Economic History of Canada - Atlantic Fisheries

Atlantic Fisheries

The earliest European settlements in Canada were the fisheries of the East Coast, especially the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. Boats from France, Portugal, Spain, and Great Britain would traverse the Atlantic fish for a summer and then return laden with fish. The trade was originally dominated by fishers from southern Europe. In Catholic countries, demand for fish was much greater. It was from the northern nations of Britain and France that the first settlers came, however. Spain, Portugal and the south of France had abundant supplies of salt because in the warm climes it was a simple matter to evaporate seawater. They would thus bring barrels of salt with them to the fishing grounds, salt the fish aboard ship, and return to Europe never having touched land. In the colder and wetter climate of the British Isles and northern France, salt was in scarce supply. To preserve the fish, they were dried by hanging them on large fish racks on the coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. These drying stations were active for months of the year, and eventually permanent settlements grew up around them. These small settlements totalled only a few thousand people, but they were many of the first European arrivals in North America