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Lifelines: Canada's East Coast Fisheries

Swales and Whales
Atlantic Canada's Sea Mammal Harvest
 
Prologue
Swales and Whales: Atlantic Canada's Sea Mammal Harvest

East Coast fishing communities relied on the seal and whale hunts for supplementary income, in order to ensure their families' well-being. Both courage and survival are central to the story of these dangerous hunts.


 

Seal Hunters
Past

Sealing and whaling involved dirty, difficult, and dangerous work. Hunters endured the hardships out of a sense of duty to their families and communities. Ordinary men were celebrated as heroes, and young boys aspired to follow in their wake.

Seal Hunters (1933)
(Originally published in The Wooden Walls among the Ice Floes: Telling the Romance of the Newfoundland Seal Fishery)



 

Whale-Watching - 
Tourism Nova Scotia
Present

Today, the public expects the use of marine resources to be sustainable. Canada stopped its commercial whale hunt in 1972. Whale-watching has since become an important tourist industry. A tightly-regulated seal hunt continues, but anti-sealing campaigns strive to win popular support, undercutting markets for seal products.

Whale-Watching (2000)
(Courtesy: Tourism Nova Scotia)



 

 
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