SMALL WONDER
IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND FOGO ISLAND, it is necessary to first come to an appreciation of the humble cod, the fish that has always dwelt in incalculable numbers in the Atlantic Ocean off the craggy coast of Newfoundland. The people here live for cod, and they risk their lives fishing for it in fierce Atlantic storms. In fact, whenever anyone here utters the word “fish,” what they really mean is cod. And if for some unfathomable reason they want to say, for example, mackerel, then they’ll go ahead and say mackerel.
Seventeenth-century explorers wrote of shoals of cod so thick they slowed the progress of their rowboats. It’s one reason why, from 1750 to 1830, thousands of mostly Irish settlers hoping to better their lot came to Newfoundland in a green wave of migration. Some families still grow vegetables on the same
