Canada High Sea

East of Newfoundland, the cold Labrador Current runs southward past a coast of rocky headlands and island-strewn bays. Fog and drifting ice make these waters dangerous, even as their fish drew ships across the Atlantic. During the sixteenth century fishermen from Brittany, Normandy and Portugal came to Newfoundland for cod; French and Portuguese crews later developed the offshore fishery on the banks. Their seasonal voyages brought European vessels into waters long known to the island's Indigenous inhabitants.