Selective Fishery
The Skeena River is faced with conflict and crisis over salmon and has been since European contact. A new approach to salmon harvesting in the Skeena watershed and nearby coastal areas is greatly needed and one doesn’t need to look very far to find solutions. In fact, we need to look at our past—at our First Nations fisheries and harvesting management systems that existed pre-European contact, before it was outlawed and replaced by mixed stock commercial net fisheries. Our current modern model of a fishery has been faced with increasing criticism around selectivity: it is unable to select out strong populations from weak ones, often causing high mortality rates on non-target species. But, the times have changed and so have the issues. Climate change and increasing ocean ranching production may have impacts on the survival rates of salmon at levels never seen before. But there is hope. Like Albert Einstein once said, “The world will not evolve past its present state of crisis using the same thinking that created the situation.” A return to the techniques successfully used by First Nations people for thousands of years holds much promise in ensuring that conservation, social and economic goals are achieved. Over the past few decades several First Nations have shown how effective they can be at harvesting Skeena salmon in an ecologically and economically sustainable manner using their traditional fishing sites and methods. Time is past due to embrace this ingenuity and expand these traditional technologies in both the Skeena River and nearby coastal areas.
Technologies
At the time of contact, traditional harvesting practices were in place everywhere from the outer islands bordering Hecate Straight to the Headwaters of the Skeena. Nearly every coastal stream, bay and tributary of the Skeena River had some form of harvesting capacity. These technologies were skilfully developed over thousands of years.
Coastal Fishing Methods:
• Tidal Traps: On the coast near the mouth of the Skeena, the Tsimshian First Nation developed this method of fishing. They used tidal traps to corral and trap the fish as the tides dropped. These traps allowed efficient escapement as the tide changed, only trapping a portion of the run on a give tide cycle.
• Drag Seine Nets: The Tsimshian also used drag seine nets to coral fish into the beach with the use of a boat. Using this technique, the desired species were selected out while other species were released to swim upriver. This method of selective fishing was highly effective and in operation until 1964 when they were outlawed by DFO for “conservation” reasons at the request of the canneries.
• Tidal Pulse Fishing: The Tlingit First Nation of Southeast Alaska, and likely First Nations at the mouth of the Skeena used wooden steak weirs with basket traps which trapped salmon on the first part of the incoming tide. Once high tide was reached, salmon would simply swim over the weir ensuring regular escapements upriver.
• Other types of traditional harvesting technologies used on the coast included a variety of weirs, reef traps, dip nets and trolling gear.
In-river Fishing Methods:
• In the Skeena river and tributaries, the Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Wet’suwet’en and Ned’u’ten First Nations utilized an intricate assortment of harvesting technologies to capture salmon in huge numbers, such as traps, weirs, baskets and dip nets.
• Weirs: This method of harvesting was by far, the most effective and the most prevalent on many of the smaller Skeena tributaries and some of the larger ones where river structure and water conditions allowed it.
• Dip nets: The Ned’u’ten First Nations people used dip nets and gaffs to remove the desired fish from the traps for processing nearby. At regular intervals, the traps were opened to allow salmon to swim upstream to their spawning sites. This system was outlawed by the provincial government in 1906 due to conservation concerns. In canyons such as Gitsegas and Moricetown strong currents forced fish to migrate along steep canyon walls, where dip nets were used to capture fish.
• Fish Wheels: This technique was originally developed by the Columbia River First nations and not historically used by the Skeena First Nations. This technology wa composed of a floating platform with rotating baskets powered by the rivers current. As the baskets turned around, they sccoped up salmon swimming upstream. The salmon then slid out of the basket into a live holding tank for harvest or release. Fish wheels are now an effective mode of harvesting by the Skeena river First Nations.
• Basket and trap: This method of harvesting fish uses a complex basket and lash wooden slit traps that were often combined with cutes to deliver the fish to harvesters waiting on the shore.
Unlike the modern day commercial fishery, the majority of the traditional harvest took place in areas close to where individual populations spawned, such as creek mouths and tributary rivers of the Skeena. This allowed for an amazing ability to control the harvest of individual runs, ensuring enough fish of any single population made it back to their natal areas to reproduce. Traditional technologies were also used by Skeena First Nations in areas of mixed stock fisheries such as those in the marine environment, mouth and main stem of the Skeena River. The difference was that the fishing pressure was spread over a much larger area, with much of it occurring in terminal areas of the watershed were specific populations were harvested in accordance with their annual returning numbers. In addition, these traditional live capture harvest methods allowed for the release of non-target species with minimal harm.