The much-publicized debate over the Newfoundland seal fishery since the mid-1960s
has marginalized the sealers’ own experiences. This article will situate the sealers’
thoughts, bodies, and emotions in that sealing controversy, exploring landsmen’s
performance of respectable masculinity as humane and responsible harvesters with
a legitimate place within the ecosystem of the northwestern Atlantic. It will parse
landsmen discourse about an ecologically sustainable hunt that is rooted in traditional
and local knowledge and is also culturally and economically significant. In so doing,
this article will challenge practitioners and theorists of ecomasculinity to have more
inclusive conversations with less-privileged rural harvesters, local economies, and
resource-based ways of life.