The fishing industry of New England has, for over 400 years, been identified both economically and culturally with groundfishing. A mixture of bottom-dwelling fishes including cod, haddock, redfish and flounders constitute the groundfish resource. Once, great fleets of vessels sailed from Gloucester and Boston to the eastern- most reaches of North America -- the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Groundfishing, the catching of fishes that swim in close proximity to the bottom, was the first colonial industry in America. During the past 400 years, changes in the methods, people and productivity of groundfishing have paralleled the technological, ethnographic and environmental conditions ashore. Now we are faced with unprecedented low stocks of groundfish species, and an industry shrinking in regional importance, struggling to support historical fishing communities such as Gloucester and New Bedford, Massachusetts...

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