Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

Sam Lee and the other fishermen employed by the Sentinel Fishery, including Leonard Stack and Bernard Chafe, are introduced in the Prologue. Originally commercial fishermen from Petty Harbour on the Canadian island of Newfoundland, Sam Lee and the others lost their work after the 1992 Canadian moratorium against groundfishing on the Grand Banks. They have now partnered with Sentinel Fishery, a program that monitors the cod and other groundfish stock, by catching and tagging fish. 

Sam Lee was part of a group called the Newfoundland Inshore Fisheries Association, which owned a cooperative local fish plant. This group, with legal representation from a local lawyer, Cabot Martin, sued the Canadian government in 1989 in hopes of securing an injunction against corporate fisheries using bottom dragging, an effort meant to slow overfishing in the region. Though this lawsuit was denied, later reports of depleted cod stock by this same group influenced the decision to enact the fishing moratorium. 

The present-day (at time of publication) narrative of Sam Lee and the efforts of the Sentinel Fishery function as the entry point to the historical account of cod fishing.