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- THE WEEK, Page 16WORLDEnd of the Gold Rush
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- Canadians haul in their nets as a two-year cod-fishing ban begins
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- On Aug. 10, 1497, King Henry VII of England awarded explorer
- John Cabot (pounds)10 for finding "the new isle," and
- Newfoundland it has been ever since. Legend has Cabot's men
- lowering wicker baskets into the teeming Atlantic and bringing
- them up laden with cod. For more than 400 years the hardy
- Newfoundlanders who settled "the Rock" competed vigorously with
- Europeans in the rich fishery that developed. Too vigorously:
- the cod supply has been so depleted that Canadian fishermen were
- forced last week to haul in their nets, traps and boats along
- the entire northeastern coast of Newfoundland and Labrador to
- begin a two-year total ban on fishing for northern cod, a $700
- million business.
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- "I've been at it since I was 10, with my dad and his dad,
- and I've never before collected relief," said Eli Tucker, 73,
- putting away his $50,000 investment in boat and traps. Tucker
- and three sons fish from Quidi Vidi, one of more than 300
- fishing villages on the rocky coast of Newfoundland. The ban,
- which will cost the province of 568,000 two-fifths of its annual
- fishing revenues, has idled 10,000 fishermen as well as 10,000
- plant workers. The federal government is paying each worker a
- skimpy $188 a week for 10 weeks until longer adjustment programs
- can be devised. What went wrong? Says Tucker: "Overfishing, the
- gold-rush attitude that all fishermen have."
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