At Memorial University an interdisciplinary team of social, natural, health, and education scientists studied the sustainability of cold-ocean coastal communities, centering on Newfoundland's Bonavista Peninsula and the Isthmus of the Avalon Peninsula. Research began in 1994 to uncover what had precipitated the collapse of the groundfish stocks in the northwest Atlantic. An exploration of the past failures and strengths of rural Newfoundland communities, in terms of both human capital and natural resources, pointed to what future?

The Resilient Outport contains the main findings of the team in a series of connected interdisciplinary chapters that present both the methodology of working in large interdisciplinary teams and an account of the roots of environmental crisis, from archaeological time to the present.