Where Did All the Fish Go?

Where Did All the Fish Go? traces the rise and devastating collapse of Newfoundland and Labrador’s cod fishery and the communities that depended upon it. Jeff Peddle tells a powerful story of overfishing, management failures, cultural loss and the resilience of a people who refused to surrender their identity.

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For more than 500 years, the waters surrounding Newfoundland and Labrador fed nations, built communities and defined a way of life. Generations survived through hard work, salt fish and an enduring relationship with the sea.

Then, in 1992, everything changed.

The federal government imposed a moratorium on the Northern cod fishery, bringing one of the world’s greatest fisheries to a halt and upending the lives of tens of thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

In Where Did All the Fish Go?, Jeff Peddle takes readers on a powerful journey through the growth, industrialization and collapse of the cod fishery. With sharp wit, raw honesty and deep respect for his roots, he examines how foreign overfishing, industrial draggers, management failures and short-term decision-making helped destroy a resource that once seemed limitless.

From saltbox homes and hand-lined cod to factory trawlers, empty processing plants and the exodus westward, this book tells a story larger than the disappearance of a fish. It is a story of identity, betrayal, cultural loss and resilience.

This is more than history.

It is a warning.

It is a eulogy.

And it is a fight song for everyone who still hears the sea calling.

They may have taken the fish, but they never took the Newfoundlander.