v. — Newfoundland, especially Fishing
to boil items with bark, often of a conifer tree, to waterproof them.
Type: 3. Semantic Change — Bark is a Newfoundland verb that describes the action of boiling things, typically nets or sails, in a conifer bark infusion (see DNE, s.v. "bark"). The term can be traced back to dialects of British English, where bark means 'to strip a tree of its bark, esp. for the purpose of tanning' or 'to tan leather' (EDD, s.v. "bark" (v. 1, v. 2)). In the 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of migrant fishermen from the southwest regions of England began permanently settling in Newfoundland, thus contributing a significant number of lexical items to the local vocabulary (Clarke 2010b: 7). It is likely that bark is one such item but Clarke (2010b: 118) notes that because of the province's close relationship to the ocean and fishery, many words have experienced semantic narrowing to an "exclusively maritime association". In Newfoundland English, bark is consequently used most often in reference to boats, where boiling items in bark is helpful in preserving the quality of the sails and nets. As can be seen in the 1957 and 1981 quotations, the container used to bark materials is known as a "bark pot" or "barking kettle".
See also COD-2, s.v. "bark" (4), which is marked "Cdn (Nfld)", DNE, s.v. "bark".