By Terence Ho | Foundation of HKPLTW
Terence is a Research Coordinator for the Foundation of HKPLTW with interests in history & traditions, social organization & inter-group relations, culture & religion, and economics & politics of Canadian Indigenous People and Visible Minorities. Follow him on Twitter: @hkpltw
Terence is a Research Coordinator for the Foundation of HKPLTW with interests in history & traditions, social organization & inter-group relations, culture & religion, and economics & politics of Canadian Indigenous People and Visible Minorities. Follow him on Twitter: @hkpltw
In this article, I will examine the First Nation fishery in British Columbia. I will explore how the “food fishery” came to be and how it has worked to conserve salmon for the benefit of the non-Native industrial fishery.
For the First Nations in BC, the fishery has always been a source of food, wealth, and trade and is always intricately tied to their continued existence. The vast food resources of the ocean — salmon, shellfish, herring, crabs, seaweed, and whale — made it possible for Pacific Coast First Nations of British Columbia to settle in permanent locations. They dried most of their salmon in smokehouses to be stored and eaten later. Fish oil also played an essential part in their diet, serving as a condiment with dried fish during the winter. As a result, the fishery is critical to both the leading economy and traditional heritage of the Pacific Coast First Nations.
Conflicts With Non-First Nation Fishers?
During the salmon fishing season, tensions between First Nation and non-First Nation fishers are commonplace in British Columbia. The conflict arises over a priority that only allows some salmon caught by the First Nation fishers to be sold commercially. The non-native commercial fisher group, the BC Fisheries Survival Coalition, has called for an end to what they have termed “racially divided fisheries programs,” arguing that all fishermen should have equal access to the fishery. The non-First Nation fishers worry that there are not enough resources for everyone, and they further question why First Nation fishers do not make concessions to help conserve and share a common resource?
Non-First Nation’s argument is problematic and goes against concepts of First Nation traditions and rights. First, the First Nation peoples are not “stakeholders” of the fishery resources, and their harvesting practices have special status under Canadian law. Most importantly, the First Nation fisher communities successfully managed to fish for thousands of years before the white settlers and any regulations by the Canadian state. First Nation peoples had already built flourishing economies based on fisheries. Salmon, according to the oral histories of the First Nation peoples, are considered “gift-bearing relatives and treated with profound respect.”
First Nation Traditional View of Fishery?
The First Nation fisheries management is described as a successful collaboration between the fishers and salmon:
“At the end of the net, a ring of willow was woven into the net, which allowed some salmon to escape. This is more than just a simple act of conservation. It represents a profound respect for salmon. It was believed that the runs of salmon were lineages, and if some were allowed to return to their home rivers, then those lineages would always continue.”
Nick Claxton
For example, the WSÁNEC people believe that all salmon were once human beings, thus should be respected as living things. Out of respect, a ten days ceremony is conducted when first salmon stocks of the year is caught. This celebration allows for a major portion of the salmon stocks to return to their revivers to spawn and mature, and to sustain those stocks.
In addition, drying salmon process needs to be adapted to yearly salmon runs. For instance, the wind-drying of salmon in Fraser Canyon heavily depends on humidity and temperature. When it is humid and hot, dry winds blew into the Canyon. Salmon are only caught from particular spots, and then hang on rock bluffs, where the salmon could be dried before arrival of blowflies and wasps. Despite government intervention, and changes in technology to fishing by boat with gill nets, First Nation traditional fishing practices never changed.
First Nation Harvest Method
The First Nation practices of fisheries allow for them to monitor the fish populations carefully, everyone to have an equal share of runs of fishes at the same site, and develop sophisticated harvesting techniques. In general, most First Nation fishers uses dip-nets to fish, or uses weirs to channel fishes into traps in the shallower and slow-moving water. At some locations, stone traps were used to trap salmon at low tide; an arc of stones created shallow pools from which salmon could be selectively harvested by waiting fishers, who tapped the surface of the water behind the trap until the water level had dropped below the level of the stones.
In addtion, since fisheries require the allocation and sharing of seasonal resources between families and tribes, fisheries management is not a distinct practice — it is separated from law and governance. This management system is integrated with systems of privilege, distinct forms of production and exchange, as the decisions about fishing access and rights to fishing places are made by the elders. In addition, since rank and prestige were associated with distributing, rather than accumulating wealth, there was little danger of title-holders hoarding resources for their individual benefit.
Overall, First Nation fishing techniques are very productive. Their technologies and techniques allow First Nation fishers to gather food and conserve fish resources for future generations. Their timing and harvest level were regulated through systems that modern scientists would call “Resource Management.” For thousands of years, the First Nations have developed specialized techniques to deal with large quantities of fish.
This is an opinion article; the views expressed by me.
Bibliography
“Aboriginal FIsheries in British Columbia.” Indigenous Foundations. First Nations and Indigenous Studies UBC, 2020. Accessed 15 October 2021.
Butler, Caroline. “Regulating Tradition: Sto:lo Wind Drying and Aboriginal Rights” (M.A. Thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1998).
Carlson, Keith Thor. “History Wars: Considering Contemporary Fishing Site Disputes,” in A Sto:lo Coast Salish Historical Atlas, ed. Keith Thor Carlson (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2001), 58.
Claxton, Nicholas Xumthoult, “ ISTÁ SĆIÁNEW, ISTÁ SXOLE: ‘To Fish as Formerly:’ The Douglas Treaties and the WSÁNEĆ Reef-Net Fisheries.” In Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence, and Protection of Indigenous Nations, ed. Leanne Simpson (Winnepeg, Arbeiter Ring, 2008), 52-55.
“First Nations in Canada. ” Government of Canada. Indigenous Peoples and Community, https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1307460755710/1536862806124#chp1. Accessed 15 October 2021.
Harris, Douglas. Fish Law and Colonialism: The Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.
Menzies, Charles and Caroline Butler, “Returning to Selective Fishing Through Indigenous Fishing Knowledge,” American Indian Quarterly 31, 3 (2007): 451-452.
Weinstein, Martin. “Pieces of the Puzzle: Solutions for Community-Based Fisheries Management from Native Canadians, Japanese Cooperatives, and Common Property Researchers,” The Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 12 (2000): 375-412.
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