Making Waves

Seafood has fed qathet for millennia. This spring, locals are fighting to make sure spot prawns, herring and chinook will feed us a millennia more.

This spring, 27-year-old Ryn Tataryn flew his Mavic Air Drone over the herring spawn at Lang Bay, close to where he lives. Usually, he films snowboarders and skateboarders. But he got a hot tip from a family member that the waters were milky, turquoise and full of eggs, a natural event best seen from the sky.

“I was like, woah!” said Ryk, on seeing his drone footage.

Photographs like Ryk’s are critical to giving us all the “woah!” factor over the life in the Salish Sea, and our relationship to it, both as eaters, and protectors. Although seafood is an obvious piece of the local food movement, most of our commercial catch is exported; plus, the rules governing our personal and community seafood harvests are determined far away, in Ottawa.

Locals are fighting for that authentic relationship this spring, to protect the chinook, spot prawns and herring as vital parts of qathet’s diet and culture, now and forever.

Lily Carlos, 12, with a chinook

Spot Prawns

Back in the 1980s, spot prawns weren’t worth much. They were a way to keep fishing boats busy in between other seasons, recalls Shane Reid, who owns Double Odds Fishing. Now, they’re a high-value export crop; about 90 percent of them are sold overseas, largely in Asia, Shane reports.

frozenat-sea prawns by Double Odds Fishing; Double Odds’ owner Shane Reid;

You may have bought fresh or frozen spot prawns or side-stripe shrimp out of his Westview garage. Fresh prawns are available only during the commercial season, roughly six weeks in May and early June. Shane and others freeze spot prawns at sea and store them in freezers at home, to be able to sell them to locals throughout the year. But in March, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced a new ruling banning the practice, for fear that it allowed fishermen to hide under-size prawns.

“If I can’t freeze at sea, all the product I catch will be exported,” explained Shane. “I don’t think it’s fair. They’re right outside here. Local people should be able to eat their own seafood, and a lot of people can’t catch their own.”

Commercial prawner Ivan Askgaard says the ban prevents harvesters from diversifying their own products and makes them more dependent on big-business processors. He says it’s both a local employment and food security issue.

Double Odds’ owner Shane Reid;

Later in the month, after blowback from fishermen and the restaurant industry, DFO announced it would not enforce the ruling this year, but it has not gone away.

Powell River Outdoors owner Sam Sansalone argues that DFO’s problem is that it has “too many suits, not enough boots.” That is, because it doesn’t employ enough local inspectors to monitor and enforce the prawn fishery, the federal department will issue edicts from afar, such as this one, undermining entire industries.

Chinook

Sam is taking a risk this year; he has ordered all his store’s stock for the Chinook salmon season, hoping that DFO will make a fishing-friendly decision for the 2021 season, which they’ll announce sometime soon.

For the past few years, recreational salmon fishing – a key piece of the diet of many local families, and of the business for tourism operators – has been curtailed by DFO’s requirement that anglers release, or (for part of the season) retain just one fish. DFO asserts the rule protects dwindling salmon stocks that are key to the survival of the orca. Sam insists (and says DFO data agrees) that the upper Fraser chinook – which are threatened – don’t come near qathet. Reports from local anglers (and his own observations from his boat) are that local chinook stocks are booming.

“People get wind of closures and theymake other plans,” said Sam. “They’ll stop coming to BC.”

Powell River Outdoors owner Sam Sansalone in a video he made in 2019, advocating for better recreational access to chinook.

Sam, along with MP Rachel Blaney, is asking that anglers be allowed to keep local salmon – fish that have been spawned by organizations such as the Powell River Salmon Society.

“There has never been a time where the ability of individuals to provide for their own food security in a safe manner has been more relevant or necessary,” Rachel said in a statement. “From the Tyee Club in Campbell River to the guides and tackle shops from Powell River to Port Hardy, to parents and grandparents teaching kids how to catch a meal, the public fishery is such an important part of life on the coast.”

Pacific Herring

Just before Ryk and others were snapping photos of the herring spawn, DFO announced the commercial herring fishery opening.

Overfishing caused the stocks to collapse by the mid-1980s. It wasn’t until 2018 that the spawn returned in any quantity to qathet.

This year, DFO allowed a harvest of 16,330 tonnes (a 20 per cent harvest rate), in the Straight of Georgia, as DFO defines the ocean outside our front door. That’s enough to fill three Goodyear Blimps. Or, in more practical terms, enough for all 20,000 qathet residents to completely stuff their stomachs with herring every day for 15 months.

Local DFO officer Matthew Conley’s photo of the herring run at Atrevida Road in mid- March

Chinook eat herring, and orca eat both herring and chinook. The little fish are a critical part of a healthy ocean.

For the past five years, several First Nations including Tla’amin have slammed the decision to open the herring fishery at all. This year, Tla’amin Hegus John Hackett told APTN that the Nation will protect the herring roe if anyone tries to harvest them out of local waters. Last year at this time, Tla’amin’s newspaper, Neh’Motl ran a cover story about the return of the herring.

“Back in the day ... the herring was bountiful for all our members,” it reads.

T’išosəm, the name of Tla’amin’s main village, translates to “milky white waters from herring spawn.”

In an email from DFO’s communication branch, the department claims it consults with First Nations regularly.

It also says that the primary market for BC’s herring is Japan, China and the US. | pieta@prliving.ca

Ryk Tataryn’s stunning drone image of the herring spawn at Lang Bay (see more of Ryk’s remarkable images and footage is for sale on his Loft Gang business Facebook page, facebook.com/OGDWC)