Live Small PT 1: Can you pick this face out?

Do you recognize the face? Do you know who it is?


[“Photo from Seacoasts of Canada by P. Berton”: GH]

Hard question, eh? And I’m not talking about the young child. I personally don’t have a clue. I’m talking about the two fish.

Do you recognize the face?

Allow me to give you a clue:

“Until the 1980s, the waters off the Grand Banks teemed with cod - so many that the supply was deemed inexhaustible. Some thirty-five thousand people derived their living, directly or indirectly, from East Coast cod, which represented 10 percent of the world’s entire catch and helped make Canada the world’s largest exporter of fish.” (Ch. 8, Seacoasts of Canada)

I would wager that 9 of 10 Canadians would not know the face. The days when a giant cod could dwarf a small boy are long gone.

The one on the right was five feet long and weighed sixty pounds. And though both were caught in a trap at Battle Harbour, Labrador, I would wager 5 of 10 Labradorians under the age of 30 have never seen a codfish this size. 10 of 10 alive today likely never will again.

Today, when one sees cod for sale at the market, it will be a small one.

And it should remind us of big mistakes in the past from which we’ve learned but few lessons.

***

More about classic disasters right here.

.