Last Fish, First Boat

When the cod fishery collapsed, fisherman Eugene Maloney’s livelihood is yanked out from underneath him. All his pride, all his life, everything he’s ever known is suddenly gone. Gene doesn’t recall spending days and weeks on land, certainly not in summertime. But here he is with fishing gear that’s no longer of any use. In the spring of 1992, when the Canadian government shuttered the cod fishery, Gene had fished his last cod, marking an abrupt end to a five-generations-old way-of-life for the Maloney family. But every bit the enterprising Newfoundlander, Gene turns the end of the fishery into a new beginning. He pivots to boatbuilding, a self-taught practice he continues today, in his eighties. Set in Bay Bulls, Newfoundland and Labrador, Last Fish, First Boat revisits the 1992 cod moratorium through a fisherman’s eyes. It’s an old story that holds new meaning today, as a global pandemic put people all over the world out of work, stuck at home and needing to pivot. Like Gene’s story, where there’s will, we will all find our way. Last Fish, First Boat is a six-minute animated film, adapted from the 2019 book, Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys, by journalist and Fellow of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Jenn Thornhill Verma, with still-frame animation by visual artist, Kat Frick Miller. Matt LeMay co-produced the film with Miller and Verma; and sound design, production and audio direction by Jamie Bonaparte and Michelle Opthof of Paragon Cause. The film was released by McIntrye Media and Canadian Geographic in February 2021 with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.

  • Kat Frick Miller
    Director
  • Jenn Thornhill Verma
    Director
  • Jenn Thornhill Verma
    Writer
  • Matt LeMay
    Producer
  • Kat Frick Miller
    Producer
  • Jenn Thornhill Verma
    Producer
  • Jamie Bonaparte
    Sound Design
  • Michelle Opthof
    Sound Design
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Documentary, Short, Web / New Media
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 15 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    February 18, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    4,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • Canadian Geographic
    Distributor
    Country: Canada
    Rights: Internet, Video on Demand
  • McIntrye Media
    Distributor
    Country: Canada
    Rights: Internet, Video on Demand, Video / Disc
Director Biography - Kat Frick Miller, Jenn Thornhill Verma

Kat Frick Miller is a Canadian artist and freelance illustrator. You can find her painting in her K'jipuktuk, Nova Scotia studio or exploring the rural seaside of Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Kat is known for her playful work exploring east coast heritage and culture. She graduated from NSCAD University in 2009 with an interdisciplinary BFA. She is the illustrator of If I Had an Old House on the East Coast by Wanda Baxter, published by Nimbus Publishing, translated to Simplified Chinese in 2019. Her illustrations have been featured in Canadian publications including The Narwhal and the Atlantic Salmon Journal.

Jenn Thornhill Verma is an investigative journalist, landscape painter and filmmaker from Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), living in Ottawa, Canada. She is a Royal Canadian Geographical Society fellow, Oxford Climate Journalism Network alumna and the Executive Lead for the Evidence Commission secretariat. Jenn has Master’s degrees of Fine Arts (Creative Nonfiction, University of King’s College) and Science (Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland). In 2019, she published her first book, Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys, which was shortlisted for a historical writing award at the 2021 Atlantic Book Awards. Jenn has bylines in Canadian Geographic, CBC, The Globe and Mail, The Narwhal, Reader’s Digest, and writes a monthly Seasplainer column in The Independent newspaper in NL.

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