Merry "World Fisheries Day"!

Today is World Fisheries Day.

Better than Christmas for those focused on securing a strong, stable and healthy fishery.

Except the presents and the gifts are few and far between for this special occasion and special industry.

More often than not, it's coals in the stockings kinda-feeling.

More challenges than solutions. More talk than action. More short-term take than long-term planning, innovation and investment.

Still, we are thankful for this day for it highlights the most serious problems not just facing NL, other countries, but the entire globe and our 7 billion earthling family members.

All those people need to be fed. And the wild fish population will be critical to this food provision. There is an anticipated increase in global food production in the years ahead and that's just one of the many reasons to step up our game.

World Fisheries Day is also a day to celebrate.

So, on this day I am grateful for our long fishing history and ancestors who  nurtured us to this time and place under the stars.

And I am thankful for the small things, like the recent news that our very own federal government plans to rebuild the Newfoundland Atlantic Cod in the area known as 3PS - on the south coast of our province. Yes, it's the same government that wiped out the world's greatest fishery. After 22 years of a shutdown in our fishery, to see inshore and offshore sectors and the processing sector come together to ensure the long-term sustainability of these stocks is like a very nice Christmas gift. (Let's hope they don't overfish the stock in the process.)

Not to be greedy, but we need more gifts like that.

Why the wild fishery? Well, the wild fisheries matter to people because they provide a truly organic resource; and they provide livelihoods, cultural identity, and a sense of place.

Most importantly, we need to be sustainable to ensure that fishing today does not harm fishing potential for future generations. A kind of fishery that comes around every Christmas for time immortal. 

Imagine if Santa would just stop coming how devastating that would be.  Same goes for the fishery.

 
Our fisheries also need the gifts of meeting rural development and local food security needs.

 

There is no doubt about it, the fishery needs a Santa.

 

Not for one day only but all year, all decades and all generations long.

 

So, here's to the day when our fishery stocking will be chock-ful with all the right gifts.

Have a Merry Wild Fishery Day!

I, amongst other things, will be eating my small stash of frozen Cod caught by a hard-working Newfoundland fisherman to celebrate!

"...for the Uplifting of the Fishermen"

On November 3,1908, the Fishermen's Protective Union (The FPU) was formed in this province after founder William Ford Coaker gave a two-hour speech in Herring Neck and signed up his first members.

Exactly 106 years to the day, McCurdy announced his retirement in St. John's after serving for over 21 years as President of a modern day fishermen's union, the FFAW.

Life, they say, is about cycles and patterns - a series of endings and beginnings; or is it, as the optimists like to advance, no endings, only beginnings?

Coaker was referred to as the Fishermen's Advocate and this is reflected even in the name he chose for his union with the word "protective" at its heart . The FPU dominated politics along the northeast coast of the island for a quarter-century. In fact, Coaker was eventually elected to the Legislature and in his maiden speech, he  stated  (a) revolution ...has been fought in Newfoundland. The fishermen, the toilers of Newfoundland, has made up his mind that he is going to be represented on the floor of this House."

In the end, the FPU ceased to be, but not before a ceaseless struggle of - as Smallwood termed it - "countless battles for the uplifting of the fishermen."

However McCurdy's tenure as Union president and advocate is judged will be for the history books.   As for Coaker, a sentiment offered by a supporter said it all.  "It didn't turn out to be a successful great ending, but he had the courage and the pluck to try, and that made him a hero in many people's eyes. "


In the Catholic faith, the patron saint of fishermen was St. Peter, a fisherman himself.  How did St. Peter die? - well, he was apparently "crucified with his head downwards"..  Perhaps that is why today McCurdy said his job was "not for the  faint of heart". Being the protector of fishermen through the centuries has never been an easy calling.  Coaker would no doubt agree.

The struggle for fishermen continues.  It has too - for they are at the very centre of our history, our here-and-now and our hereafter.  Our fishermen are the constant soul of our province, though various imposters knock at our door over time. Fishermen will always need advocates (like Coaker and McCurdy) for they are the tireless toilers that need protection against those with protection grand-fathered in, like the ol' fish merchants and current day versions.

The cycle continues this November as it did in November 1908. The endings, the beginnings ...

Incidently, Coaker was buried on November 4, 1938.  McCurdy's last day as FFAW President is November 17th, 2014.