When the Fish Are Gone: Ecological Disaster and Fishers in Northwest Newfoundland

Raymond B. Blake is director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount
Allison University, the author of Canadians at Last: Canada Integrates
Newfoundland as a Province, and co-editor of Social Welfare Policy in
Canada: Historical Readings.

In his 1985 book, From Traps to Draggers: Domestic Commodity Production
in Northwest Newfoundland, Peter Sinclair examined how changes in the
technology employed by fishermen—particularly the abandonment of the
traditional trap in favor of the modern dragger or otter
trawl—affected domestic commodity production. In this sequel, Sinclair
and Palmer continue that examination in the light of the closure of much
of the fisheries in Atlantic Canada.

They argue that an ecological crisis in the fishery has produced a
social crisis among fishers and that the domestic commodity producers
are in trouble. The people living in northwest Newfoundland, they
suggest, see little future for domestic commodity producers in the
fishery. There seems to be a consensus that if the fishery recovers,
there will be increased professionalization of the industry. The
consequence of such a development will be to exclude many young people
from participation in the industry.