God Knows, Cod Was King

We will spend time in Nova Scotia this Fall along a gorgeous shore in the southwest of the province. As exciting as this is, we will miss the opportunity to spend time in Newfoundland, a province dear to our hearts. I wish I could take in the exhibition in St. John's called Cod was King which has opened at The Rooms, the provincial museum. Actually The Rooms refers to the process of "making fish" in another day. Notice that the title is past tense.

You may have noticed that I have a strange fascination with North Atlantic codfish. When I began my ministry in 1980 the United Church sent me off to outport Newfoundland to serve five congregations. It was a hectic time in my life but I did take every opportunity to get out on the water with my parishioners, including jigging for codfish. We could purchase it from parishioners as well, for 25 cents a pound "on the fin" or 50 cents filleted. At certain times of the year we could go out for an evening walk and see cod drying on flakes and smell the pungent aroma.




Even back in 1980 there were concerns with declining stocks and one wise small-boat inshore fisherman in one of my congregations predicted that the factory trawlers which strip-mining the ocean floor would soon deplete what remained. What had seemed like inexhaustible schools of this staple for Newfoundlanders and the European fleets which fished Canadian waters were under unrelenting assault.

In the end the cod did disappear, in terms of a sustainable fishery, and a "brief" moratorium was declared in 1992 - far too late. Last summer we spent a month on Change Islands off the northeast shore of Newfoundland, alongside Fogo. In another day cod were the mainstay of the fishery there. Now there are only enough for the brief recreational fishery to which all Newfoundlanders are entitled. Because of the 25th anniversary of the moratorium there were constant soul-searching pieces on the CBC, a requiem for cod in particular and the fishery in general. The end of fish was the end of a way of life for many communities and they are slowly but surely disappearing as younger people depart for other opportunities.



For me the cod fishery is a prime cautionary tale about the human abuse of supposedly limitless abundance. We were foolish beyond any common sense, including that of the people who actually fished for a living. Greed, one of the seven deadly sins, makes us reckless and blinds us to what should be evident. When we were in Iceland a couple of years ago the guide on a day trip commented that they had seen the collapse of the Canadian fishery and changed their ways.

Will the cod ever return to a healthy population which might allow a sustainable fishery for Atlantic Canada? God only knows.