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Introduction
Atlantic
Canada is home today to over 50 000 people of aboriginal descent.
These First Nations are:
--the Mi'kmaq
of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland;
--the Maliseet of western New Brunswick and closely related Passamaquoddy
of southern New Brunswick and eastern Maine;
--the Montagnais/Naskapi or Innu of southeast Quebec and southern
Labrador.
Today's population
compares to an estimated 15 000-20 000 people at the time of early
European contact during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Archaeology
tells us that aboriginal people have lived in the Maritimes provinces
of Canada for at least 11 000 years, in Labrador for over 9000 years
and on the island of Newfoundland for at least 6000 to 7000 years
and probably longer.
Throughout their
long history, Aboriginal peoples have relied on the region's rich
marine resources for their survival. Their intimate knowledge of
the environment, combined with specialized fishing, hunting and
other technologies, enabled them to successfully harvest the region's
many varied resources on land and in the sea, rivers and lakes.
Although each
aboriginal community had its own distinctive character, they shared
their knowledge and technologies over hundreds of generations. Our
knowledge of past peoples relies on oral traditions, historic records
and for the 11,000 year period of pre-European contact, largely
archaeological evidence. The archaeologist's interpretations are
frequently based on limited or incomplete data. Nevertheless, these
are our only windows on the past.
A
Definition of Fishing
For
our purposes here, fishing is treated in the broadest sense as the
harvest of all marine and freshwater resources. This includes the
hunting of sea mammals such as seal and walrus and even the gathering
of shellfish, which for many coastal communities was a major food
staple.
Fishing was
a year-round activity for Aboriginal peoples, and, historically,
Maritime peoples followed seasonal patterns that were often tied
to the availability of specific fish.
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