Name This Spot!

Right on the heels of congratulating our most recent winner in my last post, I think we should have everyone try and figure out the location of this next image.
This is a spot within the Pncima region and any mariners with local knowledge of the Inside Passage would know this spot.

If you would like to try your best guess, you can email me at:
vsampson@livingoceans.org or leave a comment in the comments section.
Winners will be announced on the next Name This Spot! post.

Good luck and thanks for checking out Coastal Voices.

Name This Spot! 4

Hey folks; we have another winner in our Name This Spot! contest!

Our most recent winner is Charlotte, who correctly identified the Wannock River in the October 13 - Name This Spot! 3 posting.
Ok, time for some disclosure here. I've known Charlotte since she was about 4 years old and I know she lives about 2o some odd miles from the Wannock River - so she should recognize the place!
Your prize will be arriving in a post office near you soon, Charlotte!

For those of you who don't know, the 6 km long Wannock River flows out of Owikeno Lake into the head of Rivers Inlet in the Central Coast, within the Pncima region.


The area has been and still is home to the Wuikinuxv Nation. There are approximately 70 Wuikinuxv people living in their village along the banks of the Wannock. This river and Owikeno Lake have provided food, refuge and home for the Wuikinuxv for thousands of years. The Wannock River and it's keystone salmon species are still relatively rich in biodiversity despite over a century of industrial activity in the area. In recent years, in order to enhance declining salmon stocks, the Wuikinuxv Fisheries Program along with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Rivers Inlet North Coast Salmon Enhancement Association have been been working with Snootli Hatchery in Bella Coola to enhance chinook and, on a smaller scale, sockeye from the Wannock River. There is also an ongoing eco-system study funded in part by the Tula Foundation whereby a research team headed by Dr. Rick Routledge of Simon Fraser University along with with local participation is undertaking research to better understand the early life stages of Rivers Inlet sockeye as they migrate out of their freshwater environment into the ocean.

Some of the west coast's largest chinook salmon, prized by sportfishers from around the world, spawn in the Wannock as well as sockeye, coho and chum.
All of the Owikeno Lake sockeye and other species of salmon have to transit the Wannock in order to get to their natal streams as far as 50 km up the lake.

Thank you, Charlotte and all the others who read Coastal Voices.

How ya doing, chum?

Warmish temperatures during the day, cool ones at night, and my pumpkins are actually turning orange, which is a rarity in Sointula! With fall in full swing, and looking towards winter, I thought I would make my first blog posting since returning from maternity leave about something that also points to this time of year on the coast….the chum salmon run.

Some of you may be rolling your eyes. Why talk about the dog salmon (named because of their large teeth at spawning time), when there are cataclysmic events happening on the Fraser with the sockeye this year? Even the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) website says our poor chum is “the least sought-after of the Pacific salmon species”. Well, I have to ask, least sought after by whom? By the commercial and recreation fishing sectors? By the consumer?

Chum salmon are the last of the species of Pacific salmon to return to our rivers to spawn. In the ocean, they can often be confused with sockeye because of their silver bright colour, but as they approach their natal streams, they differentiate themselves by their distinctive vertical streaks. They are historically extremely abundant and spawn in more than 880 streams and rivers along the BC coast. In my neck of the woods, chum are just now returning to the Nimpkish, Kokish, Cluxewe and Quatse Rivers.

Last month, the Globe and Mail reported that bears on the Central Coast are starving because of the lack of chum salmon. Last year this was happening in Knight Inlet because of the lack of pink salmon. Poor cousin or not, every species of salmon has a place in the ecological web on this coast. And every species of salmon is under threat, whether by infestation of sea lice, warming ocean temperatures, or just plain mismanagement.

Stock outlooks posted by DFO for the 2009 chum runs for Johnstone Strait and Mainland inlets are either low or near target. What floors me is that the difference between the definitions of what is “low” and what is “near target” is substantial. An area that is getting a near target assessment is defined as “stock is (or is forecast to be) within 25% of target and stable or increasing”. An area that is getting a low assessment is defined as “stock is (or is forecast to be) well below target or below target and declining”. It’s like the point at which the pendulum will swing from one side to the other. Is it increasing or decreasing? Are we going to focus less on “managing” a stock if its near target?

And what are the consequences if we are mistaken?

* In researching this blog posting, I looked up the predicted returns on chum this year. All well and good until I want to see it in a bit more detail by stream. I have to admit I am mystified at how anyone can even find this information, let alone interpret it.

http://www.psf.ca/

http://www.nvisea.org/

http://www-ops2.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/xnet/content/salmon/webdocs/SalmonStockOutlook2009.htm

http://squamish2010.ca/SHOREKEEPERS/

Part 6: Interviews from Sointula - LEK from BC's Central Coast

Part 6 of a 6 part series by Kirie McMurchy

Working on the water for so long, people get the chance to see things that those of us lowly land-dwellers could never even imagine. During my time conducting Local Knowledge interviews for the Living Oceans Society, I felt honored that people were willing to share their stories with me as well as the general public. This is an excerpt from my interview with Jon Taylor, a fisherman, woodcarver, and avid story teller living in Sointula.

Excerpt from interview with Jon Taylor, (contributed with permission).

"You see things out on the water only if you spend time, and only if you know what is and isn’t there. I take people out whale watching and they don’t see the whales until they’re right there. You learn to see. The significance of the way the birds are acting, the way the water ripples. There are various people who swear they can smell a salmon run. That’s how they did their fishing. I certainly smelled the smell. Over the course of many years I’ve seen many things, I’ve also seen a lot of empty water. There’s the feeling that you’re always about the see something."

"Exhaustion, alcohol, fog, and no radar. Great stories. There was a lot of that, and then there was a lot of genuine, unexplained things. All of us have seen stuff that shouldn’t be there. Between fog and alcohol and extreme fatigue, that’s one thing, but sometimes it’s [different]. There are four of us that I know of that have seen this very large animal that was officially extinct in 1780 or something, it’s called the Stellar Sea Cow. You find it in the book, it’s all documented."

"Before I’d heard any of the stories I met one face to face down in Blackfish Sound. I started asking around quietly. I saw it on the way down to the fish camp and I had just headed out and I ran into this thing. Thought 'that’s the damndest dead head I’ve ever seen in my life.' It’s all covered with shaggy cedar bark. Put the binoculars on it and it’s got a face and it’s staring at me. It’s got these tiny little arms that I thought were just branches. And I realize it’s watching me. I arrived in Double Bay maybe twenty minutes later and the guys said 'What is wrong with you?' and I said 'I’ve just seen a fully furred whale and it was spy hopping and it was staring at me.' 'Oh you’ve been doing dope or something.' Well I don’t do dope. You try and report something like that to the authorities and the first thing that happens is somebody says 'Oh, what you really saw was…” And you’re just going 'I’ve been at sea since I was four. [I know this was different]'"

"[Outlandish] stories thirty years ago were very, very common here. Guys with small boats go out, be alone for days, nobody else is around, they’d see things, hear things, think things. Some of them I have no doubt are real, some of them I have no doubt were the DTs from alcohol. When you get further and further from home you see things differently sometimes. This is right in home waters where we’ve all seen the Stellar Sea Cow. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and it was not a whale, it was not a dead head. I drew a sketch of it and didn’t hear the word ‘Stellar Sea Cow’ for years and went and looked them up, and that’s it. It has the face like a dog or a pig and it has these two tiny little useless arms that look almost like bent twigs. An absolutely peaceful kelp grazer. They were a great food source if you had ship loads of men there. It’s not in any form mythic. They have the hide, they have the skin. Stellar was a great botanist who explored this area. Stellar jays, stellar sea lions, all named and documented by him. This is the late seventeen early eighteen hundreds. We still to this day have pieces of skin in the museums."

Kirie McMurchy is a Guest contributor to coastal voices blog. If you have Local Knowledge about the ocean or about living on the Central Coast of British Columbia - we want to hear from you! Contact us at info@livingoceans.org.

Name this Spot! 3

Well, loyal readers, it has been a month or two but, back by popular demand is our - "Name This Spot" contest.
The winner of our last one was Ralph, who correctly identified, Koeye River as the subject of an aerial photo. Ralph, your prize will be mailed to you shortly.
Koeye River flows in a westerly direction emptying into Fitzhugh Sound in the Central Coast at about 52 degrees 46.5 minutes North by 127 degrees 52.8 minutes West.
The Koeye (Kway) River Valley, one of the few remaining intact coastal river valley ecosystems, is home to all species of salmon and is prime grizzly bear and wolf habitat.
The Heiltsuk First Nation has a summer camp geared up to celebrate and experience Heiltsuk history and cultural activities for their youth.
Their Koeye Lodge also provides bear watching and bird watching opportunities for paying guests who wish to experience a unique wilderness retreat.



If you can name the spot in the photo above please send an email to: vsampson@livingoceans.org

A modest prize will be awarded to the knowledgable winner and we would love to hear any stories about the area depicted in the photo if you would care to share them.

Hint: Within the PNCIMA region - north of Cape Caution but south of Portland Canal and home to some of the largest chinook on this coast.

Stay tuned, the winner will be announced in about a week and a new spot will be posted.
Good luck!

Part 5: Interviews from Sointula - LEK from BC's Central Coast

Part 5 of a 6 Part Series - by Kirie McMurchy

During my interview project with Living Oceans Society, I heard many different hypotheses for what happened to the fish stocks and the fishing industry. I thought that this excerpt from my interview with Dan Griffith, a Sointula resident since 1974, addressed the over fishing element of the problem quite well. In his interview, Dan also addressed the mis-management issue as well as the issue of logging destroying salmon spawning streams.

Excerpt from interview with Dan Griffith, (contributed with permission).

"Fishing was a way of life that disappeared for us and we had no real way of dealing with it. And greed got in the way because everybody wanted to catch more fish."

"A few years ago I went to Nicaragua. Somebody from [the fishermen’s] union had gone there and witnessed a huge storm that washed a bunch of their boats ashore and wrecked their little fishing fleet. So they thought: 'oh gee we could do a real good thing so we’ll build a boat and send it'. "

"It took ten years but they built this boat, a beautiful big boat that we would love to have here. So they send it down there and they had all manner of fishing gear on it – it was a total combination boat. You could fish whatever you wanted with this boat. [It has a] nice, big diesel engine in it."

"Well... Most of their fishing is done there out of twenty foot skiffs with thirty-five horse-[power] outboards. They go out in the morning, they catch some fish, [they] bring them home, sell them to their neighbors, and then they take the afternoon off and then they go fishing the next day."

"[When] that boat [project] first started, we were still fishing most of the time. By the time they shipped that boat to Nicaragua, we were cut down to fishing two or three weeks a year. We get down there and we find out that they’re still fishing three-hundred and sixty-five days a year, and they can keep anything they catch. We could only keep a salmon, if we caught one, unless we put out another hundred grand and bought another license."

"And so we’re trying to send them our technology and our way of doing things that has totally failed us. It took me a couple of years after I got back to finally recognize the reality of this whole situation and what it meant. It kind of made me really stop and think. They were trying to fill their bellies, we were trying to fill our bank accounts. You can’t do it unless you’re keeping your rivers supplying the planet with the fish, you cannot keep catching them to the point that we were. It’s the same with the logging. They cannot keep on cutting down the trees as fast as they are to feed the mills in the United States. All of our industries are disappearing. What will we become?"

Part 4: Interviews from Sointula - LEK from BC's Central Coast

Part 4 of a 6 Part Series - by Kirie McMurchy

During my interview project with Living Oceans Society, every single person I interviewed mentioned the Mifflin Plan. The Mifflin Plan is the colloquial name for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Pacific Salmon Revitalization Strategy that came into effect under then-minister, Fred Mifflin. The Mifflin Plan was a reaction to a decrease in fish stocks in the 1980’s and it attempted to conserve the stocks by reducing the size of the fishing fleet. The plan went about this in two ways: buying back fishing licenses to reduce the number of boats able to fish and sectioning up the coast into zones so one fishing license no longer allowed one to fish the whole coast. It has been said that in one year alone, the west coast lost more than 8,000 jobs from the salmon industry. In a community whose lifeblood was the salmon fishing industry, it is understandable why this was such a huge blow.
The following is an excerpt from an interview I conducted with Living Oceans own, Will Soltau about his recollections of the Sointula-hatched action against the Mifflin Plan in the mid ‘90’s.

Excerpt of Interview with Will Slotau (contributed with permission)
"It was April of ’96 [that] we decided that we had to do something. There was a bunch of us from [Sointula] that went up to [the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) office in] Port Hardy. The secretary came up, these two guys just jumped up on the counter, went inside, one of them opened the door and we all rushed into the main office and we said “We’re not leaving until we hear from the minister that he’s not going to implement the Mifflin Plan!” and they said “Okay, good luck.” DFO got on the phone to find out what they should do." "So we made promises [that we would not be violent or destructive] and DFO left that night from work and they brought in a couple of commissionaires to sort of babysit us all night. The rotation of our people that were in the office changed on a daily basis. After about a week DFO didn’t like this free flow of people in and out of the office, and they didn’t want to drag us out and create a scene like that so what they decided they’d do was they would lock the doors and the people that were in there that day could leave at any time but they would not be allowed back in. There were eight of us, I believe, and we spent another eighteen days in there. It got pretty tense after a while. We were sleeping on the floor people would bring us food and they were still marching outside, they had placards by that time. " "Because of us, the DFO office in Tofino, Nanaimo, and finally in Vancouver got occupied but we were the first ones that actually took action like that. They might have even occupied the Prince Rupert office, I can’t remember. There were people that came from Port Hardy and Port McNeil once we occupied the office but the plan was hatched by a bunch of Sointulians." "Glen Clark was premier of BC at the time and he was all for supporting the fishermen, he had gotten the union behind him and there was a big press conference down in Vancouver one day and there was a bunch of people that had come to the office to protest. It was getting pretty noisy outside and I kind of felt like things were coming to a head with this whole press conference and the way people were feeling. Those of us that had been inside had had enough after eighteen days. So I let a bunch of people that were outside in and some of the people that were inside went out and from there it just kind of dissolved. Everybody was cleared out that evening, the cops showed up but they just kind of escorted people outside and then DFO locked the doors and that was the end of that. Nothing really came of it, DFO didn’t change one bit. "

Kirie McMurchy is a Guest contributor to coastal voices blog. If you have Local Knowledge about the ocean or about living on the Central Coast of British Columbia - we want to hear from you! Contact us at info@livingoceans.org.

Part 3: Interviews from Sointula - LEK from BC's Central Coast

Part 3 of a 6 Part Series - by Kirie McMurchy

I learned so much during my interview project with Living Oceans Society, and I wish I could share every ounce of knowledge with all of you. However, I’ve been given a limited word count for these blog postings. One thing I think is essential to share is how hard but rewarding most people seem to find the fishing lifestyle. The following excerpt from my interview with Rebekah Pesika, an artist and prawn fisherman living in Sointula conveys that sentiment quite well. She’s been running her own boats for many years and just this past season, she took her six month old daughter out for the season prawn fishing with her.

Excerpt of interview with Rebekah Pasika (contributed with permission)


"[The fishing lifestyle] is very free, it’s more organic. I think that a lot of people don’t really realize how hard it is when the fishing is actually happening, how hard the job is, to function with a total lack to sleep, to be in a dangerous environment, to have to keep quality control for your product, to have to push yourself physically to work as fast as you can in order to catch as much as you can in a short amount of time. That’s how fishing works. It teaches people willpower [and] patience. The other thing you learn is how to deal with people in close quarters for long periods of time. So there’s this whole real good understanding of how people work, and how to function, almost like a family, you become like a family out there. You can’t be a prude or you can’t be really self-conscious because when you’re going to the toilet and let out a big fart you know there’s someone sitting two inches from your ass on the other side of the wall."

"One of the reasons I stayed in fishing too, I like fishing, but sometimes I think it would be great to do other things but I just don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. I don’t care. Work is work. Whether you’re working at whatever, it’s never fun all the time. Fishing sucks lots, it’s hard. But it’s good enough for me. Something about contentment or even happiness has a lot to do with not necessarily being satisfied all the time, it’s more that it speaks to your heart. Fishing speaks to my heart, I feel like it’s an appropriate thing for me to spend my life doing as a career. That’s what you’ve got to do. I think a job is like a relationship you’ve got to pick something that suits you but it doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect all the time. The ocean and the wind and basically the earth dictate your decisions and you totally live around it. It’s really, primitive. Humans are primitive, we try [not] to be but we’re still primitive."

"The way [Sointula] used to be would’ve probably, from my understanding, been one of the most lively cultural examples of the fishing industry because everybody was fishing and the whole town revolved around it. That would’ve been really cool. It feels really good to be working at something that’s so tangible. With fishing, it’s not like you’re marketing some plastic thing that’s made in another country or pushing papers. There’s just a lot of emotional reward in something like fishing and to have the industry and a culture and a town just totally wrapped around that whole way of life would be pretty neat."


Kirie McMurchy is a Guest contributor to coastal voices blog. If you have Local Knowledge about the ocean or about living on the Central Coast of British Columbia - we want to hear from you! Contact us at info@livingoceans.org.

Part 2: Interviews from Sointula - Local Knowledge from BC's Central Coast

Part 2 of a 6 part series - by Kirie McMurchy

Working for the summer for Living Oceans Society, interviewing people involved in the fishing industry, the one thing every single person implied was that fishing was not just a job, it was a lifestyle. This excerpt is taken from my interview with Crystal Siider whose family has a long history of living in Sointula. Sitting on the deck of her boat, the Mailee III, she had a huge smile when she’d talk about the sense of community and bringing her children up as part of that unique community. She helped out on her father’s boat as a child and now fishes with her husband. They have two daughters, now nineteen and fourteen.

Excerpt of interview with Cryslal Siider (contributed with permission)

"You meet so many wonderful people and hit so many different towns along the coast [when you’re fishing]. After gillnet openings, we would all meet, a big group of us. We called it Sea Float up in Rush Brook in Prince Rupert and we’d always have big potlucks. Everybody would make a dish and we’d set up our chairs on the docks. [People] would have their guitars out, and this fellow from the lower mainland named Beanie – he’s David Suzuki’s cousin, he was a gillnetter and he had a boat called the Easy Come – he would bring out his guitar and we’d all put our ear plugs in. Very social, it was a really social atmosphere on the weekends. Everybody was very competitive out on the grounds but you’d leave that there. You’d come into the dock and you always secretly hoped everybody did just as well, maybe that you caught two more fish than them, but that everybody did well. You never wanted to hear the stories of somebody blowing up an engine or losing their gear."

"[Sointula] definitely was and still is one of the most respected fishing communities on the coast. It’s always had very honest, and hard working good fishermen. [My nephew], he’s gone fishing with his mum and dad and his grandpa and his uncles. He and his girlfriend at the time, they weren’t married yet, had gone to Cancun, they’d rented a jeep and they were traveling around the Yucatan Peninsula. They drove into a small community called Punta Allan, and it’s a small fishing community, and they walked into this little hole in the wall pub and they were going to have a beer and a bite to eat. A fellow came up to them and asked "where are you from?' and he said 'Oh I’m from British Columbia, Canada' 'Oh, where abouts in BC?' 'Oh we’re off the north end of Vancouver Island.' 'Oh, where abouts?' 'Oh a little community called Sointula, I’m sure you’ve never…' 'Sointula?! Do you know Dave Siider?! I met him out fishing.' 'That’s my grandpa!' You meet people that know fishermen here. It’s a small world."

"We’re not kids anymore, we’re participating as adults now and bringing up our kids on the boat. Both of them had a chance to spend summers with us and they took turns, and made a little bit of money, and got to meet a lot of people. [My eldest daughter] Cailyn is out fishing now and I think she’s really enjoying it. It’s hard work, it’s different working for somebody other than your parents. You have a different perspective of it. [My younger daughter,] Scotia, has always been a little deckhand. She never got sea sick or anything and she was always so fascinated with whatever was coming up in the shrimp trawl. She used to sit up in the sorter, where we would dump the shrimp and sort through it all, and we’d have her sitting on a little basket with her gumboots, and her dress, and her little dolly and she’d sit there for hours and hours. It was great having them out on the boat."

Kirie McMurchy is a Guest contributor to coastal voices blog. If you have Local Knowledge about the ocean or about living on the Central Coast of British Columbia - we want to hear from you! Contact us at info@livingoceans.org.

Part I: Interviews from Sointula - Local Knowledge from BC's Central Coast

Part 1 of a 6 part series

Let me introduce myself. My name is Kirie McMurchy. I grew up on the island community of Sointula and have recently moved away to attend Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario to receive my bachelor’s degree in global development studies. I was fortunate enough to be awarded this amazing opportunity to work with Living Oceans Society for the summer. My main project has been to interview people in Sointula who have been involved with the fishing industry and prepare the collection to potentially be printed one day as a book. I have learned a tremendous amount about the history of my community and the fishing lifestyle. I didn’t think that either the Sointula community or the ocean could be any closer to my heart, but this project has drawn them in further and helped me to understand and appreciate both in a whole new light. For that, I am ever grateful.

The following is an excerpt from my interview with Denise Aleksich who comes from a family with a long history of living in Sointula. One thing I noticed while interviewing Denise was that she seemed to have really, truly enjoyed the fisherman’s lifestyle and appreciated that her family had been able to sustain themselves that way for generations. For one who doesn’t know what living in a coastal community is like, I thought her words might help shed some light on why Living Oceans Society is dedicated to healthy oceans for healthy communities. I’m so grateful towards everyone who let me interview them and allowed me to share their precious insights on a fascinating lifestyle that has, unfortunately, disappeared for so many people.

Excerpt of Interview with Denise Aleksich (contributed with permission)

"I started seining with my dad when I was thirteen. There weren’t a lot of young girls [out seining]. It was a very interesting environment to be in. I loved being out on the boat, I loved the fishing part, and I loved the traveling. My dad was a traveler. We traveled to every part of this coast. It was very exciting and it was a marvelous lifestyle. I never really thought about [being in rough weather], but after years as you start getting worn down. I used to sit up on the bridge when we’d cross [Queen Charlotte] Sound from here up to Namu or Bella Bella and if there was a really good swell I’d let the water wash over me: I was a nut bar! But I was so excited by it. I loved being out, I loved everything about it, everything excited me: the phosphorescence in the water, any kind of wild life we saw, absolutely everything. I was always animated when I was on the water, nothing ever got me down even all the snarls and the snags and the messes we got into. My dad, he hit so many rocks – they used to call him rocky or something, Crash Peterson, that’s it – he was an adventurer. It wasn’t until after I had kids that that feeling just dissipated. It’s now when I think about being on a boat, I think of work. I think of bracing myself all the time, I think of how much organization it takes to be out in a little boat in bad weather and all those things. You’re so full of every little detail when you’re on a boat. If you’re in a house it’s “oh yeah, I have to do this and this and this” but there’s no time constraints, the dishes will sit there ‘till the morning. It’s not like that on a boat."

Kirie McMurchy is a Guest contributor to coastal voices blog. If you have Local Knowledge about the ocean or about living on the Central Coast of British Columbia - we want to hear from you! Contact us at info@livingoceans.org.