A Way of Life Disappearing With the Cod

When John Cabot explored the eastern coast of Newfoundland nearly 500 years ago, the sea was so thick with cod that his ships could hardly move.

The waters “yeeldeth plenty of fish, and those very great, as seales, and those which we commonly call salmons: there are soles also above a yard in length: but especially there is a great abundance of that kinde of fish which the Saluages call Baccalaos,” or codfish, Sebastian Cabot wrote of his father’s first voyage of discovery in 1497.

A culture was born of that bounty. Fishermen settled along the coast and for centuries went out in their boats to reap rich harvests of cod.

No one thought it would ever end. In a paper on the voyages of the Cabots read to the Royal Society of Canada in May, 1896, Samuel Edward Dawson declared: “For three hundred years, the cod-fishery on the banks of Newfoundland has been the annual resort of the fishermen not only of the colonies but of Western Europe, and no signs of exhaustion are yet apparent.”

Then, as the 20th Century progressed, the resource that everyone knew would last forever began to disappear. The cod, and the culture of the Newfoundland coast with it, fell victim to huge factory ships, overfishing and mismanagement. Codfish became scarce even on the legendary Grand Banks.

Two years ago, the Canadian government banned the taking of cod. It recently extended the ban for five more years and gave itself the legal authority to seize foreign fishing vessels outside its 200-mile limit.

The ban on cod fishing has thrown 33,000 Canadian fishermen and processing-plant employees out of work, three-quarters of them in Newfoundland.

Calvin Pink, an inshore cod fisherman who lives on the tiny island of Ramea, now sets lobster pots for a living.

In Baine Harbor, halfway down the Burin Peninsula, Wayne Kenway and his son, Dale, are altering their nets to drag for lumpfish instead of cod.

Fishermen all over Newfoundland still assemble each morning at the wharves where their boats are tied. They stand in groups talking of old catches and wondering aloud whether they will ever fish again.

In Burgeo, an isolated fishing town of 3,000 on the south coast, Lester Green stood beside his dry-docked boat.

“I’m gonna paint her,” he said. “There’s nothing else to do.”