Fishing and how it influenced history 14/9/19
This starts in Newfoundland fishing in Petty Bay or Pettit from the French. Once there were so many fish it was free for all then, licences were introduced and gill nets banned but less and less cod was available also other fish vanished and whales stopped feeding in the area. This was the nearest part of America to Ireland and north of the river with Irish Catholics while south Protestants but now they cross the bridge and integrated. The fishermen were doing research on cod and caught 100 fish that weighed 365 pound 10 years earlier a hundred fish would have weight many times more and of the 100 only 2 were 7years old and ready to breed.
The book describes the Basques who live in 4 Spanish and 3 French provinces and went out and found a source of ready dried cod which must have been Newfoundland before Columbus as well as the discovery of Greenland. Cod is white because it is passive and only has enough energy to grab a piece of food. When caught they don't have energy to wriggle. Of a million eggs only about 2 survive and they shelter in the bottom close to shore. They live where the cold Atlantic current meet warmer water along the Great Banks and the are omnivorous. Because of the Catholic church eating fish on Friday and lent that is about 100 non meat days in the year. This resulted in a market for fish throughout Europe. Stock (stick) fish was dried in the winter cold. Salt fish came about where they had access to salt.
In the battle for Quebec both the British James Wolfe and French Marquis de Montcalm died in the Battle of Abraham Plains and the French were defeated. After this the British allowed France to keep the Isle of Guadeloupe but did not want them in North America, ended in Peace of Paris 1863.
They only allowed them to use the north of Newfoundland to land their fishing. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia never developed as they had scarce population and summer was the fishing season so they could not do agriculture at the same time. The result that New England became wealthy. The sugar islands needed food to feed slaves and they bought salted cod and paid in sugar molasses and rum till rum was produced in Boston.
A hundred years before the American Revolution, Boston was selling cod and trading directly with the French both in the Carribean and Europe as the Bristol merchants could not take all the cod. This was given as an example of free trade by Adam Smith. There was clandestine dealing in immoral slave trade as part of a fish, sugar, slave triangle but this was kept out of records.
During the Amreican Revolution, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia developed as cod came directly from them to England. The American troops had a good supply of food but not sufficient boots and clothes while the British troops were well clad but short of food.
The fishing was the most dangerous job at the time as men went out on dory boat from the main ship and got lost in fog, fell overboard or lost toes and fingers to frostbite. While the fish season was on they worked so many hours that they lacked sleep. Only after WW2 that fishing was really modernized with factory ship and mechanical engines instead of sails.
In 1946 Clarence Birdseye mastered the technique of blast freezing and then then factories started freezing fillets and sawing them up into fish fingers. This led to an enormous demand and salt fish was no longer wanted. Huge factory trawlers with nets dragged along by 2 boats resulted in the sea floor turning into a dessert and many undesirable fish were simply returned to the sea dead.
Aldous Huxley believed that the more you fished the more fish would replace them but by 1902 the British saw they had less fish and boats went to Icelandic shores. Iceland fishing methods had not advanced and most fishing was done off parts of the coast without harbours.
Governments encourage fishing fleets as they trained sailors and with WW2 the fishing fleet was taken to serve the war effort. For 6 years very little fishing was done and Iceland became the only supplier of fish as well as cod liver oil that was given out at schools , was used till 1970. In 1944 Iceland negotiated independence from Denmark and after the war declared and extra 2 mile fishing territory. The 3 mile limit had been establish in 1822 the rest of the sea was considered free for all. Iceland now was a wealthy country also mentioned by WH Auden the poet who taught there.
In 1945 Harry Truman declared that the continental shelf belong to the USA to protect US oil but most fishing takes place on continental shelves.
The book tells us it was Jews who started selling take away fried fish but later on the working man's meal was fish and chips either cod or haddock till this ended in about the 1980s when the price went up.
Eventually a 200 mile fishing zone was declared and Iceland controlled her fishing. Canada and Newfoundland the authorities never had the will to close down fishing and quotas did more harm than good as cheaper fish were thrown back but were already dead. There were always years when the cod disappeared possibly to move to the changing zone where the hot and cold water meet but would return. Suddenly they never returned and other species have replaced them. In 1933 the filleting machine was invented and fish that in the past that were dumped were now marketed. US fishing moved to the Pacific and Alaska.
There can be a number of reason for the permanent disappearance of cod on the Grand Banks, the ecology changed other predators replace them or ate their eggs. Cod farming has been tried but salmon is far more successful. However this leads to a problem that the farmed fish have a different genetic make up to the natural surviving fry.
Iceland and Britain had 3 Cod Wars 1958,1972,1975 Nobody was killed but the Iceland Navy cut off nets of trawlers and boarded ships and impounded them. Both countries were NATO members and Iceland won the battle. Hull, Grimsby and Fleetwood were the most affected towns and fishermen were laid off and paid out compensation in England. Fish and chip shops ended and collagen sausage casing were invented to become the replaced cheap food.
From Gloucester Mass. near Cape Cod fishermen turned to other trades like taking tourist out to see whales.
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