Fish Tales

Peter DeGreef is a commercial fisherman from North Saanich, British Columbia. We had a chat with him just after the end of his tuna season this winter. 

Richard Michelson is a salmon, prawn, and herring fisherman from Sointula B.C., a member of the Metlakatla First Nation, and sits on the southern panel of the Pacific Salmon Commission. He currently lives in Campbell River with his wife Emma.  We caught up with Richard while he was re-hanging gillnets with his uncle Gerald Sjoberg in preparation for the upcoming roe-herring fishery. Below is a summary of our Q&A. 

Cory Pearson is a Port Hardy based cod fisherman. She and her partner Mike own and operate the FV Swell Dancer. We caught up with her recently and talked about her taking the jump into fishing full-time. 

Jana Bookholt is a deckhand who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She’s trying her hand at some of the West Coast fisheries and talked with us just after the spot prawn season. Below is a summary of our conversation. 

Tanner Haase is a Pender Harbour-based deckhand, and he talked with us shortly before heading out for the 2020 prawn fishery. Below is a summary of our conversation. 

Jessica Taylor is a deckhand from Sointula. She agreed to talk with the BCYFN a few hours before heading to Knight’s Inlet for the spot prawn fishery. Below is a summary of our conversation.  

In early April, Melissa Collier got an unexpected call. A group of Nanaimo residents wanted to place a large order for swimming scallops, a wild mollusc she and her husband Joel harvest in the Salish Sea. Stuck in lockdown, the group wanted to support local food producers and knew of the Colliers’ scallop business.

Most summers, the docks in Alert Bay are bustling. Fishermen banter with friends and family. Boats steam towards fishing grounds on the North Coast and in nearby creeks and bights. Salmon, halibut, herring – the coastal wealth they’re harvesting will (hopefully) fill freezers and bank accounts and sustain fishing skills and cultural knowledge that have nourished the community for generations.

If isolation has a cure, it’s baiting fishhooks for hours and bobbing on the open sea. The work is physical, repetitive, and for second-generation Victoria-based fish harvester Tiare Boyes, quite similar to waiting out a pandemic.

Two weeks ago, Jordan Belveal watched as shelter-in-place orders shuttered the US west coast and decided it was time to put a long-time dream into action - selling his catch in B.C. Usually, the Nanaimo-based rockfish, halibut, and lingcod fisherman sells to high-end American restaurants. This market has dried up amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and, looking for ways to support his Vancouver Island neighbours, he decided to try and sell his catch locally. A single Facebook post l

Fraser MacDonald needs a big freezer. The Vancouver-based tuna and prawn fisherman is trying to sell more of his catch in B.C., but first he needs somewhere to keep his catch until it sells. He could rent space in an industrial-scale freezer facility, but this option doesn’t offer the 24/7 access he needs to supply the B.C. market he wants to serve. Buying his own cold storage unit – an investment of at least $18 000 – is a key step to growing his locally-focused fishing busi

In 2018, B.C. fishermen harvested wild salmon, swimming scallops, and dozens of species in between. In all, they landed close to 196 300 tonnes of wild seafood, worth about $48 million to the province’s fishermen – yet in BC, it’s difficult to buy fish harvested outside our front door. Most of our fish is exported to the US, China, and close to 80 other countries, while the majority of the fish consumed by BC residents comes from overseas. Why? This blog series features seve

Setting gillnets at dawn with a green smoothie in hand, is standard fishing-season practice for Scotia Siider, a 24-year-old, fifth-generation fisherman based in Sointula. Light comes early to the B.C. coast during the summer and the salmon gillnet fishery – open for only a few days each week on a good year – makes up a big part of her livelihood.

Helen-Anne Beans was three years old when she started fishing. It was inevitable – her family has been involved in the commercial fishery for generations, and each summer they’d head out from their home in Alert Bay to fish the B.C. coast. 

Enthusiasm and elbow grease got Laura Moore into fishing almost thirty years ago. They’re the only things about the industry that she hasn’t seen change during her time on the water. Originally from Ontario, Moore washed up in Prince Rupert during a cross-country trip with a friend in the late 1980s. The town was booming at the time, as hundreds of fishermen, cannery workers, and loggers converged on the northern B.C. hub.

Humpback whales dancing through a glassy sea at dawn convinced Kate Gillette she’d found her calling—two days into her first commercial fishing trip.