This part of Sheltandic history is one so familiar to ours that it might as well be Faroese.

Cod fishing and the production of saltfish transformed our societies economically and the pattern repeats itself:  Workers freed themselves from the bonds of landowners and large-scale farmers to seek their fortune as fishermen and help build a new economy. They worked hard in the North Atlantic as well as around Greenland with their catch ending up on the plates of the English middle class, bacalao restaurants in Spain and the Jewish shtetls of Eastern Europe, yielding great profit.

The author follows the history from the time that hundreds of Dutch fishermen came to Shetland in the 16th century up to the challenges currently faced by the fishing industry.

The narrative is seasoned with recollections and historical examples about cod fishing in the 19th century around the Faroe Islands and Greenland, as well as accounts of the herring era, which caused Shetland to prosper in the early 20th century.