Catch fish, crab or lobster for a living. High pay in a good season, and one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Experienced deckhand
$58,000
New crew member
$38,000
Captain or licence holder
$125,000
Job Bank's national median is $27.77 an hour, about $58,000 a year full time. Real pay does not arrive as an hourly wage: most crews are paid a share of the catch, so a strong lobster or crab season pays far more than that and a bad one pays far less.
$38,000 to $50,000
New crew member, paid a share of the landed value
Seasons are short. A Maritime lobster season runs a couple of months, so that money is earned in weeks, not spread over a year. Many harvesters collect EI (Employment Insurance) in the off season.
$100,000 and up in a good year
Captain who owns the boat and the fishing licence
Licences in high-value fisheries such as lobster, crab and halibut sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes more than a million with the boat. That price, not skill, is what keeps most crew from ever becoming owners.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is joining a boat as crew, which needs only the basic marine safety courses and your own gear and rain gear. The high end adds the small vessel operator proficiency course, several hundred dollars, which you need to run a boat yourself, plus a fuller set of gear. This is one of the cheapest careers to start, which is why people get in young. Becoming an owner later is an entirely different scale of money, since a licence and boat in a good fishery can cost as much as a house, and most people get there through family or a long partnership.
Starting as crew costs almost nothing, which is why people get in young. Becoming an owner is the expensive part, and most do it through family or a long partnership.
Share of the catch
You are paid a percentage of what the boat lands, so a good captain and a good season directly raise your pay.
Employment Insurance for fishers
A special EI (Employment Insurance) benefit exists for self-employed fish harvesters between seasons.
Time off between seasons
Many harvesters work another trade or job in the off season.
No pension unless you build one
Most crew are self-employed, so retirement savings are entirely on you.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
You get hired onto a boat, then earn the certificates that let you move up.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Helpful but not required on deck. Shop, math and any boat experience count for more.
Basic marine safety training
Days to weeks
Marine emergency duties and basic safety courses before you can legally go to sea as crew.
Register as a crew member
Weeks
Fish harvesters register with the provincial fish harvester body or directly with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, depending on the coast.
Work seasons as crew
2 to 10 years
Learn the gear, the grounds and the species. Skippers hire people they have fished with.
Move up
Varies hugely
Earn a small vessel operator or fishing master certificate, run someone's boat, then buy a licence if you can finance it.
Math
Splitting shares, tracking landings and running a business.
Shop and small engines
Fixing hydraulics and a diesel engine at sea is the difference between a trip and a tow home.
Biology
Quotas, species and closures shape the whole job.
Physical education
Hauling gear for 18 hours is the job.
You cannot fish commercially in Canada without a licence, and licences are issued by Fisheries and Oceans Canada through its national online licensing system. The number of licences in each fishery is capped, so they are bought from someone who is leaving rather than issued to newcomers. Separate rules cover logbooks, gear tags, dockside monitoring and vessel monitoring systems. On top of that, Transport Canada regulates the vessel and the certificates the people on it must hold. On the Atlantic coast, owner-operator rules require the licence holder to be on the boat.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University in St. John's, which runs fishing master and marine safety programs.
British Columbia
Fish Safe BC in Richmond runs safety and vessel stability training for harvesters.
Maritimes
Nova Scotia Community College and the Fisheries and Marine Institute deliver marine emergency duties courses at coastal campuses.
On the boat
Most of what you need is still learned from a skipper over several seasons.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Small vessel operator proficiency
Lets you command a small commercial vessel. Fish Safe BC lists it among its core courses.
Fishing master certificates
Transport Canada certificates in four levels that qualify you to command larger vessels further offshore.
Restricted operator certificate for marine radio
Required to legally use the boat's radio.
Marine emergency duties
Survival, firefighting and first aid at sea. The baseline for working on deck.
Marine diesel mechanics
A mechanic who can also fish is always on a crew list.
Welding
Gear and deck repairs, plus steady winter income.
Strong swimming and cold water survival practice
Fish Safe BC teaches cold water survival for a reason.
Bookkeeping
You are a small business, and most harvesters are self-employed for tax purposes.
A second trade
Carpentry, trucking or mechanics fills the months you cannot fish.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In a day fishery you leave the wharf at 4am, steam an hour or two, then haul and reset traps or nets until the light goes, sorting and icing catch as it comes aboard. Back in, you offload, fuel, bait and fix gear before bed. Offshore trips run a week or more with the crew working watches, six hours on and six off, and you eat and sleep between hauls. Weather decides everything and it changes fast.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Atlantic lobster out of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island brings in more export money than any other Canadian seafood, which is why lobster licences sell for so much.
In 1992 Canada shut down the northern cod fishery off Newfoundland. Tens of thousands of people lost their work in a single announcement, and the stock has still not fully recovered. Every quota rule since has that history behind it.
Fish Safe BC runs training in cold water survival, vessel stability and man overboard procedures because capsizing and falling overboard are the two things that kill harvesters most often.
For many owner-operators, selling the licence and boat at the end of a career is the pension. That is also why so few young harvesters can afford to buy in without family help.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.