Daddy, What's a Codfish?

Raymond B. Blake is an assistant professor of history at Mount Allison
University in New Brunswick.

Allen Evans, former fisher, teacher, salesman and politician, argues
that had he remained in the Newfoundland legislature, “some of the
adversities faced by the fishing industry would not have occurred [as I]
could have fought hard enough to avert disaster.” Despite the
presumptuousness of this claim, Evans has produced an interesting little
book that serves to remind readers how Newfoundland has changed in the
last half-century.

Life in the Newfoundland fishery was hard, Evans tells us. Even in a
good year most fishers survived on appallingly low wages that often left
them indebted to the local merchants. They faced constant danger on the
water (Evans relates many stories of young men who gave their life to
the industry), and, as a result, many left when other opportunities
became available. By the 1970s, those who remained had gradually
improved both their work conditions and their incomes.

Evans offers a confusing and simplistic explanation for the current
fishery crisis. He admits that too many licences were issued to inshore
draggers, but still maintains that nobody should be denied the right to
fish. He adopts an antitechnology bias, suggesting that the problem with
the Newfoundland fishery has been the increasing deployment of new
technologies. In fact, he offers a very popular prescription for the
ailing industry, claiming that there would be more people employed if
fewer fish were caught by the large trawlers. While such reasoning has
considerable appeal, Evans must realize that solutions to the problems
in the fishery will not be found with a return to the past. As in
virtually every other industry in Canada, technology has changed the
fishery.