APPENDIX A LXI 



Canada ranks fifth among the nations of the world in the yield 

 of its fisheries, in which it is estimated that 90,000 men are engaged, 

 whose labour yields from 26 to 33 million dollars annually. 



The fishing industry at the present time is carried on in three 

 distinct and separate portions of the Dominion: — 

 The Atlantic Coast, 

 The Coast of British Columbia, 

 The Inland Waters. 



There are also the oyster and lobster fisheries of the Atlantic 

 coast and the fishing or rather hunting for whales, walruses, porpoises 

 and other sea animals on the Arctic shores of Canada, and in the waters 

 of Hudson's Bay and of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



"It may be justly claimed," says Mr. J. J. Cowie, "that no 

 fishing grounds in the world are so favourably situated or so well 

 adapted for the maintenance of the most valuable varieties of commer- 

 cial fishes as those on the Atlantic coast adjacent to the shores of Nova 

 Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. The 

 cold Arctic currents which flow over the many submarine plateaus 

 situated in the north Atlantic within easy distances of the shores 

 bring with them vast quantities of the finest fish food and produce 

 a temperature most suitable for the life and growth of the great 

 commercial fishes; while the enormous numbers of bays and large 

 inlets — veritable breeding places — into which flow great rivers full 

 of anadromous fish life, contain abundant supplies of food for the 

 attraction and sustenance of all kinds of salt water fishes. From 

 whatever view these magnificent fishing waters are regarded, whether 

 as a means of providing and maintaining a distinct industry, such as 

 breeds hardy, skilful seamen, or as a means of supplementing the earn- 

 ings of those dwellers by the seashore who engage in the necessarily 

 limited cultivation of the soil, they present themselves as a splendid 

 heritage, which forms one of our finest natural resources."* 



On the Atlantic coast there are the deep-sea fisheries conducted 

 on the "banks" which lie between the in-shore area and the deeper 

 waters of the Atlantic yielding cod, haddock, hake and halibut, 

 and the inshore fisheries carried on from one to fifteen miles from land, 

 yielding in addition to these species, herring, mackerel, pollack, 

 shad, flounders, sunfish, smelts, sardines and many other fish. 



During the fifteen years, from 1870 to 1885, a steady advance 

 was maintained in the value and importance of our Atlantic fisheries. 

 In the first mentioned year the value of the catch was $6,312,409, 



*See "Sea-Fisheries of Eastern Canada." J. J. Cowie, Commission of Conserva- 

 tion of the Dominion of Canada, 1912, p. 94, and "The Atlantic Fisheries" — "Canada 

 and its Provinces," p. 561. 



