Seafaring Cowboys and Ersatz Indians: Settler Colonialism Meets Reality Television in Newfoundland

Abstract

The reality television series Cold Water Cowboys, which aired its first ten-part season in the winter of 2014, follows the high-seas adventures of six fishing captains and their crews in the restructured Newfoundland fishery. These fishermen target species like crab, halibut, shrimp and mackerel, and go to great lengths to make a living from a newly diversified and technologically advanced industry. The show presents the men of the fishery as embodying Newfoundland identity, and supporting long held myths of regional and ethnic masculinity. This is accomplished through the representation of heteronormative cultural tropes, indigenization of the settler population, and the erasure of Indigenous peoples and women from historical and present-day participation in the fishery. Ultimately, the “reality” presented in Cold Water Cowboys reflects and supports dominant narratives that buoy the neoliberal, settler-colonial state.