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Technological innuences on migration include such factors as thc restructuring of
resource industrics or the overuse of lhe resources themselvcs. Ilaul Thompson. in liVing
Ihe Fishing. demonstrates how the development ofthe beam trawl and its subsequent
adaplation to stcam trawlers changed the nature ofthc English fishing industry. resulting
not only in a dependence on shore capital to produce vessels, but also in the ability to
tra\e1to foreign fishing groundS. 41 Fishennen \\;th advanced technological equipment
also deplete the supply and must therefore wander far from traditional grounds. 4
Similarly. fanners are forced offtheir land to make way for agribusiness. and home
industries arc replaced by factories forcing rural people to migrate to urban centers for
employment or to follow the harvest.
Again. the situation in Ne\\foundland ditTers in thai the pallcm offishing on the
Labrador in summer was identical to what the Newfoundlanders who remained at home
would experience. Also, when industrialization hit the Newfoundland fishery. the
advances within the Labrador fishery werc idcnticnlto those in Newfoundland. Indeed,
the Lnbmdor fishery as prosecuted by the Newfoundlanders hos been aptly called an
inshore fishery at a distance.
In attempting to approach the Labrador fishery from a folkloristic point of view,
onc should bear in mind that the majority orthe literalurc on migrntion has been written
from the point of vicw ofofficials: historians, economists, cultural geographers, social
41 Thompson, et al.. pp. 10·18.
41 For examples. sec Thompson. et al.; William W. Warner, Distanl IValer: The Fate 0/
the North Atlantic Fishermen. (Middlesex. UK: Penguin. 1984) and Joseph Zulaika
Terra No\'o. The £Ihos and Luck ofDeep Sea Fishermen (St. John's: Memorial
University. Institute for Social and Economic Research. 1981).
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