文档介绍：
nce had a greater density of cod than anywhere else on Earth.
Beginning in the eleventh century, boats from the ports of north western Europe arrived to fish the Grand Banks. For the next eight centuries, the entire Newfoundland economy taking fish back to European markets. Cod laid out to dry on wooden “flakes” was a common sight in the fishing villages dotting the coast. Settlers in the region used to think the only sea creature worth talking about was cod, and in the local speech the word “fish” became synonymous with cod. Newfoundland’s national dish was a pudding whose main ingredient was cod.
By the nineteenth century, the Newfoundland fishery was largely controlled by merchants based in the capital at St. John’s. They marketed the catch supplied by the fishers working out of more than 600 villages around the long coastline. In return, the merchants provided fishing equipment, clothing, and all the food that could not be grown in the island’s thin, rocky soil. This system kept the fishers in a continuous state of debt and dependence on the merchants.
Until the twentieth century, fishers believed in the cod’s ability to replenish itself and thought that overfishing was impossible. However, Newfoundland’s cod fishery began to show signs of trouble during the 1930s, when cod failed to support the fishers and thousands were unemployed. The slump lasted for the next few decades. Then when an international agreement decided to build up the modern Grand Banks fleet and make fishing a viable economic base for Newfoundland again. All