The Grand Banks fishery has been an economic and cultural mainstay for generations of Newfoundlanders. But it was never an easy life for those who toiled in the thousands of isolated outports located up and down the coast.

As historian Tina Loo points out in her article “We Was Drove” — appearing in the August-September 2013 issue of Canada’s History magazine — since the 1960s, outport Newfoundlanders have been under government pressure to move to more populated areas. The reason: Difficulty in providing services to small numbers of people scattered across remote areas.

Yet moving meant a drastic adjustment to a way of life and identity that had changed little over the centuries. Newfoundlanders traditionally made their livings from the sea. Fishing was the main industry.

These articles from past issues of The Beaver dating back to the 1930s and 1940s not only detail how the Newfoundland fishery worked, they also chronicle a way of life that has all but disappeared.