CORNER BROOK, N.L. — Author Jenn Thornhill Verma will launch her book “Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys” in her hometown of Corner Brook and in St. John’s.
Thornhill Verma, who lives in Ottawa and works in the non-profit health sector, will launch the book at the Rocket Room on Water Street in St. John’s on Wednesday and in the atrium at Grenfell Campus in Corner Brook on Sunday at 2 p.m.
Thornhill Verma is a proud Newfoundlander, descended from the fishers who play a big role in her book.
In 1992, the cod moratorium put some 30,000 fishers across the province out of work.
Encompassing memoir and history, “Cod Collapse” traces a lost way of life, digging into the stories of her own family, including her Pop, one of the province's original “saltwater cowboys,” a fisher on the southeastern shores of the province.
The book reveals how Newfoundlanders from many walks of life, and from distinct regions across the island portion of the province, have coped in the aftermath of the largest mass layoff in Canadian history.
Integrating the varied and compelling stories of a whale-watcher, a singer-songwriter, a fisher and a photographer, the narrative takes readers from the present back to the early days of the fishery, and forward to consider what lies ahead.
