Eleuthera Byways: Edwin’s Fishlake

24 September, 2008

Font size:

Edwin Burrows - Founder of Edwin Fishing Lake, Eleuthera.

Edwin Burrows, who passed on in 1982, was a farmer and fisherman who raised 12 children in Governor’s Harbour. Ingenious and ambitious, he constantly sought new ways to support his large family.

Three miles south of Governor’s Harbour, on the right side at the S-bends as the road plunges toward Palmetto Point, is a large saltwater lake. Passersby who stop to investigate will find the remains of a curious shed built of mortar and beer bottles, the amber, green and clear glass sorted by colour, bottoms facing out. A few yards away, obscured by bush and weathered by the years, is a wooden sign whose words are just legible:

Edwin Fishing Lake
Established March 10th 1954
The First Fishlake of the Bahamas
Over 20,000 fish of 32 varieties have
been placed in this lake.
Enjoyable entertainment for
tourists and sportsman
Fishing 9AM-5PM
Edwin Burrows, Founder

The curious will wonder: who was Edwin Burrows? Why did he establish the first (only?) “Fishlake of the Bahamas”? What happened here and when? The answers, like most Eleuthera stories, are more complicated than one might expect.

Residents of a certain age tell spooky stories of the Fishlake. Some have encountered a ghostly woman hitchhiker with a bundle on her head or a bag in her hand; drivers have given her a lift, only to find a few miles later that no one is there. The spectral apparition has also been spotted headless, rising out of the mist on moonlit nights!

A fisherman known to Arrington McCardy of Hatchet Bay told of a midnight poaching trip when “something really big came out of the water….I didn’t waste time investigating--I ran. I fished there a few more nights with the sweat rolling off me. After awhile I wouldn’t go back!”

Eleuthera’s version of the Loch Ness Monster? Probably not, says Shirley Burrows, Edwin’s daughter, of Governor’s Harbour. “Most of the people who saw these things were from my Daddy’s time, when there were fewer electric lights and high powered search lamps…”

Edwin Burrows Fishing Lake

Edwin Burrows, who passed on in 1982, was a farmer and fisherman who raised 12 children in Governor’s Harbour. Ingenious and ambitious, he constantly sought new ways to support his large family. “My father was the first on the island who ‘doped’ pineapples, applying a spray that induced them to produce fruit the year round,” Shirley recalls. “In those days, when most of the tourists were clustered around Governor’s instead of spread out in developments, the market for pineapples was best in the tourist season rather than in the late spring and summer when they normally matured.

“Daddy also observed that everybody else was growing tomatoes to sell to French Leave Resort. So he grew lettuce, broccoli and sprouts, and had the market to himself.”

Edwin also ran a club on Cupid’s Key, built with his unique combination of beer bottles and mortar; the remnants of a wall are still there, but you have to look sharp to see it.

Noticing that visiting fishermen were often unable to get out on the ocean, either for lack of boats or high seas, Edwin Burrows decided to stock the placid lake south of Governor’s with ocean game species and invite the public. He caught the fish by line, with traps and with a net. He also made a beach for turtles to lay eggs. Today the turtle population is thriving.

Burrows Fishlake is tidal, with an underwater opening to the Atlantic, but like most such pools has high mineral and salt concentrations. This made for interesting anomalies.
“Ocean fish would grow bigger in the lake than the ocean,” Shirley continues, “but some developed oddly. Caribbean grunts are usually soft-skinned and tender; in the lake they would grow huge, but much tougher--they actually turned up at the ends in the frying pan!”

There are still big fish in the lake, but it is not much used today. The ghostly legends persist, fanned by the lake’s sometimes malodorous state. Hesley Johnson of Pyfrom’s Liquor Store in Governor’s Harbour says, “There are times when that place smells like a thousand graveyards.”

Next time you’re driving between Governor’s Harbour and Palmetto Point, stop at Burrows Fishlake for a look round. But if you’re inclined to be superstitious, or frightened by things that go bump in the night, you might just want to postpone any midnight reconnoitering.