In 1497, when Europeans first ventured to the waters of the island, Italian explorer and navigator, Giovanni Caboto, reported that the cod stocks were so plentiful, his ship was slowed in its progress.
This abundant resource provided a meaningful way of life for both the Indigenous peoples and first of the European settlers to the island for five generations.
Fishing fleets from all across the world would voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador’s shores each spring for nearly five hundred years in search of filling their boats with codfish. The cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador was the largest fishery in the world.
Then, in 1992, Fisheries and Oceans Minister for the Federal Government of Canada, John Crosbie, announced that due to near extinction of the species, there would be an indefinite ban on all cod fishing in Newfoundland and Labrador. Within a matter of moments, 40,000 people were left unemployed, destroying not only livelihoods, but the entire culture and identity of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The announcement marked the end of a five hundred year old economy and began the process of a slow and painful death for Conche and many rural fishing communities across the province.
Vision & Mission
Moratorium Tours & Retreats aims to inspire business development in outport Newfoundland and Labrador as a means towards economic resiliency and rural revitalization.
Our mission is to deliver an extraordinarily rich cultural experience for travellers to connect with our community, nature, and themselves.
We exist to rewrite the narrative of outport Newfoundland & Labrador by exploring the sociological, physiological, and emotional effects of the cod collapse, creating a path forward for Conche as an example for all outport communities in our province.
Toni and her brother, Gregory in Conche. (2004)
“The story I aim to tell through Moratorium Tours & Retreats is that of my own experience and my peers — born in the early 1990’s in outport Newfoundland and Labrador, in a time when the province was suffering an identity crisis, the threat of cultural loss of an unknown scale, and ultimately, a time of depression.
We were the “Children of the Moratorium”.
Moratorium Tours & Retreats was started to share the magic of Conche with the rest of the world and to serve as a lighthouse for outport communities across the province. To help show that there is a path out of the darkness and that it is paved by people who have a deep love for the place that they are from.”
