I believe.



For what it may be worth, I've overheard both bonk and boink in reference to

sexual intercourse here in Green Bay.



DWL