"My husband, Kenneth, taught me how to do this and my late father taught me how to do this and I just love it," says Samson as she pulls a thick needle through the netting.

"We do them as our forefathers have done them. We sew them as if we were mending nets and things like that."

The tradition goes back a long way. Fishermen have been working out of this small region of Isle Madame on the south coast of Cape Breton Island since the 1500s. While net making and mending is as old as the community, the bait bags are something new.

Samson's husband, a lifelong fisherman, invented them because he found that fishermen often lost their bait to predators before the lobsters or crab could get to it.

The mesh bags hold the bait inside the lobster or crab traps and keep other fish from getting to it.

The Samsons have tested their products with local fishermen and come up with a variety of designs they know do the job. They already have a good local customer base and every year, through word of mouth, they get a few more customers.

They want to use the Internet to expand their business as much as they can. They're building a web site that will showcase their products and let customers order and pay for their purchases online. Customers will even be able to order custom-made bags.

"We have high speed. The connection, the speed, everything is fantastic," says Samson.

"I could sit here for hours and just make bags," she says. Instead, she leaves the task that is as old as her Acadian heritage and heads to the computer.

"It'll be fantastic for our business," Samson says as she scans her new web page.  "Because we'll be able to lay out our products, lay out how it's made. You'll be able to see it up close. You'll be able to order it. And we can just work around the house and the garage … and just sell it and send it back and forth."

With the world at her fingertips Samson sees no limit to how much her business can expand.

"My long-term goal is to continue to grow, to be able to sell everywhere. To be able to hire as many people as I can. Put people to work. Get me and my husband working full time at the business, and to help the communities."

The best part is, with high speed, the Samsons' goal is a realistic one, and they won't have to leave one of the most beautiful harbours on the Atlantic seaboard to achieve it.

"We've always lived by the sea. We can still continue to live by the sea. And we're still feeling great that we're able to promote products that will help our fishermen and our future fishermen."