A bottom-up story of the fishworkers, whalers, First Nations, merchantwomen, oceans, and animals who together made a new colonial world in the early Atlantic

In the early decades of the sixteenth century, mariners from across Europe forged a vast seasonal fishery in the northwest Atlantic. They called this floating colony Terra Nova and laid the foundation for a history of extracting food and fuel that extended into the twentieth century. The history of Terra Nova, once one of the largest European colonies in the Atlantic basin, has never before been considered in its entirety or in its proper Atlantic context.

Historian Jack Bouchard tells the story of Terra Nova, showing that its early development was shaped by colonial histories across the Atlantic world. He demonstrates that when we put food production, ocean environments, and maritime labor at the center of the story, we can see the overlooked lives and voices of those who made change in these early years. The result is a new history of the Atlantic world: one where humans migrate in the wake of ice and fish, where Indigenous and Arctic trade routes are joined to transatlantic exchange, where colonies exist without settlement or empire, and that centers the role of food production, labor, and maritime landscapes in our shared history.