Fishing for the Past: Casting Nets and Lines Into Australia’s Early Colonial History by Julian Pepperell

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges.

From the time of arrival on the Australian shores of Dutch, English and French seafarers, observation and accounts of fish in coastal waters have formed a small but continual part of the narrative of exploration and subsequent settlement.

Fish were an important source of fresh food to mariners and settlers, so it is not surprising that their supply was more than a passing interest in early writings and records.

On some voyages, the resident naturalists and artists were recording, sketching and painting each new species found - some familiar, some completely alien.

For thousands of years, Aboriginal people had been fishing these waters with spears, hooks, nets and traps and gathering shellfish from the beaches, rocks and reefs. These activities were of considerable interest to the early mariners and were recorded in the same journals and diaries, so by these direct links, we learn how the original inhabitants of this land fished at the time of first contact. (publisher blurb)