DCHP-1 Online

stage ((n.))

• 1 n. Esp. Nfld a waterside shed for gutting, heading, and salting fish to be dried on flakes.

  See also: cod-stage  fishing stage (def. 1)  fish stage (def. 2)  flake  stagehead  

  • 1620  Such Stages and Houses, that the first arriuers into an Harbour finde standing, wherein men set diuers necessaries, and also salt their fish, some men haue vsed to pull downe, or taken their pleasures of them: by which vnfit disorders of some first arriuers there yeerely, those which arriue after them, are sometimes twenty dayes and more to prouide boords and timber, to fit their boates for fishing.
  • 1818  . . . at its mouth the islands afford shelter to fishermen and small vessels, as well as a means of erecting their stages.
  • 1883  Fishing hamlets line the shores, with their rough stages and fish flakes for landing and drying the cod.
  • 1957  The fish were then washed and then placed under salt in pounds erected for the purpose in a crudely constructed waterside shed called a "stage."
  • 1962  Down to the stage with ye and we'll do some proper work

• 2 n. See flake 1883 quote.

  See also: flake  

  • 1842  To a stranger, and especially a female, the task of walking over these impending stages, often the only path, appears a very nervous one, as the boughs are not placed close, nor wattled in, but left separated as much as possible, to admit the passage of air to the underside of the drying fish.

• 3 n. North a platform of poles, usually high enough to be out of reach of dogs or predatory animals, on which fish or meat are placed to dry.

  See also: drying stage (def. 2)  

  • 1887  During summer the fish are best smoked and dried, and in fall and winter are hung on a stage and kept frozen.
  • 1908  Innumerable ice-cold creeks poured in from the forest . . . and the frequent marks on trees, informing passing hunters of the success of their friends, and the number of stages along the shore for drying meat, indicated a fine moose country.
  • 1913  We found Jacob Bear with a big stage laden with whitefish, hung, in tens by the tail, to freeze for winter's use.
  • 1956  We built a big raftered stage of poplar logs and cut the sticks necessary for the hanging of the fish

• 4 n. North, Hist. a platform raised high off the ground, as in a tree, where meat and other food might be put out of the reach of predatory animals. [See picture at cache.]

  See also: cache ((n.)) (def. 2 and picture)  staging  

  • 1715  (1965)  Wee were all forcd to leave the factory & to take our Selves to ye Woods & to gett on trees & Stages for Six Days. . . .
  • 1743  (1949)  . . . of all the beast's in the Country, their is none so much an Enemy to the Indians, as these Creatures [wolverines] are; by breaking their stages op'n and getting all their provender away. . . .
  • 1800  (1897)  We then arranged camp . . . and made a suitable stage nearby, to hold fresh meat, etc.
  • 1922  [They went] to haul in some three hundred buffalo cows which had been previously killed and put up on stages.
  • 1922  Passing a considerable amount of "jerked" meat on a stage, I entered the wigwam.
  • 1940  Here and there on the way between Point Douglas and Pembina he saw to the erection of stages, platforms raised high on poles above the prairies on which food could be left beyond the reach of leaping wolves.

• 5a n. North the distance or track between two such stopping places.

  See also: pose (def. 2)  

  • 1830  (1963)  . . . thence into the sixth and seventh lakes by portages each a stage long. . . .
  • 1933  We generally make stages of about a quarter of a mile and get everything to that point before carrying on to the next stage.

• 5b n. one of several stopping places established on a long portage (def. la). See pose 1933 quote. See also 1933 quote above.

  See also: portage ((n.)) (def. 1a)  pose (def. 1)  

  • 1931  This, then, is not the end, only a stage.