Ancient Artificial Outports

Let's skip ahead, my lovelies, to a time in the future ...

Here in our fair land

Here in the Land of the Fish

‎Our Island is swarming with tourists.

Lured here by those charming and legendry ads (they were such a hit, they are now an Act of the Legislature)

that continue  still to dazzle travellers with our colourful cultural palette.

The year is 2066

Much has changed in the world

But the Isle of the Cod remains ‎untouched.

553 years of an enduring culture ‎that has withstood the 

hands of time,

the unending crashing Atlantic waves upon its shores.

Folks still cling to the rocks and still dance a jig on the wharves

Fishing Boats can be seen bobbing the waves offshore

The majestic and massive iceberg sculptures don the glistening waters.

Harp, there's a whale breaching the unspoiled Atlantic ocean.

‎Oh, look, there's the puffins, such remarkable and colourful creatures.

Yes, let me take you out on the water for a jig of our famous Cod.

After all, the‎ once-nearly extinct fish  is again teeming in these waters.

No need for a hook folks,  I tell the enthusiastic touristy lot.

"Do it the John Cabot style!" and I hand them baskets

Yes, us Newfoundlanders still have their sense of humor.

The tourists appreciate that; and the fact that we can now fish any day of the year, as the Cod are so darn plentiful.

The tourist are in their glee - thanking the gods that the authentic and the traditional have survived in this world where everything has changed.

I walk with them up a path to the local B&B and there's a scoff waiting for us .

Traditional food is served - Jiggs Dinner, fried Cod and scrunchions, fish cakes and bakeapples picked off the marsh this morning.

We still have it ALL here in Newfoundland - still Canada's youngest province after all these years  -

The beautiful outports, the friendly people, scrumptious food and oh, the crayon colours of this place have not even faded...

After supper we stroll down to the beach and light up a fire and roast some caplin as the golden sunset rays splay across the bay.

Musically inclined folks sing "Let me fish off Cape St, Marys"

Story tellers tell of ghosts and fairies.

The tourist are gobsmacked - "like being at being in the middle of a Newfoundland tourist ad", they gleefully  shout as they take endless selfies.

Each of them share with  me  their favourite colours like it was the name of their first-born.

The time has come for them to leave. They are all weepy eye and promised to come back again next year

to the "Land of the Colours and the Cod", as they like to call us now. 

So much colour, so much Cod, it's no wonder they love us so much.  

They love the outports - those special sacred places created by the Creator himself on the day he was supposed to have rested 

Then they wave their final forlorn goodbyes ... like a baby leaving the womb. 

Then the bright lights come on.

As they exit, I caution them to be careful

and to leave their 3-D Headset in the bin.

Their comments all bespeak of their love  for  "The Outport Movie "

- felt like they were right there!

The 3-D virtual reality  experience at the Babylyon  Mall  in St. John's is not the same as the  real thing,

but we try our best to give the tourists a taste of how it was back then ... 

Some have questions - What happened? What went down? Who allowed this?

I  tell them all the outports waned and fizzled and then totally collapsed 50 years ago

Federal governments closed down the fisheries entirely - a permanent moratorium due to extinction of the Cod and other species.

Provincial governments were positively passive and accepting - most of them St. John's elites or outport millionaires

The townies  finally got their way - too expensive to keep the outports going they had cried for decades and decades

Ferries were shut down, schools  and libraries closed, post offices barred up and every boat and stage and flake burned.

The feds offered the Last Resettlement Package out of rural Newfoundland and Labarador...   

As I flick off the lights and close the door to the theatre,  I felt a bit nostalgic but then I forced myself to look on the positive side 

I guess it's not that bad ...

I mean,  the outports are still "alive and well"  - at least in the 3D world.

Still ...  things sure ant like it used to be ...

be some nice now to feel and smell the real deal again - of bays, bights, harbours  and coves...  

and what I wouldn't give for a feed of that cherished Cod....  

Respectable, though, that the St. Johns lot at least immortalized our famous fish 

- by remaking the entire front of the old Confederation Building

to look like a Cod ... on a large altar.

Cod bless their compassionate and evolved souls.

Falling Away from the Cod

It used to be that Cod was in our DNA.

Not anymore.

The 1992 Cod bomb blew away nearly every last strand of the fish DNA in our collective body.

Not only did that seismic catastrophe  drained us of 80,000 of our kinfolk, we lost their offspring born on the mainland; and likely now, that 24 years have passed, we can count the loss of their grandkids.

The children born in NL after 1992 fared no better. They no longer have an affinity for anything related to the fishery. They are the first Codless generation since Commander Cabot came unto our shores back in 1497.

If anyone doubts that the fall-out from the Cod bomb has stabilised, one only has to read the CBC articles this week by Terry Roberts  of the demographic crisis unfolding on the Great Northern Pennisula.   The population is expected to decline by 40 percent in 20 years.

The youth, faced with no job prospects - and worst yet - no hope, have their suitcases already packed ready to leap from what was once the Isle of the Cod to another Codless world.  

We are indeed falling away from the Cod.

And when we say Cod we mean more than fish.

Cod is an icon of all that is NL. It is our culture, our language, our settlement patterns, our psyche  - or it once was. It defined us like no other force in our lives.  It was our reason to be, our currency even.

The truth is that even the kids that remain are not just not fishing – they are no longer getting in boats. That is a profound shift in our evolution as a people and a place.

Kimberly Orren of Fishing for Success is a non-profit shining a bright light in Petty Harbour. She and her partners are on a mission to stop the tidal wave sweeping our culture where we are no longer people of the sea, where our children do know the rise of the ocean swell or taste the brine on their lips. They are not just being visionary, but proactive in their efforts to rework the Cod DNA back into our collective form.

Generally, you need a reason to get in a boat...you don't just wander around.  So, if we don't make an effort to get our kids fishing, they won't be near the water, on the water, or in boats.

Orren relays a story when  she was at the Marine Institute obtaining her fishing license, of a Capt Parsons who developed the marine management program.  He made the point of remarking that his students USED to be Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. But now they are mostly mainlanders.  He says our kids are not growing up with their butts in a punt anymore. So a career on the water, not even on their radar - and I'm not even talking about fishing - I'm just talking about marine management.

We have a real serious problem, Commander Cabot.  

If you google the word Cod, the odds are that you will get reams of websites related to a popular virtual war game called “Call of Duty.” And as Orren laments, that's the kind of COD our youth will  be celebrating!

Orren believes that we need to broaden our definition of fishing to engage more youth.    Is NL trying to position itself to be the gate to the Arctic? With whom? Why aren't we preparing our kids for this future? 

Fishing for Success  went looking for a Youth Cod Quota this year to get kids and tourists out on the water, catching fish, bringing it back to the wharf, preparing, cooking and serving it to the community.  Yes, a bunch of entrepreneurial youth down at the wharf again! Just like old times!  Good stuff right?

DFO would have none of that progressive thinking and action-oriented solutions to our beleaguered fishery and communities.   They are now keepers of the Cod DNA and their golden rule is that it shall never be passed onto future generations.  The request for a Youth quota was not granted.

No wonder we are falling away from the Cod…

Fishing for Success are doing their darnest to be innovative and sustainable in their Cod quest.  They contacted the Centre for new Immigrants to invite their folks to Island Rooms in Petty Harbour to learn about NL culture, go fishing and share some fish. The response, according to Orren:   He almost started crying ... He said he had been in NL for 10 years and no one had offered to do that for his clients! Leo and I used our own personal fish we had put up for winter for the fish stew. If we had a licence...

The Cod Bomb may have done its damage some 25 years ago and the fall-out is still immensely hurting our economy and culture,  but groups like Fishing for Success proves there is still hope of re-injecting the Cod DNA back into our veins. 

This non-profit is trying to create a stronger synergy between the fishery and tourism as an anti-dote to the unfamiliar and jarring feeling of a 500-year-old fishing nation falling away from its life source - the Cod.

Let’s hope they succeed for the sake of us all and our future.

It is a shortsighted society that forgets its past  and in the case of NL, the fishery is the light forward.