In the other sub regions of the North Shore - the Middle and the Lower - seal hunting and seal fishing with nets has been almost abandoned following the anti-sealing campaigns by some green organizations, except for some local consumption of the meat. Harrington Harbour, an important seal fishing community, in the past produced nice handicrafts made with seal fur. I have been told that the activity was abandoned because it was unecological. The situation is different in the neighboring village of Tête-à-la-Baleine where a craft woman operating a small boutique for tourists is keeping alive the tradition of using seal fur for manufacturing pieces of clothing (boots, mitts, caps, coats) and handicrafts (small seals, purses, wallets, handbags, key holders, etc). On the Lower North Shore a new Canadian legislation adopted in the eighties has forbidden the use of nets to catch the seals, nearly putting a stop to a lucrative activity begun 300 years ago. In the last few years the abundance of harp seals and the rise of the prices for the pelts and blubber has pushed some fishermen most affected by the closing of the fisheries for species like ground fish - cod in particular - and crab to practice seal hunting on the ice to better their economic condition. But they are not well equipped for and not much acquainted with this kind of activity, having been traditionally seal fishers with nets. In fact, most of the hunting is made by Newfoundlanders crossing to the Quebec's shore when the ice fields are pushed there by the winds. The catch of the Québec hunters has been of a few thousand those last years, but efforts have been made in the last two years to increase the participation of the Lower North Shore fishermen to this seal hunting activity to compensate for the dramatic situation of the other fisheries.

The future of seal hunting on the North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a multi-millenary activity, is quite uncertain right now. There are plenty of seals and commercial fishermen are complaining that they are responsible for the lack of ground fish. The important increase of the quota to get down the harp seal population to a better ecological balance with other marine resources benefits mainly the hunters-fishermen from Newfoundland and the Magdalen Islands, who are much better equipped and used to hunting the ice fields in the middle of the gulf. Seal fishing, now forbidden, was the appropriate technology to catch the seals during their migration along the Lower North Shore from the Labrador Sea to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On the Upper North Shore recent climatic changes have reduced the possibilities to go out on the sea to shoot seals in open water. So many factors - ecological, economic, political, legislative - can explain the present situation, affecting an activity that was in line with the sustainable use of a local abundant and migratory resource, the harp seal. The out migration of the young generations unable to find a living by the exploitation of diminishing renewable resources like fish, marine mammals, fur animals and wildlife in general is altogether a consequence and a cause of the dramatic economic situation of many small communities on the eastern North Shore, similar to others in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including the eastern and southern regions of Newfoundland.

It is to hope that the local communities with the help of their governments will find solutions to these common problems. Recreational and ecological tourism is seen by many as one of them. But it is even more limited to a few weeks of seasonal activity than is fishing. Big projects like dams, mines, manufactures are dreamed of by many but they are often times short-lived. There is no one solution, but perhaps, the continuing sustainable exploitation of as many renewable resources as possible is the answer to these serious social and economic problems.