Everyone knows the story -- the demise of the cod fishing industry leading to the 1992 moratorium didn't happen overnight.
Inshore fishermen reported dwindling catch numbers for years leading up to the moment that effectively killed hundreds of communities in Newfoundland and Labrador. The finger of blame has long been pointed at the devastating effects caused overharvesting of Atlantic cod.
In the mid-1950s technology caught up to demand and desire.
Side trawling was overtaken by stern trawlers and in the mid-'60s, when the Russian fleet invaded the Grand Banks with more than 400 side trawlers and 106 factory trawlers, plundering natural resources at previously unrecorded levels, the germ of a sustainable fishing industry had yet to be born.
The Russians were not the only ones to blame with many others - including Canada - all pillaging the natural resource to the brink of extinction.
As the multitude of buzzwords grows, the lexicon of catchphrases and tropes used by politicians - especially in an election campaign such as this - grows no one word stands out in the fishing industry more than 'sustainability'.
Sustainable practices rescued the US fishing industry, it salvaged Greenland, Iceland and Europe and sustainable fishing practices in Nova Scotia are heralding in a new form of industry that could translate to Newfoundland and Labrador.
New program
How do you go about revitalizing an industry that moved away from its roots of traditional fishing methods, small punts, traps and nets, and entered an age of factory freezer trawlers?
One approach that seems to be working in Nova Scotia is a return to those time honoured methods.
In the case of the Community Supported Fishery (CSF) program in Digby, it means a return to bottom hook and line fishing and a move away from the 'large-scale industrial production'.
In short, a cooperative of groundfish hook and line fishermen in the Bay of Fundy sell direct to consumers fish they catch by hand.
The program, called Off the Hook, enabled five fishermen last summer to sell their catch of haddock, hake, Pollock and cod to 100 individual consumers, local residents mainly based in Halifax.
Lasting eight weeks, the subscribers paid the cooperative up front for their share of fish, caught using traditional methods and driven the 300km to the province's capital and doled out to eager subscribers in the car park of the hospital.
A full share, which cost $260, entitled customers to about 10 pounds of whole fish per week. A half share, which proved more popular, cost $130 and entitled residents to about five pounds of whole fish per week.
"That equates to about $6.50 a pound for the fish," CSF coordinator Sadie Beaton told the Pen.
"The fishermen get $3 per pound for their fish, which is roughly what they are getting at the wharf from the traditional buyer.
"The rest of the money is used to the co-op afloat."
Fishermen in Nova Scotia require a buyers' licence to participate in the program but legislation allows them to see fish directly to consumers if they haven't processed it in anyway and as long as it is under a certain number of pounds.
"That's why we can sell whole fish - while fillets would be immensely more popular," she said.
The Nova Scotia model is a much smaller version of similar schemes in the USA; nevertheless, Atlantic Canada's first CSF is underway.
"The difference between Nova Scotia and Maine model in the United States is the population base," she said.
"Successful CSF tends to be near huge markets and geography plays a part as well. It tends to be a long drive to the large consumer centre of Halifax."
But it worked.
Fishermen were paid more for their catch, consumers received fresh fish caught in a traditional manner thus fostering a sustainable fishing industry and to top it all off, the community gets the satisfaction that they are directly helping to keep local fishermen in work.
"Our idea was to keep it simple first off," she said.
"We worked with individual consumers because it gets a little complicated when you engage restaurants in the program."
That's not to say it couldn't happen in the future, after all, this is an experiment of sorts and lessons learned here will only help other groups of fishermen down the line and further afield.
"We started without an elaborate business plan and one of the big questions now is how do we not turn into the giant middleman buyer that made us start the co-op in the first place?" she said.
"What we've been hearing more and more is the frustration from groups of fishermen about the price at the wharf, about [processors] not respecting what they see as the quality and value of their fish and the lack of market choice.
"There has been a lot of consolidation in the industry so this frustration has led to interest in direct marketing, a way to get around the middleman.
"On the other side are those who ring us and ask whey they can find sustainable seafood."
It's a consumer's world
Consumers' driving an industry to change is nothing new, says SeaChoice Atlantic coordinator Rob Johnson.
The group is a combination of "five internationally respected Canadian conservation organizations to help Canadians take an active role in supporting sustainable fisheries and aquaculture at all levels of the seafood supply chain."
In short, they grade seafood on how sustainably it is caught.
"As consumers become more educated and informed, they demand higher quality, more sustainable products which in turn offers support for local communities," Mr. Johnson said.
Their program is simple. They rate seafood based on several criteria including species, where it is caught and how.
SeaChoice than allocates a colour code - green means it's the best choice, yellow means there are some concerns and red is to be avoided.
"The rankings of green, yellow or red try to allow consumers to choose, think again or avoid certain seafood based on their sustainability," he said.
Not surprisingly, Atlantic cod is marked as red.
"Consumers are warned off buying Atlantic cod," he said, "but this is an interim process, an adaptive process."
"For iconic species such as the Atlantic cod, I think we can do a finer scale assessment because there is starting to be different gear types for catching it in different areas, where there is some resurgence."
Much like what is happening with lobster off Nova Scotia.
"Lobster assessments are now getting into a finer scale of assessment where we are breaking down into individual lobster fishing areas because they are managed differently and they have different concerns," he said.
"With groundfish, we certainly advocate for a bottom long line gear type or a trap gear type rather than bottom trawling gear types."
But can there be a return to traditional fishing methods? Can there be a roll back from where the industry stands now back to dories, punts and traps?
"It requires more political buy-in and support than we've seen in Canada," he said.
"I think it can be seen as difficult at some levels but the large scale method is what resulted in overfishing and habitat damage and the decimation of stocks of those fish and the closure of the cod fishing industry in early '90s that put so many people out of work.
"Rather than having boom and bust cycles in an industry, this is about taking a long term view.
"If we are really serious about supporting the livelihoods of communities and the health of the ecosystem, large scale industrial factory trawlers doesn't fit with that model and it's not going to be productive for the ecosystem or the sustainable industry."
The question remains- - can a community supported fishery program work in Newfoundland and Labrador?
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