Canada High Sea

Off the northeastern coast of Newfoundland, cold waters carried south by the Labrador Current pass the island on their way towards the Atlantic fishing banks. Icebergs and fog can make these seas dangerous to navigation. From the early sixteenth century, French fishermen crossed the ocean to fish for cod along the coast they called the Petit Nord. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 recognised their seasonal fishing rights between Cape Bonavista and Point Riche, a shore also visited by British fishermen.