Fisheries of the Province of Quebec 



By E. T. D. CHAMBERS 



Historical Introduction 



PART I 



More than four hundred years have passed away since 

 Basque and Breton fishermen gathered the first harvest of the 

 sea, from the waters that wash the coasts of Labrador and 

 Gaspe on the one side and those of Newfoundland on the 

 other; 1 and some comparatively modern students of these 

 fisheries have clung to the more or less suppositions belief 

 that it is necessary to go back for still another four hundred 

 years if we would reach a period of time prior to the earliest 

 pre-Columbian visits of Icelanders, Norsemen or Basques to 

 the fisheries of our eastern coasts. 2 



1 "There is some reason to believe that this fishery existed be- 

 fore the voyage of Cabot in 1497; there is strong evidence that it 

 began as early as the year 1504." Francis Parkman in the 

 "Pioneers of France in the New World," p. 170. 



"For several centuries men of Dieppe and St. Malo and other 

 sailors from Havre de Grace, from Honfleur, and other places have 

 made voyages to these countries to fish for cod." Lescarbot, I, 236. 



See also Biard, Relation, 2, and Postel, cited by Lescabot, I, 237. 



2 On a des preuves a peu pres certaines que cette lie (Terre- 

 neuve) avait ete visitce environ 400 ans auparavant par des marins 

 Islandais, lesquels aprcs avoir quitte leur lie, cotoycrent le Groen- 

 land, toucherent a Terreneuve, et se rendirent meme jusqu'a une 

 terre qiCils appelerent Vinland, maintenant les cotes de Vetat de 

 Massachusetts." Rapport Annuel de Pierre Fortin, Magistrat, 

 commandant rexpedition pour la protection des Pecheries dans le 

 Golfe St-Laurent, pendant la saison de 1862, p. 60. 



"I believe that during the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and 

 fifteenth centuries, the northern shores, say the coasts of Labra- 

 dor and Newfoundland, were occasionally visited by the Icelanders, 



