Abstract

Few explanations have been offeredfor the northward expansion of the Newfoundland fishery for Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) into the waters off the Labrador coast. Extant literature alludes to this expansion as part of a British strategy to reinforce imperial control over coastal Labrador, or as a result of the need to deploy the otherwise unused capacity of schooners used in the spring seal hunt. A review of contemporary press accounts suggests that ecological problems in the inshore cod fishery of Newfoundland are the most important explanation of the development of the cod fishery in Labrador waters. A study of these accounts, combined with analysis of data from the Newfoundland censuses between 1845 and 1911, suggest the Labrador fishery expanded as catches and catch rates declined in the inshore codfishery, despite increasedfishing effort and increased harvesting capacity. We suggest that demographic growth and increased capital investment led to an ecological imbalance between Newfoundland fishing communities and the sub-stocks of northern cod upon which they had relied for their livelihoods. The colonial state and fish merchants responded with subsidy programs and credit strategies that encouraged members of the fishing communities of Newfoundland's northeast coast to invest in larger, schooner-rigged fishing vessels. The purpose of these larger vessels was to allow Newfoundland fishers to search further northward in search of new sources of cod.

Introduction

The Newfoundland fishery for Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, was once the largest and the most productive cod fishery in the world. From the late fifteenth century until the early 1990s, the “northern cod” component of this fishery constituted upwards of seventy percent of all Newfoundland catches. Geographically, the range of northern cod extends from Hopedale, Labrador (55° 20’ N) southeast along the Northeast Newfoundland Shelf to include the northern half of the once biologically rich Grand Bank off southeastern Newfoundland (46° 00’ N) (see figure 1).

Reported harvests appear to have been less than 100,000 tonnes until the early nineteenth century, increasing to as much as 300,000 tonnes in the 1880s and 1910s before declining to less than 150,000 tonnes in the mid-1940s.