Introduction

Abstract

Historian Rosemary Ommer gave the W. Stewart MacNutt Memorial Lecture at the University of New Brunswick in 1993, a year after the collapse of groundfish stocks had led the federal government to issue fishing moratoria in Atlantic Canada. It was entitled "One Hundred Years of Fishery Crises in Newfoundland." As a historian of the fishery and a resident of St. John’s, Ommer used this occasion to grapple with the meaning of the dire economic crisis now facing Newfoundlanders and to reflect on the historian’s role in the societal search for answers. What can the historian offer, she asked? A first step, Ommer told the audience, was for scholars to understand the crisis and provide insight into what went wrong: "We must trace where it came from, we must ask why it was not foreseen and prevented, and we must seek out the most useful approach to a solution for the future. In so doing, we will need to be aware of the implicit ideologies, beliefs and pressures that underlie the thinking of the policy makers of the day." A second step was to ensure that the "historical record" that was already being marshalled in support of one political position or another was not distorted beyond recognition. A steady stream of studies has since appeared on the crisis in the Atlantic fisheries.