It was fishing that brought Europeans to Newfoundland, and the pattern of settlement was mainly determined by the fishing industry. This population distribution has actually lasted till today. The Avalon Peninsula and northeastern Newfoundland are the traditional bases for the fisheries, and they continue to be the most heavily populated areas.
Fishing has provided work for several generations on Newfoundland. People were used to hard and intensive physical labour; boats and houses were built and the fish was caught, salted and dried. The knowledge was passed on from generation to generation, and men, women and children were all a part of the daily routine. Very often the fishermen fished in all kinds of weather and wind- from night till dawn, and often with only a quick nap in between. The work was top priority, and the people of Newfoundland are very proud of their fishing history.
Economy;
It is not known when the first European fishermen visited the island, but traditions suggest that fishermen from England, as early as in 1497, visited Newfoundland's fishing grounds and maybe they even came ashore for wood, food and water.
Since its first settlement, Newfoundland
and Labrador has been highly dependent on its resource sector.
The province was settled because
of its rich fishing grounds on the Grand Banks.
Throughout the centuries, Europe has been quarrelling over these rich fishing grounds. England has for instance had competition from France, Portugal and Spain, and they have all been competing to develop their interests at the expense of their neighbours. Anglo- French colonial warfare shaped the history of Newfoundland during the 1600s and 1700s. France was already well- established on the mainland of Eastern Canada, but began to make claims to parts of Newfoundland. So in 1662, they established a fort and colony at Placentia, and the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 ended in a long period of raids and reconfirmed British sovereignity over Newfoundland and the fishing banks.
The discussion over whether or not to join the Dominion of Canada led to a public referendum on the subject in 1948. In 1949, Newfoundland became Canada's newest province.
In recent years, protection of the
fishing grounds on the coast of Newfoundland has been an ongoing concern.
Since the Canadian government in 1977 extended its fishery jurisdiction
around the coast to gain better control over the fishing activity, recent
studies have showed that some of the key groundfish stocks are in severe
decline. Ever since, there have been successive reductions in fishing quotas.
Qoatations from the novel;
P.65; "And the fishing's went down, down, down, forty years sliding away into nothing, the goddamn Canada government giving fishing rights to every country on the face of the earth, but regulating us out of business. The damn foreign trawlers. That's where all the fish is went......."
P.65; " 'Well', I says, 'I can fish.
Worked in the woods in the winter.'
" 'No, no, no. We don't want fishermen......'"
P.83; "..... He didn't want his boys to be fishermen. So of course both of them was crazy for it. Jack tells them it's a hard, hard life with nothing to show at the end but broken health and poverty. And a damned good chance of drowning all alone in the freezing boil......
P.292; ...This business about allocating fish quotas as if they was rows of potatoes you could dig. If there's no fish you can't allocate them; if you don't catch them, you can't process them or ship them, you don't have a living for nobody. Nobody understands their crazy rules no more. Stumble along. They say 'too many local fishermen for not enough fish'. Well, where has the fish gone? To the Russians, the French, the Japs, West Germany, East Germany, Polan, Portugal, the UK, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria- or whatever they call them countries nowadays.
P.293; "Fishing problem? Fuckin'
terrible problem. They've made the inshore fishermen just like migrant
farm workers. All we do is harvest the product. Moves from one crop to
another, picks what they tell us. Takes what they pay us. We got no control
over any of teh fishery now. We don't make the decisions, just does what
we're told where and when we're told. We lives by rules made somewhere
else by sons a bitches don't know nothin' about this place."