Overview

Contested Catch: Lobster and Localism on Canada's Atlantic Coast, 18701970 explores the complex development of the lobster fishery in Canada, focusing on the interplay between the ecology of lobsters, local fishing practices, evolving technologies, changing markets, and the role of the state. Drawing on nearly thirty different archives, this book spans the century from the expansion of the transnational commercial lobster industry and the introduction of government regulations around 1870 to the establishment of the first restricted-access ocean fishery on Canada's East Coast in the late 1960s. Suzanne Morton argues that lobster regulation was always about more than just protecting the lobster population it reflected deeper local, political, and economic forces at play. She examines how the Canadian state, keeping its enforcement budget to a minimum and wanting to avoid electoral reprisals, interacted with local communities, businesses, and political groups to regulate fisheries. While the government and other officials implemented formal regulations and turned to commissions and government science, local fishers operated with informal systems based on tradition, economic interests, and sometimes coercion. Following the Second World War, with economists playing a prominent role, policy shifted from managing lobster as a sustainable resource to increasing the standard of living for fishermen and their families through rationalized efficiency, ultimately limiting access to who could fish. Even then, the fishery was shaped by both formal government efforts and local, social dynamics.

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9781487571825

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Reviews

""This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding recent conflicts in the Maritime lobster fishery. As she has done for so many aspects of Atlantic Canadian life, Morton here calls our attention to the contradictory realities lived out at the regional convergence of shifting state regulations, local ways of life, and multiple, transnational layers of capital in a fishery whose future has been considered ‘at risk’ since its nineteenth-century origins."" -- Fred Burrill, Assistant Professor of Historical Studies and Director of the Atlantic Canada Studies Centre, University of New Brunswick ""Contested Catch is a terrific book that makes an enormous contribution to our understanding of Canada’s most valuable–but under-studied–fishery, as well as the ways in which the modern state has functioned in Canada. Besides providing the first regional history of the lobster fishery, Morton gives us a characteristically penetrating exploration of how the state and its citizens negotiate their relationship. Brimming with insights and incisive analysis, Contested Catch admirably performs history’s most important task: using the past to help us understand the present."" -- Edward MacDonald, Professor Emeritus of History and Classics, University of Price Edward Island ""Contested Catch expertly examines the contestations and negotiations that shaped the operation of Atlantic Canada’s lobster fishery. From the commodification of lobsters following Confederation to twentieth-century modernization initiatives, this meticulously-researched and path-breaking book weaves a range of subjects – including the role of local customs, party politics, government regulation and social policy, as well as the nature of the lobsters themselves – into an incisive analysis that powerfully displays the porous boundaries and contested nature of economic life. It is the first general history of the Canadian lobster fishery, but also much more: Suzanne Morton offers a new lens that will change how we understand major themes in the history of the Atlantic region."" -- Don Nerbas, Associate Professor of History, McGill University

Author Information

Suzanne Morton taught Canadian history at McGill University between 1992 and 2025, specializing in gender, the state, and Atlantic Canada.

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