“People of the Sea” and the "Sacred Link"

“People of the Sea”

| A 1997 BBC Independent Wildlife Film Production & National Geographic

Written and produced close to 20 years ago, this poignant film is called “People of the Sea”, but it ought to have been more aptly named  “Capelin – the Sacred Link”.

Narrated by our own international wildlife expert Shane Mahoney, this film explores the timeline from our existence as a mystical “Garden of Eden”, to the arrival of the Europeans upon our shores when we “swam in a sea of fish”, to our eventual settlement when Cod became our currency, culture and pride, onwards through to the 20^th century and all the challenges modern times have brought to our fishing society and culture.

If there is one significant message of our emergence as “People of the Sea” over the past of 500 years, it is that it has shown our oceans are more fragile than we imagined; but the overriding take-away from this magnificent film is about the importance of the most important fish in the Atlantic Ocean – no, not the Northern Cod – the silver fish we know as Caplin.

Mahoney communicates it best in the film when he says “Our history was founded on Cod, but indirectly it was because of Caplin – the lifeblood of the ocean that we were blessed with such riches. So focused on Cod, we’ve taken for granted how we need to understand the life of this little fish.”

Caplin plays a vital role in sustaining the life cycle of all marine life and many land animals. Hence, why scientists like Mahoney would question whether there should indeed be a Caplin fishery -   “Given the imperiled state of our Cod stocks, shouldn’t we be protecting Caplin; and yet, look at what we do to this scared link?”

This national and international award-winning film may have been produced back in 1997,  five years post-moratorium, but it is still a film with a powerful message that resonates today. Just in the past month, we have had a renowned scientist at MUN, Professor Bill Montevechi, calling for the closure of the Caplin fishery given that it is the “life blood” - the most important prey for all marine life; and according to Mahoney “absolutely the most important critical food for one marine hunter – the Northern Cod.”  There is no doubting that the Caplin is the secret for the Northern Cod’s recovery.

Using breath-taking underwater cinematography, this production describes a phenomenon which every Newfoundlander and Labradorian knows in their inner compass, “Once a year vast schools of Caplin emerge from the deep and race towards our beaches, driven by the urge to spawn.”

As they “blacken our waters “,  these precious fish (and the thousands of eggs  they spawn) face numerous threats from humpback whales coming from the Caribbean to feed on them, from gannets diving for a meal, from chasing Cod - and from  gulls and osprey attacking looking for food for themselves or for their chicks.

Mahoney describes Caplin time with a poetic and pragmatic infusion:  “The Caplin season is a brief, but magical time …I see it as a hinge upon which swings the entire rhythm of life, both of man and all other hunters of the sea.”

Even back in 1997, Mahoney was confident that the collapsed Northern Cod would survive despite the low historic biomass and the Cod Moratorium;  but his message was just as critical then as it is now – that we need research on these precious fish given they are a shadow of their former self.  “Like Cod, Caplin took a hammer” as millions of tonnes were used for fertiliser and for food.

Mahoney’s question to us as a people and as leaders of this province is “Do we know enough to make the best decisions?”    Food for thought nearly a quarter of a century later … because one of the basic law of nature is that when we deplete natural resources we do so at the greatest risk to  ourselves.  In the end, the film offers a message of hope for the future. Why? … because Mahoney believes first, in the resilience of nature; and secondly, in the incredible spirit of man.

As we near the 25^th milestone of the Cod Moratorium, we are haunted with the despair that our youth will not follow in the footsteps of our seafaring ancestors.   We have to finally fall on bended knees and acknowledge, as Mahoney calls upon us to do, that we are not masters of nature but must live in harmony with it.

And if we want our spirit fish, the Northern Cod, to return in full abundance and rebuild this invaluable, renewable resource for generations to come, then Mahoney proposes we to bow down at the altar of the Sacred Link – the Caplin.   “The future of the Cod, the future of us, the whales and the seabirds depends on this little silver fish. If we can safeguard Caplin, then we have the foundation for an ocean as magical as it was 500-years ago.”

Mahoney was clear in his concluding message in this film: “Throughout our history. We’ve given many things to the world, but I think the biggest gift we can give is how NOT to treat natural resources. Like people everywhere we were just trying to make a living, but we suffered the consequences of our mistakes. We hope the world will learn from our sacrifices.”

This dream to bring back an ocean fill with fish has now been passed to us, a new generation of  “People of the Sea”, for we have an everlasting and intimate connection with our surrounding ocean and its many creatures, including the sacred fish called the Caplin.    

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