A boat perspective: local geographic knowledge of fish harvesters in Change Islands, Newfoundland

Abstract

People whose livelihoods depend on the natural environment have detailed knowledge of the lands and waters surrounding their communities. This paper presents research on the traditional geographic knowledge of fish harvesters in Change Islands, Newfoundland. Our findings, based on “kitchen table mapping” and other ethnographic methods, demonstrate that residents of coastal communities have extensive geographic knowledge associated with a way of life centred on fishing. This knowledge is reflected in a “namescape” that includes hundreds of toponyms that are not present on existing maps and that reflect meaningful connections with local history and cultural heritage. Fish harvesters also have distinctive ways of conceptualizing the landscape and the seascape, which is reflected in the geographic terminology they use. Overall, their way of looking at the environment, in contrast to the bird's-eye perspective that prevails in western cartography, can be characterized as a “boat perspective”. Their geographic knowledge has practical value for improving existing cartographic information and developing sustainable resource use strategies. At a broader level, their distinctive ways of interpreting the “earthscape” provide alternative ways of understanding space and place, and can help us identify our assumptions about how we define geographic features and represent them on maps.

Keywords:

• local knowledge
• toponyms
• fishing peoples
• coastal communities
• earthscape
• Newfoundland

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the many residents of Change Islands who invited us into their homes and onto their boats, who answered our questions, and who shared their stories with us. We are grateful for their generosity and support. We are also indebted to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador (Fisheries and Aquaculture, Tourism, Culture and Recreation, and Environment and Conservation departments), the Ocean Management Research Network, C-FOAM (Canadian Fisheries, Oceans, and Aquaculture Management), and the Sciences and Humanities Research Council for financial support to undertake our research. We would also like to thank graduate students Bojan Fürst, Ahmed Khan, and Adèle Michon for their contributions to our broader research project.

Notes

1. We use the term “traditional” cautiously, with the understanding that it is difficult to define and often contested. What is considered traditional can vary considerably depending on the time frame adopted and other factors, and can be very difficult to separate from the ongoing adoption of new ideas and customs over time.

2. Of course, place names can also have tremendous political significance—for example, when places are renamed by colonizers as a way to assert authority over the landscape (Yeoh 1992; Bassett 1994; Herman 1999; Berg and Vuolteenaho 2009; Rose-Redwood et al. 2010).

3. These informants and several other residents were asked if it would be acceptable to include these fishing spots on a map that would be available to the general public, and without exception all agreed that while in the past many would be kept secret, with the introduction of digital nautical charts and depth sounders, this is no longer the case.

4. There was, however, considerable uncertainty surrounding the location of some of the more distant fishing spots which were not included on the final maps made for the community.

5. We used “CanVec” topographic vector data, obtained from Natural Resources Canada, see: http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/Home?lang=en.

6. For more information about the research programme and an interactive map of the region see the project web site at http://localknowledgechangeislands.ca/.

7. It is worth noting that unlike the official geographic names found in the Canadian Geographical Names Data Base (see Natural Resources Canada 2011), in many cases place names used by Change Islanders are rarely written down, leading to different interpretations within the community. One example is "Turbo Rock", which one resident thought should be “Terrible Rock”—the two words sound similar in the local pronunciation. Another example is Injun Cove, which some refer to as Engine Cove. Again, the two sound virtually identical, so in a case where oral tradition is more important than a written record, the “real” name is uncertain. The name Injun cove, now recognized as a derogatory, was one of the toponyms that we submitted but that was not accepted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Board of Geographic Names.

8. This is evident in bibliographic databases such as Thompson Reuters Web of Science (http://wokinfo.com/) that produced 6130 results for a search of the keywords “landscape” and “geography”, but only a total of 31 results for searches that used “geography” with “seascape” and other similar alternatives (i.e. “oceanscape”, “saltscape”, “waterscape”, and “marinescape”). (Accessed 30 October 2014).

9. Informants explained that before the advent of sounders fish harvesters could discover new fishing spots in areas of shallow water by observing the movement of icebergs. Icebergs can get stuck on the bottom of the ocean floor, where they might be stalled for a few days until they melt or break up and continue to drift. To “record” the spot, one would circle the stalled iceberg, and identify two or more marks so that the location could be found later.

10. This does continue to be the case, however, with respect to the location of particularly good berry picking patches that are carefully guarded.

11. There are, however, some instances of places that have more than one name, that are used by people living in different parts of the community (e.g. “Souther Rock”, which is also known as “Middle Island”).