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.