The Herring Fishery of Canada 



An Account of Recent Scientific Researches on the Atlantic 



Coast 



BY 



Prop. E. E. Princb, LL.D., D.Sc, F.R.S.C., 



Dominion Commissioner of Fisheries, Ottawa 



THAT Canada should possess one of the most wonderful herring 

 resources in the world in her Atlantic and Pacific coastal waters, 

 but that her herring industries should rank as wholly inferior in value 

 and reputation, has been an anomaly difficult to understand, and still 

 more difficult to explain. Why is it that Scottish and Norwegian 

 herring should have such a high reputation that the herring fisheries of 

 these two countries approach the total value of the whole of Canada's 

 fisheries? According to the answers frequently given, the quality of 

 our Atlantic and Pacific Coast herring, in a fresh condition, is very 

 inferior. If the raw material be of poor quality, it cannot be expected 

 that the manufactured or cured article should take rank with a superior 

 Scottish or Norse product. It is, however, an erroneous assumption 

 that the fresh Canadian herring are not of the very best quality. 



. In comparing the Canadian and Norwegian herring 



North Sea fisheries, we notice : (a) That large herring constitute 



Herring the main portion of the catch in Canada, due doubt- 



^ less to the large mesh of nets in use (2j4 in. and 2% 



in.), but in the great fisheries of Norway, thousands of barrels of 

 younger herring, the esteemed ' fat ' herring, are taken, and these 

 have brought for centuries the greatest returns to the fishermen. 

 (&) No Canadian herring fishing is carried on far from land; whereas, 

 in the North sea, the most valuable herring fishery is conducted in the 

 open sea by means of drift nets, and the coast fishing is comparatively 

 insignificant. In Norway, as in Canada, all the herring fishing was 

 coast fishing, until some successful experiments proved that the finest 

 herring could be caught off the coast, and now hundreds of thousands 

 of barrels are taken by drift nets each year. 



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