More Europeans at the end of the 15th century were engaged in fishing than in any other occupation except farming.

Fishermen from Portugal, the Basque provinces of France and Spain, Northern France (perhaps Normandy) and West Country England are known to have frequented eastern Newfoundland during the first half of the 1600s, some as early as the first decade of the 16th century.

The Basque whalers of France and Spain enjoyed at least 50 years of prosperity off the Labrador coast hunting whales during the 16th century.

Land use of the Innu people precontact with the Europoeans