I couldn't find a listing in the Traditional Ballad Index. Malcolm's message above is probably the best origins information you'll find. As Malcolm says, the song is Number 4432 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

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Kenneth Peacock's Songs of the Newfoundland Outports (volume 1, page 64) has these lyrics and notes:

  
  I'SE THE B'Y THAT BUILDS THE BOAT
  
  1.        I's the b'y that builds the boat,
          I's the b'y that sails 'er,
          I's the b'y that catches the fish
          And brings 'em home to Lizer.
  
                  Hip yer partner Sally Tibbo,
                  Hip yer partner Sally Brown,        
                  Fogo, Twillingate, Moreton's Harbour,
                  All around the circle.
  
  2.        Sods and rinds to cover the flake, 
          Tea and cakes for supper,
          Flatfish in the spring of the year
          Fried in maggoty butter.
  
  3.        I don't want yer maggoty fish,
          That's no good fer winter,
          I could buy as good as that
          Down in Bonavista.
  
  4.        I took Lizer to a dance,
          Faith, but she could travel,
          Fer every step that she did take
          She was up to 'er knees in gravel!
  
  5.        Susan White she's out of sight
          Fixin' 'er petticoat border,
          Sammy Oliver in the dark
          He kissed 'er in the corner.
  
  

This rollicking ditty has become well known since it first appeared in the late Gerald S. Doyle's 1955 booklet Old-Time Songs of Newfoundland, which he distributed free of charge throughout the island and to interested musicians on the mainland. In verse 2 the 'flake' is a platform covered with pieces of bark (rinds) on which the filleted cod are spread to dry out.