Lost Moorings: Offshore Fishing Families Coping with the Fisheries Crisis

The fisheries crisis has severely affected the families of offshore fishermen. In Nova Scotia, offshore fishermen normally spent ten to fourteen days continuously at sea and as little as forty-eight hours on shore between voyages. The fishermen and their families adopted strategies to cope with that work schedule. This paper focuses on how these previously beneficial adaptations conflict with the new situation these families now face when many men have been laid off or had their work reduced.