This archival episode of Land & Sea from 1990 features families wondering how they'll continue to survive as the fishery continues to worsen.
The tip of Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula once had some of the best fishing grounds on an island known for them. But by 1990, communities like St. Lunaire, Griquet and Cook's Harbour were struggling through their third poor fishing season in a row and worrying about the future of their communities.
Fisherman Lloyd Curtis came to St. Lunaire from Horse Islands, met his wife, Lucy, and settled down and started a family. For most of that time the local inshore cod fishery comfortably supported his family. But the fishery had been so poor for the past three seasons that one of his sons had moved to Goose Bay for work, and a daughter had gone to Toronto.
"We can't make a decent living. We're only just getting by, that's all, getting by. Wondering where the next dollar gonna come to to fix our bills," Curtis said. On the day Land & Sea joined Lloyd, Lucy and three of their children on the water, they were more likely to haul up small crabs or empty nets than cod.
The area around St. Lunaire used to bring people and their boats from away to fish, Curtis said. Now they were watching their children leave for lack of work.
"We're losing a lot of our young people this year. A lot of our young people is gone, owing to a poor fishery," he said.
Lucy Curtis said it was hard to watch her children move away, but also difficult to see them struggle to survive at home.
"It's hard to anyone from any family go in a small community," she said.
"The fish goes on failing. There's no future."
Fishing other species for the first time
Others, frustrated by a lack of cod in the water, were catching previously unheard-of species.
Roy Saunders was out in a small boat catching black back flatfish for the first time, after years working in the longliner cod fishery. It was no longer worth the time or money to go after cod, Saunders said.
"It's too big expense for we fellers anyway. We just give it up."
At the fish plant in Cook's Harbour, a poor fishing season so far meant the workers weren't going to qualify for employment insurance throughout the winter.
The plant had begun working with different species, including the flatbacks along with whelks, smelts and lump roe.
"There haven't been a cod trap trap out here this year, 'spose the first year ever," said fish plant owner Gertie Larken, who said fishermen who previously would have brought in nothing but cod were now bringing in the black backs for processing instead.
"Right now the landsmen wouldn't be getting a thing if only for the black back."
That season, Curtis ended up giving up on fishing and getting a job cutting brush. He said he was considering relocating to a different fishing ground if things continued as they were on the tip of the Northern Peninsula.
"I'm gonna keep at it," he said. "I got no other choice, I suppose."