The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

variation. Several place names bear witness as to how important it was to
remember where they used to arrive. 166
The economy was largely based on seal hunting which remained
virtually unchanged until the beginning of this century. In the middle of
the nineteenth century, though, shark and cod liver was taken in by the
monopoly trade. So were Atlantic salmon and Greenland halibut in 1903.
This was because Danish civil servants had developed the private exports
of these species.
Due to the growing population the stock of seals was insufficient to
cover needs. The Royal Trade Company, in charge of Greenland, was
eagerly looking for alternative occupations for the Greenlanders. From
1906 sheep herding was introduced, and this activity found a foothold in
the far south of Greenland. It never became a big business due to the lack
of suitable pastures. For the Danish government, the Faroese Napoleon
Andreasen tried deep water fishing in 1906 but with little success. No
cod worth mentioning was found. State-initiated fishery experiments
were continued by Adolf S. Jensen from 1908, again without much
success. However, a commercial fishery for halibut was started from
1910 in southern Greenland, almost exclusively in a single fjord,
Alluitsoq.
The fishery experiments and the fishery for halibut under the
Greenland Administration 167 are well covered statistically. Also the
overall strategy is known: to develop rational (the technical expression
for commercial at the time) fishery both to exploit local resources and to
export. The fishery was not meant to inhibit seal hunting which still was
regarded as a solid and lasting resource. Annual reports and other
materials from the fishing stations still exist to a great extent. Summaries
of the reports, some very lengthy, have been printed in Beretninger og
Kundgørelser (the official reports from the Greenland Administration).
A thesis completed in 1991 by Henning Bro at the University of
Copenhagen has investigated the participation of the Greenlanders in the
fishery in the Alluitsoq-fjord by tracing the individuals’ occupation over
166 Greenlandic places are mostly named after the configuration of the landscape. Names
of hunting animals, however, often occur.
167 The official name of the Government office in charge of Greenland was ‘Styrelsen af
kolonierne i Grønland’ meaning: The administration of the colonies in Greenland.
Before 1908 the name was: ‘Direktoratet for den kongelige grønlandske Handel’
meaning: The Directorate for the Royal Greenlandic Trade Company.
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