About Grand Banks of Newfoundland

As a result, the Grand Banks have long been recognized as one of the most productive fishing regions in the world. They support a variety of fish such as Atlantic cod, haddock, swordfish, and capelin, as well as shellfish like scallops and lobsters. In addition, the area is a habitat for numerous seabird species—including northern gannets, shearwaters, and sea ducks—and marine mammals like whales, dolphins, and seals.

However, the abundance of marine life led to intense fishing activity, and by the late 20th century, overfishing had severely depleted several fish populations, particularly Atlantic cod. This environmental crisis prompted the Canadian government to close the Grand Banks cod fishery in 1992 in an effort to allow the ecosystem to recover. The fish stocks became important for the early European-settler economies of eastern Canada and New England.

On November 18, 1929, a powerful earthquake struck the southwestern region of the Grand Banks near the Laurentian Channel. The quake triggered a massive underwater landslide that severely damaged transatlantic communication cables and generated a rare tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean. This tsunami hit Newfoundland’s southern coast, particularly the Burin Peninsula, resulting in the tragic loss of 29 lives.

In the decades that followed, advances in fishing technology—such as the use of large factory ships and sonar systems—combined with international disputes over maritime boundaries and exclusive economic zones (EEZs), led to intense overfishing in the region. By the early 1990s, fish populations had declined drastically. As a result, Canada officially shut down its Grand Banks fishery in 1993 to address the crisis.

The Northwest Atlantic Ocean has been experiencing gradual warming over the long term due to climate change. Between 1950 and 2016, surface water temperatures on the Newfoundland Shelf rose at an average rate of 0.13 °C per decade. However, during the same timeframe, there has been no significant warming trend observed in the average temperatures throughout the upper 175 meters of the water column.

The Grand Banks have been featured in various literary and cinematic works, often highlighting the lives of fishermen and the dangers of the sea. Rudyard Kipling’s Captains Courageous (1897) offers a semi-fictional account of fishermen working in the area, while Sebastian Junger’s non-fiction book The Perfect Storm (1997) also references the region. The Grand Banks appear in the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October, adding to its portrayal in popular media.

Herman Melville recounted sailing through the Banks during his first voyage in his semi-autobiographical novel Redburn: His First Voyage (1849), where he described encounters with whales and the eerie sight of a shipwreck carrying the long-dead bodies of its crew. The area is also depicted in The Grey Seas Under by Canadian author Farley Mowat, a non-fiction account of the salvage tug Foundation Franklin and its perilous missions at sea.

The Canadian patriotic song Something to Sing About begins with the line, “I have walked ‘cross the sand on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.” While poetic, this imagery is not literal, as the Grand Banks are submerged beneath the ocean and cannot actually be walked on.