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BACKGROUND FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL FISHERIES Fishing has always been an integral part of our natural economy. Commercial fishery in Finland started in the coastal regions towards the end of the 19th century. In the same period a way of fishing was developed in the inland waters, where a seining gang of several farms made specialisation possible. The growing catches required organized marketing and the activity soon turned into regular commercial fishery. Fishing opportunities and the demands of the customers regulated the choice of target species. For hundreds of years salmon fishery had been an important source of income in the Bothian Bay, but it suffered a collapse after the building of dams in the rivers. Seining of smelt, a vital condition for many fishing households in the Bothnian Sea, ceased as a result of the Communist Revolution in the czars´ Russia. On the other hand, well-selling species such as herring, were harvested more efficiently and further out at sea with the aid of developed technology. Improved transport connections also contributed to the preconditions of the fish trade; without railways it would not have been possible to transport smelt from Pori to St. Petersburg, and the steam boat traffic on the major lakes enabled the marketing of the seining catches from inland waters. For many communities
along the coast the 1920-1930s were a real golden age. Commercial
fishery employed a substantial part of the population and this
development was supported by the building of fish processing
facilities in the regional fishing centres. This extended the
fishing season. Instead of selling fresh fish the fish trade
concentrated on developing the methods of smoking and salting
the catch. In spite of the fluctuations A real structural
change was brought about in the period of |
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 Seine, A large bag of small-mesh net which may be hundreds of meters long |
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MOTORS AND SYNTHETIC FIBRE STARTED A NEW ERA The marine motors invented in the beginning of the century changed both the fishing methods and the boats. These changes made possible longer fishing trips to places which the fishermen had not been able to reach by rowing or sailing. A separate profession of boat builders was formed to serve the fishermen. The boat building profession never reached an industrial scale, as it was not possible to build standardized boats for fishing purposes. The special characteristics of the boats were determined by their intended use and the different natural conditions prevailing along the coast. The boats built in Pellinki, Merikarvia and Lohtaja regions are a result of generations’ work of development, but they are appropriate in their own area of origin only. The fishing gear changed
in the mid-1950s when nylon replaced natural fibres as a raw
material. The new durable and catching material made fishing
more efficient, thus increasing the catches landed. A fisherman
could now take aboard a greater number of nets made of the significantly
lighter synthetic material. It was no longer necessary to dry
the nets after each fishing trip, and the fisherman could concentrate
on handling the catch. Winter seining had earlier required a
lot of labour, but now, thanks to In spite of the rapid technological development fisheries managed to preserve their local characteristics. A small-scale fisherman in his open fishing boat side by side with a modern herring trawler starting out to the open sea was by no means a rare sight. In the 1960s already herring was the most important target species, and its share of the catch was still growing. The coastal fishery was further developed, and the fishing methods learned at sea were adopted in the inland fishery. The commercial fishery had now entered the modern age. |
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