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The Fish That Changed the World
In the cold waters off Newfoundland, a humble fish once swam so abundantly that sailors claimed they could catch them simply by lowering baskets into the sea. This fish-the Atlantic cod-has shaped human civilization more profoundly than perhaps any other marine species. Mark Kurlansky's "Cod" isn't just another fish tale; it's a sweeping historical epic that connects the dots between medieval European expansion, the American Revolution, modern geopolitics, and ecological collapse. When Anthony Bourdain first encountered the book, he called it "a revelation-the biography of a fish that changed the world." The book has sold over a million copies worldwide, earned the prestigious James Beard Award, and transformed how we think about environmental history. Even Barack Obama listed it among his recommended readings on sustainability. Beyond its commercial success, "Cod" pioneered a genre of "microhistories" that examine world events through seemingly modest subjects, inspiring dozens of imitators but few equals.
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The Remarkable Biology of an Unremarkable Fish
The Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) might be the most perfectly designed eating machine in the ocean. With its wide-open mouth, protruding lower jaw, and insatiable appetite, the cod swallows anything that fits-including smaller cod, herring, capelin, and even crustaceans. This voracious feeding behavior makes it remarkably easy to catch, as it will strike at almost any bait, from natural prey to artificial lures. Unlike the muscular, dark-fleshed predators like tuna or bluefish that fight dramatically when hooked, cod offer little resistance when caught, simply rising to the surface like waterlogged pillows, their swim bladders often distended from the rapid change in pressure.
What makes cod truly extraordinary is its flesh-the whitest of all white-fleshed fish, containing virtually no fat and over 18% protein. When dried, this protein concentration approaches an astonishing 80%, making it one of the most nutrient-dense food sources available. Before refrigeration, this made cod the perfect protein source for long voyages and food-insecure populations, particularly in Mediterranean and Caribbean regions. The cod is also remarkably efficient as food-nearly every part is consumable. The head (especially the "tongues" and "cheeks"), air bladder (sound), roe, gonads (britches), milt, stomach, tripe, liver, skin, and even bones are eaten in various cultures or used for industrial purposes. The liver alone, rich in vitamins A and D, became a crucial dietary supplement in the form of cod liver oil.
Cod evolved about 120 million years ago in the tropical Tethys Sea before adapting to northern waters, developing remarkable cold-water adaptations including antifreeze proteins in their blood. Their evolutionary development is visible in their fins, with the Atlantic cod representing the most advanced form with three distinct dorsal fins and two anal fins-a configuration that provides exceptional maneuverability in cold waters. Despite there being over 200 species in the cod family (Gadidae), including haddock, pollock, and whiting, the Atlantic cod remains the most prized for its size and meat quality, regularly reaching weights of 25-35 pounds in healthy populations.
What ultimately made cod vulnerable to human exploitation was its habitat preference and predictable behavior patterns. It rarely ventures below 1,800 feet, commonly staying in waters just 120 feet deep where water temperatures range between 32F and 50F. During spawning, which occurs between January and April, cod migrate to even shallower coastal waters, making them incredibly accessible to fishermen. They follow the edges where warm and cold currents meet so consistently that their movements can track shifting weather patterns and ocean temperatures. A female cod can produce up to nine million eggs annually-an astounding reproductive strategy that helped the species survive for millions of years until it encountered humanity's industrial fishing technologies, including bottom trawlers and factory ships. This reproductive abundance, once thought inexhaustible, proved insufficient against modern harvesting methods, leading to the collapse of many cod populations by the late 20th century.
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The Secret Fish That Built Empires
Long before Columbus sailed west, European fishermen were already harvesting the rich cod stocks of North America. The Basques-those mysterious people from the Pyrenees whose language has no known linguistic relatives-had been secretly fishing Newfoundland's waters since at least the 1400s. Unlike other European powers who trumpeted their discoveries, the Basques preferred secrecy over glory, never claiming these rich fishing grounds for any nation.
When Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) "discovered" Newfoundland in 1497, claiming it for England, he reported seas so thick with cod that sailors could catch them by dropping weighted baskets into the water. Thirty-seven years later, when Jacques Cartier arrived at the St. Lawrence and claimed it for France, he noted 1,000 Basque fishing vessels already operating there.
The impact on European markets was immediate and profound. By 1508, Newfoundland cod represented 10% of fish sold in Portuguese ports. By 1510, salt cod was a staple in Normandy's Rouen market. By mid-century, cod constituted an astonishing 60% of all fish eaten in Europe-a percentage that would remain stable for two centuries.
The cod trade transformed sleepy coastal towns into bustling commercial centers. La Rochelle, despite lacking river access, became Europe's premier Newfoundland fishing port. Of 128 fishing expeditions to Newfoundland between Cabot's voyage and 1550, more than half originated from La Rochelle, with the French dominating early exploitation.
Salt politics shaped the cod trade significantly. The French gabelle (salt tax) was so hated it became a grievance leading to the French Revolution. The British formed strategic alliances with Portugal, whose Aveiro saltworks produced Europe's finest salt. This mutually beneficial arrangement lasted until 1581 when Portugal merged with Spain-disastrous timing as England soon attacked and destroyed the Spanish fishing fleet.
By the late 16th century, Newfoundland cod became more than commerce to the British-it was strategic. The British Navy's ships fighting France were provisioned with enormous quantities of dried cod. Sir Walter Raleigh declared in 1595 that losing the Newfoundland fishing fleet would be "the greatest blow ever given to England."
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The Fish That Founded America
When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, they were following the cod, a fish that would shape the destiny of colonial America. Captain John Smith had meticulously charted the New England coast in 1614, filling his ship's hold with salt cod while mapping the intricate coastline from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod. The cape itself had been renamed from "Pallavisino" by Bartholomew Gosnold after being literally "pestered" by massive schools of cod that sometimes impeded his ship's progress. Smith's detailed map and vivid descriptions of abundant fisheries directly influenced the Pilgrims' settlement choice. As Governor William Bradford later documented in his journal, the Pilgrims chose Plymouth "chiefly for the hope of present profit to be made by the fish that was found in that country."
The early days revealed a peculiar irony: despite settling in one of the world's richest fishing grounds, the Pilgrims proved remarkably inept fishermen. The Native Americans nicknamed them "kinshon" (fish), but the colonists lacked basic fishing skills and proper equipment. Even more striking was their disdain for lobster, which crowded the shoreline in heaps. They viewed these "huge, clacking, speckled sea monsters" with suspicion and revulsion, considering them fit only for servants or the destitute. Only during the winter of 1621-22, when food supplies ran dangerously low, did they reluctantly consume lobster - a fact Bradford reported with evident embarrassment in his 1622 correspondence.
The contrasting development of Canada's eastern provinces and New England was determined largely by environmental factors, particularly climate. The northern waters off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia were productive but seasonal, forcing European fishermen to establish temporary "fishing rooms" - wooden platforms for drying cod - before departing ahead of winter ice. New England, however, offered a perfect combination of advantages: ice-free harbors that operated year-round, fertile soil for farming, and cod that spawned close to shore during winter months. This unique combination allowed New England settlers to develop a hybrid economy, combining agriculture with continuous fishing operations, leading to stable, diversified communities that attracted craftsmen, merchants, and families.
While Newfoundland remained primarily a seasonal fishing station with limited permanent settlement, Massachusetts evolved into a complex commercial society. The colony developed a sophisticated three-pointed trade system: dried cod to Europe and the Caribbean, Caribbean molasses and sugar to New England, and rum and manufactured goods back to Europe. This trade triangle transformed Boston into a major commercial hub. New England's fishermen embodied a new entrepreneurial spirit, working for shares of the catch rather than fixed wages - a system that rewarded initiative and risk-taking. Adam Smith, in "The Wealth of Nations," specifically praised the New England fishery as a model of free-market capitalism, noting how it fostered both individual enterprise and communal wealth. This economic self-sufficiency and spirit of independence would eventually create significant tension with British colonial authorities, as New England grew increasingly capable of charting its own course without imperial oversight - a development that would have profound implications for the American Revolution.
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The Dark Side of Cod's Golden Age
By the eighteenth century, cod had transformed New England from a struggling colony to an international commercial power. Massachusetts elevated cod from commodity to fetish, with the "codfish aristocracy" openly worshiping the fish as their wealth symbol. Codfish appeared on official crests, coins, tax stamps, and as decorative elements in mansions. The Massachusetts legislature ceremoniously transferred a carved wooden cod when moving buildings, demonstrating their reverence for this symbol of prosperity.
Behind New England's cod-based prosperity lay a dark connection to slavery that many historical accounts omit. Caribbean sugar plantations needed cheap protein to feed slaves working sixteen-hour days. New England merchants found a profitable market for their lowest-quality cod ("West India cure") in feeding these enslaved workers. By 1645, New England ships were engaged in triangulated trade: selling best-quality fish to Spain, trading inferior cod to Caribbean plantations for sugar and molasses, and participating in the slave trade.
This represented what Alexis de Tocqueville called "the great social enigma of the United States"-freedom-loving New Englanders growing affluent by supporting the plantation system while denouncing slavery. Salt cod became fundamental to Caribbean cuisine, used in dishes where half a pound of fish was stretched with a pint of rice, salt pork and butter to feed many workers. Though no longer cheap food, these traditional recipes persist throughout the Caribbean islands today.
The American Revolution was fundamentally a merchant-led economic revolution centered on trade freedom. Massachusetts radicals sought an economic revolution focused on entrepreneurship and free trade rights. Britain's attempts to reassert colonial control through the Molasses Act of 1733, Sugar Act of 1760, and other measures only pushed colonists toward smuggling and resistance.
When peace negotiations began in Paris in 1778, fishing rights proved one of the most contentious issues. John Adams fiercely defended New England's fishing rights, arguing that cod fishermen were "indispensably necessary" to American independence, serving as "a nursery of seamen and a source of naval power." On November 19, 1782, the British finally granted New England fishing rights on the Grand Banks, though Americans remained barred from British West Indies markets.
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The Deadly Pursuit of Cod
Fishing the North Atlantic meant confronting deadly hazards that tested human endurance and courage to their limits. The treacherous depths reached thousands of feet, while surface-breaking rocks lurked beneath deceptively calm waters. Massive drifting icebergs, some towering several stories high, posed constant threats to vessels, while bitter cold regularly plunged below -30F, freezing spray instantly to rigging and decks. Fishermen worked these perilous waters wearing only thin rubber "nippers" that barely covered their wrists and palms, offering minimal protection against the elements. Many suffered permanent nerve damage and disfigurement from frostbite, while others lost fingers to line snags or machinery accidents. The combination of wet cold and repetitive motion often led to debilitating arthritis by middle age.
Fog emerged as perhaps the deadliest enemy, creating conditions where visibility could drop to mere feet. From the seventeenth century until the 1930s, fishing vessels would drop off small dories with two-man crews to fish the Banks, sometimes deploying dozen or more boats at once. These twenty-foot deckless skiffs, crafted from wood and canvas, were propelled by oars or crude homemade sails that offered little control in rough seas. Dorymen frequently became lost in thick fog banks that could persist for days, unable to locate their mother ships despite the periodic blasting of foghorns. Many succumbed to drowning when waves swamped their small craft, while others faced slower deaths from exposure, starvation, or thirst. Some survivors reported hallucinating voices and ships after days adrift.
The human toll was staggering and well-documented in fishing community records. Between 1830 and 1900, the port of Gloucester, Massachusetts alone lost 3,800 fishermen at sea-a number 70 percent higher than all American casualties in the War of 1812. The tragedy peaked in a single night in 1862, when a sudden gale swept Georges Bank, claiming 120 fishermen. The year 1873 proved especially devastating, with thirty-two vessels and 174 men perishing, including 128 souls lost in a single catastrophic storm. Even with modern technology and safety measures, fishing remains the deadliest occupation in North Atlantic countries, with mortality rates 20 times higher than manufacturing jobs. Modern fishermen still face many of the same fundamental dangers their predecessors did centuries ago.
Despite occasional attempts at conservation, such as Newfoundland's pioneering 1858 law regulating herring mesh size, most fishermen and authorities remained unconcerned about overfishing. Catches continued to increase through the 1800s, though this reflected improved efficiency rather than abundant stocks. Thomas Henry Huxley, the influential British scientific philosopher who served on three royal fishing commissions, famously declared overfishing fears "unscientific" in 1883. He argued that any tendency toward overfishing would naturally correct itself "long before permanent exhaustion" as declining catches would make fishing unprofitable.
This dangerous optimism became entrenched in official policy for over a century. In 1885, Canadian fisheries official L.Z. Joncas confidently declared it "impossible to exhaust" commercial fish stocks, a view that would prove tragically wrong. Meanwhile, fishing technology advanced rapidly, introducing industrial-scale methods like gillnetting and longlines that could stretch up to five miles with hooks every three feet. The arrival of mechanized trawlers marked a turning point - these vessels could effectively "clean out" entire areas, taking not just target species but destroying habitat and capturing everything else as by-catch. This technological arms race would eventually bring cod populations to the brink of collapse.
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Technology's Triumph Over Tradition
The dawn of the twentieth century marked the end of four centuries of relatively unchanged cod fishing methods. Well into the twentieth century, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia maintained its sail-powered Grand Banks fleet, famous for its schooners and international racing competitions. The legendary Bluenose schooner, now featured on the Canadian dime, dominated races against Gloucester vessels from 1921 to 1938. But the era of sail was ending-Gorton's last working schooner sailed until 1956, and Lunenburg's final fishing schooner couldn't find willing crew members by 1963.
Fishing innovations typically emerged first in European waters, where competition for dwindling catches drove technological advancement. The North Sea, shared by eight competitive fishing nations, became the primary laboratory for innovation. With engine power, bottom draggers-vessels that dragged nets just above the ocean floor-became the dominant form of trawler. The otter trawl, built in Scotland in 1892, replaced the beam trawl with a more mobile design using chains, floats, and "doors" to keep nets open.
Motor-powered vessels transformed fishing from passive to active pursuit. Steam ships with otter trawls reported catches six times greater than sail ships. By the 1890s, North Sea fish stocks showed depletion signs, prompting fleets to travel farther to Iceland's richer grounds. The massive landings periodically crashed fish prices, creating market havoc.
Clarence Birdseye, a Brooklyn-born eccentric who had trapped in Labrador, revolutionized the fishing industry by developing quick-freezing techniques. After experimenting with preserving vegetables in Labrador's arctic conditions, Birdseye moved to Gloucester in 1925 and founded General Seafoods Company. His technology using electric fans, ice, and brine reproduced Labrador winter conditions. After selling his company to Postum for $22 million, his freezing process transformed the industry at a critical moment when American demand was shifting from salt cod to fresh fish.
During World War II, high-powered ships, dragging nets, and freezing technology combined in the factory ship. By the 1950s-considered the golden age of long-distance net trawling-cod catches increased yearly across all major fishing grounds. Factory ships grew to 450 feet with 4,000-ton capacity, powered by twin 6,000-horsepower diesel engines, pulling trawls large enough to swallow jumbo jets. New technologies like "rockhoppers" and "tickler chains" stirred up the ocean floor, driving hiding cod into nets. Traditional fishing knowledge was replaced by sonar and spotter aircraft developed during World War II.
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Iceland's Stand Against Collapse
When British trawlers arrived in Icelandic waters in the 1890s, they found locals still fishing traditionally with open-decked, oar-powered boats. Despite being primarily a fishing nation, Iceland's exports remained small-less than 1,000 tons annually in the late eighteenth century compared to New England and Newfoundland's 22,000 tons each.
Cod was central to Icelandic life. With no trees producing fruit or grain, stockfish served as Iceland's bread substitute-spread with butter and given to schoolchildren daily. Icelanders used every part of cod-roasting skin, eating softened bones, and combining it with lamb and hakarl (poisonous Greenland shark meat rendered edible through burial and fermentation).
When British trawlers arrived, Icelanders debated whether to ban foreigners or acquire their own trawlers. The industrialization argument won, and Iceland purchased its first British-built trawler in 1905, growing to twenty steel trawlers by 1915. This created Iceland's first capitalist class and transformed Reykjavik from a small town into a city with a working class of former farmers.
Both world wars provided respite for declining cod stocks when the British Admiralty commandeered trawlers for military service. During WWII, with British trawlers requisitioned and Iceland under Allied occupation, Iceland became Europe's only major fishing nation, supplying the British market with both fish and vital cod-liver oil.
The war transformed Iceland. Fish prices reached record highs, paid in dollars that facilitated business with American troops. By building American housing and military bases and importing American goods, Iceland rapidly modernized. In 1944, it negotiated full independence from Denmark, moving "in one generation from a fifteenth-century colonial society to a modern postwar nation."
When Iceland extended its territorial limit to twelve miles in 1958, Britain sent warships with 7,000 men against Iceland's seven Coast Guard vessels. This began what the British press labeled "the Cod Wars." Despite being outmatched, the Icelandic Coast Guard's intimate knowledge of local waters proved valuable. After two and a half years, Britain recognized the twelve-mile limit in 1961.
Two more "Cod Wars" followed as Iceland extended its limits to fifty miles in 1971 and 200 miles in 1975. The Icelandic Coast Guard deployed their secret weapon-the "trawl wire cutter"-which would cut a trawler's net, forcing it to return home without its catch. By 1976, the entire European Economic Community was moving toward a 200-mile zone policy, placing 90% of known fishing grounds within national territories.
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The Collapse of a Millennium
In July 1992, Canadian Fisheries Minister John Crosbie announced a moratorium on fishing northern cod, putting 30,000 fishermen out of work. Just three years short of the 500-year anniversary of Cabot's reports of cod abundance, the fishery that had sustained North Atlantic communities for centuries was over.
The inevitable comparison between Iceland and Newfoundland reveals stark differences in their post-WWII paths. While Iceland gained independence and carefully managed its fisheries, Newfoundland became a Canadian province. After establishing the 200-mile limit in 1977, Canada invested heavily in modernizing its Grand Banks fleet, merging struggling seafood companies into government-backed conglomerates.
As the offshore Canadian fishery flourished, inshore fishermen like Sam Lee found their catches dropping dramatically. They suspected offshore draggers were intercepting cod before they could migrate inshore to spawn. Their complaints to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans fell on deaf ears-the government had invested in offshore fishing and prioritized making that investment successful. The inshore fishermen's lawsuit seeking an injunction against bottom dragging failed when the court ruled it would harm the economy.
Canadian cod wasn't biologically extinct, but had become commercially extinct-too rare to be viable. Fish-processing plants closed despite being used to justify court rejection of inshore fishermen's case. Major companies scaled down operations and began processing imported cod from Iceland and Norway. The community-owned plant in Petty Harbour couldn't afford to import Russian cod and instead became a school, burdened with over a million Canadian dollars in debt from freezing equipment.
Similar scenes played out across the North Atlantic. In Cornwall, England, Newlyn remained a struggling fishing town with piers increasingly occupied by vessels being "decommissioned"-cut up and sold for scrap as the government paid fishermen to reduce the fleet size. William Hooper, a veteran skipper with forty years' experience, noted the steady decline in stocks, forcing fishermen to compensate with "a bigger boat with a bigger net, more expenses, and you still can't catch what you did ten years ago."
As fishing communities like Gloucester face decline, profound questions emerge about our relationship with the sea. Angela Sanfilippo, a Sicilian immigrant and activist with Fishermen's Wives of Gloucester, wonders who will advocate for ocean protection when fishermen are gone. Former fisherman Vito Calomo laments that buying out multi-generational fishing families erases centuries of specialized knowledge. As whale-watching replaces whaling, we seem headed toward a world where nature exists only in parks and demonstrations, with the thousand-year tradition of hunting Atlantic cod coming to its end.
