People

Today I have chosen photos of fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador. The first two photos were taken in 1979 near Triton, Notre Dame Bay. Merv Winsor, of Triton East, took me out in his boat while he pulled his lobster and cod traps. Coincidently, as I was scanning these images in mid-November, I heard the news that he had drowned after his boat capsized during a fishing trip . Merv was 62 years old.

The third photo was taken in Petty Harbour in 1982 and the fourth in Bauline in 2001. In the twenty years between these photos the northern cod stock, once one of the biggest fish stocks on the planet, were decimated and the cod fishery was closed. By 2001, the federal government had opened food fisheries for a few weeks during the summer. The fisherman in the second photo was happy to catch a meal of fresh fish!

In 1986, I photographed people and boats involved in the capelin fishery and the third image shows one of the crew watching a seine net as it is pulled aboard the boat by a hydraulic lift. When I scan the slides from that trip, I will share more with you. This photo was taken in Conception Bay as the thick fog was beginning to dissipate.