The Grand Banks Reading Passage
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The Grand Banks Reading Passage
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The Grand Banks is a large area of submerged highlands southeast of Newfoundland and east of the Laurentian Channel on the North American continental shelf. Covering 93,200 square kilometres, the Grand Banks are relatively shallow, ranging from 25 to 100 metres in depth. It is in this area that the cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. The mixing of these waters and the shape of the ocean bottom lifts nutrients to the surface, and these conditions create one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Extensive marine life flourishes in the Grand Banks, whose range extends beyond the Canadian 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and into international waters. This has made it an important part of both the Canadian and the high seas fisheries, with fishermen risking their lives in the extremely inhospitable environment consisting of rogue waves, fog, icebergs, sea ice, hurricanes, winter storms and earthquakes.
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While the area’s ‘official’ discovery is credited to John Cabot in 1497, English and Portuguese Vessels are known to have first sought out these waters prior to that, based upon reports they received from earlier Viking voyages to Newfoundland. Several navigators, including Basque fishermen, are known to have fished these waters in the fifteenth century. Some texts from that era refer to a land called Bacalao, ‘the land of the codfish’, which is possibly Newfoundland. However, it was not until John Cabot noted the waters’ abundance of sea life that the existence of these fishing grounds became widely known in Europe. Soon, fishermen and merchants from France, Spain, Portugal, and England developed seasonal inshore fisheries that were produced for European markets. Known as a ‘dry’ fishery, cod were split, salted, and dried on shore over the summer before crews returned to Europe. The French pioneered ‘wet’ or ‘green’ fishery on the Grand Banks proper around 1550, heavily salting the cod on board and immediately returning home.
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The Grand Banks were possibly the world’s most important international fishing area in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Technological advances in fishing, such as sonar and large factory ships, including the massive factory freezer trawlers introduced in the 1950s, led to overfishing and a serious decline in fish stocks. Based upon the many foreign policy agreements Newfoundland had entered into prior to its admittance into the Canadian Confederation, foreign fleets, some from as far away as Russia, came to the Grand Banks in force, catching unprecedented quantities of fish.
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Between 1973 and 1982, the United Nations and its member states negotiated the ThirdConvention of the Law of the Sea, one component of which was the concept of nations being allowed to declare an EEZ. Many nations worldwide have declared the 200-nautical mile EEZ, including Canada and the United States. On the whole, the EEZ was very well received by fishermen in eastern Canada because it meant they could fish unhindered out to the limit without fear of competing with foreign fleets.
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During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Canada’s domestic offshore fleet grew as fishermen and fish-processing companies rushed to take advantage. It was during this time that it was noticed that the foreign fleets were now pushed out to areas of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland outside the Canadian EEZ. By the late 1980s, dwindling catches of Atlantic cod were being reported throughout Newfoundland and eastern Canada, and the federal government and citizens of coastal regions in the area began to face the reality that domestic and foreign overfishing had taken its toll. The Canadian government was finally forced to take drastic action in 1992 when a total moratorium was declared indefinitely for the northern cod.
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Over the last ten years, it has been noted that cod appear to be returning to the Grand Banks in small numbers. The reasons for this fragile recovery are still unknown. Perhaps the damage done by trawlers is not permanent, and the marine fauna and ecosystems can rebuild themselves if given a prolonged period of time without any commercial activity. Either way, the early stage recovery of the Grand Banks is encouraging news, but caution is needed, as, after nearly twenty years of severe limitations, cod stocks are still only at approximately ten percent of 1960’s levels. It is hoped that in another ten to twenty years, stocks may be close to a full recovery, although this would require political pressure to maintain strict limitations on commercial fishing. If cod do come back to the Grand Banks in meaningful numbers, it is to be hoped that the Canadians will not make the same mistakes again.
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Further riches have now been found in the Grand Banks. Petroleum reserves have been discovered, and a number of oil fields are under development in the region. The vast Hibernia oil field was discovered in 1979, and following several years of aborted start-up attempts, the Hibernia megaproject began construction of the production platform and gravity base structures in the early 1990s. Production commenced on November 17, 1997, with initial production rates in excess of 50,000 barrels of crude oil per day from a single well. Hibernia has proven to be the most prolific oil well in Canada. However, earthquake and iceberg activity in the Grand Banks pose a potential ecological disaster that could devastate the fishing grounds that are only now starting to recover.
