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CllAI'TEIl4
o TilE LABRADOR
Oflhc three to four months spent on the Labrador. the cod fishing season was a
highly labour-intensive period which lasted a brief four to six weeks. 1bc rest oflhc time
was spent preparing the fish for markel. This chapter deals with the activities involved
dircclly with the fishery and the subsequent occupational interactions between groups
that shared work space. A composite picture of folk life in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries in the Labrador Straits area. the oldest fishing grounds of cwfoundlanders. is
given to provide II framework for the interaction between cwfoundlanders and
Labradorians. Information about the Labrador Straits is available from published sources.
newspaper accounts. and oral history tapes in the Them Days Labrador Archive (TDLA).
MUNFLA. the Maritime History Archive (MI-IA). and the Provincinl Archives of
Newfoundland and Labrador.
The fonnal hislOry ofthe Labrador Straits has been documented in publishcd sources:
lhc Encydopedia qfNewfolllldlalld and Labrador. Volume I, Lawrence Jackson's !Jounty
afa Barren Com,.t; Resource Harvesl and Selflell/elll ill Sail/hem Labrador Phase One
(1982). Albert S. Whiteley's A Cemurya/ BOfllle Esperance: The Saga offlle Whiteley
Family, and Brownc's Where The Fishers Go; 11,e Storyoffhe Labrador Fishery.
The Newfoundland newspapers ofthe 1800s contain a wealth ofinfonnation
about the Labrador fishery. Articles, usually headlined "From the Stmits:' deah with the
fishery and with life in general in the area. A chronological listing ofthesc accounts has
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