They Let Down Baskets refers to the density of
the schools of fish as seen by such early explorers as John Cabot
when they tried to explain to doubtful merchants back in Europe
the ease with which the fishery could be prosecuted in the New
Found Land. For most of the following 500 years a good living
could be extracted from the sea, some years better, some years
worse, but at no time in those years was the ocean swept bare.
That took place in the last 25 or 30 years. A few years ago a
scientist stated that "we now have the technology to catch
the last fish in the ocean ... and I'm very much afraid that we
will."
"The Moratorium" are two words which in Newfoundland and
Labrador have taken on a meaning all their own. People who once
earned a good living and enjoyed a hazardous, though rewarding,
lifestyle have been reduced to living on a series of retraining
grants and make-work programs. Where once there was pride of
accomplishment, there is a sense of loss and shame. Many people
have been given the dubious choice of whether to eke out an
existence at the poverty level in Newfoundland and Labrador, or
move to Ontario or Alberta to eke out a living at a higher level
of income support, with a correspondingly higher cost of living.
Three creative Newfoundlanders, without collaboration, set out to
document the personal devastation brought about through the
failure of the Newfoundland cod fishery. Berni Stapleton kept a
journal of her experiences and the reactions of the fisher people
of Newfoundland and Labrador to A Tidy Package, a two-woman play
written and performed by Berni and Ami House. Jamie Lewis spent
several years travelling among the fishers of the province, in
their homes, on their boats, talking around the stagehead,
documenting the close of the fishery on film. Chris Brookes
prepared two half-hour documentaries for CBC radio, recording the
hope and despair, the rage and frustration of a once productive
people caught up in something much bigger than themselves.
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