Wearing regalia bearing the raven crests of his mother’s clan, S’mooygyet (Chief) Algax’m Hax, Murray Smith, of the Gitwilgyoots Tribe, shared where he comes from. Sharing his lineage is a necessary precursor to welcoming visitors to his lands, he explained.

“When I get up here to speak, I have to tell you who I really am,” he told a group gathered in Prince Rupert, B.C., earlier this month. “My grandfather is Haida. My mother’s mother was Ts’msyen from Lax Kw’alaams.”

“There’s a word in my language called sg̱an,” he continued. “Sg̱an is a welcome mat made out of cedar and they place it at the bow of a canoe. When the Chief steps off, he doesn’t step on the ground, he steps on the welcome mat.”

“Chiefs, matriarchs, high-ranking women, young people that are here: the welcome mat is out,” he declared.

Algax’m Hax is a Hereditary Chief of the Gitwilgyoots, one of the Nine Allied Tribes of Lax Kw’alaams. Ten years ago, he and other chiefs signed the landmark Lelu Island Declaration, placing vital salmon habitat in the Skeena River estuary under the protection of Indigenous laws. In solidarity with the Gitwilgyoots Chiefs, leaders of First Nations and elected officials from across the region signed onto the declaration, which extended an invitation to all to join in “defending this unique and precious place and to protect it for all time.”

At the time, the estuary — one of the most productive and ecologically important salmon habitats in B.C. — was threatened by the looming prospect of a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal, which was to be built on the island. The following year, Malaysian oil and gas giant Petronas cancelled its plans to build the Pacific Northwest LNG facility. A totem pole was raised on the island, to keep watch and assert stewardship. Two years later, the Prince Rupert Port Authority imposed a development moratorium over the sensitive area.

This spring, as juvenile salmon migrated from the creeks and rivers out to the ocean, Indigenous leaders and allies met to mark the anniversary of the declaration and talk about the future of salmon stewardship in the estuary and watershed. Algax’m Hax spoke to the importance of salmon and expressed solidarity with all who give of themselves to protect the species.

“I see you all here fighting for one thing, and that’s for our salmon,” he said. “So goes the salmon, so do we.”

He looked around the room and said he was called to speak by his fellow chief, Yahaan, who wasn’t able to attend the gathering. He said he phoned Yahaan the night before the event and asked what he should say.

“He said, ‘You’ll find your words,’ ” Algax’m Hax recounted. “It’s easy when I sit amongst people that care, people that dedicate themselves to the wellness of our salmon here on the North Coast, on the coast altogether. I take my hat off to you.”

Salmon connect ‘communities, cultures and generations’

The protection of Lelu Island — and Flora and Agnew Banks, the delicate estuarine habitat around the island — took years of dedication and sacrifice by Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders and community members. 

Loggers, commercial fishers, scientists, politicians and more agreed building a massive LNG facility in the sensitive estuary would be a catastrophic mistake with far-reaching impacts on the livelihoods and cultures of communities across the region. Weaving Indigenous science and academic research, allyship and land defence, people from across the Skeena watershed and beyond came together to stand up for the salmon, sending ripples far and wide.

“Salmon do something extraordinary,” Julia Hill, executive director of SkeenaWild, said at the two-day event. “They connect ecosystems … communities, cultures and generations. They’re part of the social, cultural and economic fabric of this place.”

In the years since the declaration was signed, Indigenous and non-Indigenous salmon stewardship and science has been ongoing throughout the Skeena watershed. At the gathering, representatives from Fisheries and Oceans Canada presented alongside environmental organizations, academics and First Nations. 

Jonathan Moore, director of the Salmon Watersheds Lab at Simon Fraser University, said the reason the species is able to thrive today is because of this unity and the continuity of stewardship.

“Right now, as we gather, literally hundreds of millions of young salmon are migrating down from throughout the Skeena, potentially hundreds of kilometres away, and they’re all coming down just around the corner and they’re hitting the ocean,” he said, grinning. “It gives me chills, honestly, to think about that phenomenon that unfolds every year because of these intact ecosystems that have been stewarded for millennia.”

But while the protections of Lelu Island remain in place, wild salmon continue to face multiple threats. Many populations across the watershed are struggling. 

“This region is experiencing enormous pressure and rapid change, from climate change and warming waters to industrial expansion and growing global demand for resources,” Hill said. “At the same time, many communities here depend on resource-based economies. So the question isn’t development or no development. The question is how much, where and to whose benefit.”

That tension is rising amid talk about new pipelines from Alberta and the spectre of lifting the oil tanker moratorium on the North Coast. A slew of projects supported by the provincial and federal governments are putting increased pressure on already-impacted salmon habitat throughout the northwest. 

All of this is set against a backdrop of talk by the provincial government about amending or repealing B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. It leads some to fear hard-won battles like the protection of Lelu Island could be undermined by an onslaught of new industrial developments that would provide little benefit to the communities who would pay the highest costs.

“We’re witnessing this backlash against Indigenous Rights, against Indigenous stewardship, against title to the land being recognized,” Naxginkw Tara Marsden, Wilp sustainability director with the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, said. “We’re at a critical juncture for salmon stewardship and for the well-being of our communities.”

Marsden emphasized the intersection between rights and responsibilities.

“If we receive a full basket, we have to make sure we pass on a full basket,” she said. “So in my lifetime, if I see the salmon stocks decline to a point of extirpation, then I haven’t done my job for my kids, my grandkids.”

‘This impacts everybody’

For Grace Vickers, daughter of Andrea Vickers and revered carver Roy Henry Vickers, all conversations about stewardship and economy need to start from a shared baseline. Introducing herself as Heiltsuk belonging to the House of Walkus, she spoke about the importance of place-based knowledge.   

“What’s important today is what is sustaining us,” she said, during a youth panel at the gathering. “It’s the air we breathe, it’s the fish we eat and it’s the water we drink.”

Vickers and four other young women — Nasya Moore, Oasis Cleveland, Drew Harris and Kayla Mitchell — shared what it’s like being young at a time when so much is changing. They spoke about cultural disconnection and reconnection and the strength and restorative value of spending time on the land, harvesting and processing fish.

Harris, who is Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan, said she sees how land protections, human rights and stewardship of the likes of salmon can become siloed.

“Like: there’s the fish, there’s the land, there’s the people, there’s the health,” she said. “But it’s all connected. We can’t just silo these things and differentiate them and not talk about it together. Just seeing the different connections and looking from a different perspective can really help you understand the full picture and how to treat that problem.”

She said acknowledging the scale of the problems facing communities can be unifying and called out fossil fuel expansions as a global issue.

“Everywhere we go, we meet the youth and they all have their own projects that they’re fighting,” she said. “It’s sad but it connects us all together.”

“This fight isn’t just for the Indigenous people,” she added. “This impacts everybody.”

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Summary

• Historically, First Nations in B.C. who lived near floodplains respected tides and lived nomadically, until settlers disrupted water flow, creating dikes to pursue agriculture and urban development.
• Xwíʔləm̓nəc, or Addington Point Marsh, has been restored to a wetland after three years of collaboration led by Katzie First Nation.
• Restoring wetlands brings life to countless species and helps restore Indigenous people’s connection to their traditional territories. The marsh is part of Canada’s largest salmon-bearing watershed.

On a late April morning, a group of Katzie First Nation land guardians, conservation workers, government representatives and others trek down to Xwíʔləm̓nəc (Addington Point Marsh).

They gather in the First Nation’s Lower Mainland territory to celebrate the long-awaited completion of a wetland restoration project connecting to the Stó:lō (Fraser River).

Mike Leon leads Katzie’s team of eight guardians, and has been involved with the marsh restoration project from the beginning. After everyone bypasses a locked gate — there to reduce the risk of bear-human encounters — they stop by the water, and he addresses the group.

“I would really like to raise my hands to all of you, to the hard work and willingness to work with us, to be with us, to be with this land,” he said.

The restoration project was funded by the B.C. government and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, implemented by Katzie First Nation, Resilient Waters, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Nature Trust of British Columbia, with many helping hands involved.

For three years the partners worked together to reestablish waterflow in the marsh. The wetlands connection to the Pitt River and South Fraser River system was disconnected when early settlers installed a dike, which has since been removed. 

“I love doing the work. I love being on our territory and helping the environment,” Mackenzie Adams, another Katzie guardian, added. Adams monitored the site throughout the project, and collected water and bird surveys to compare data before and after restoration. 

According to the B.C. Wildlife Federation, wetland monitoring is just as important as the initial restoration during a project. “Monitoring, maintenance, and data collection help us evaluate the effectiveness of restoration techniques and improve the performance and function of future projects,” it reads on their website.

Xwíʔləm̓nəc is now letting nature take its course, and with the area being home to one of the country’s largest salmon runs and smallest sandhill crane populations, monitoring the wetland is critical work for Katzie Guardians. 

“I was there one of the first days … comparing the first day to the last day was pretty eye opening because you can already see the differences from the river water coming in. It will be an awesome habitat for all birds and salmon fry,” Adams said. 

While the exact impact is currently unknown, wetland restoration benefits are well documented. Leon’s team will be on top of that data, working with partners to restore and conserve native plants and animals in the area.

Relationships between Katzie Guardians and partners in the project have flourished. A local property owner who attended the celebration shared their initial concerns after seeing excavation equipment clearing a path to the dike, and their relief after learning more about the endeavour. Beyond its environmental impacts, the project has brought people together from all walks of life who want to see salmon and wildlife in and around the Fraser River thrive.

Restoration project had many partners, but Katzie had final say

Dan Straker, the manager for the Resilient Waters project, was a lead organizer under the direction of Katzie Guardians and leadership. 

“With Katzie First Nation, it was determined early on they would have final decision making and be informing the project along the way. All the partners fell in line with that idea and thinking,” Straker told the Narwhal. 

“What we ended up with was this really nice blended way of doing things, from a more two-eyed seeing approach.” 

Leon added that, throughout the endeavour, Katzie brought in their customs, culture and laws.

“It’s really important and special to us to know our place names in our territory. When we have our guardians come out, we’re honored to be on those place names such as Xwíʔləm̓nəc,” Leon said. 

It’s a sentiment shared by Katzie’s guardian coordinator April Pierre. In a quiet moment of emotion in the circle, she addressed a reality shared by many First Nations people: growing up away from her homelands.

The Xwíʔləm̓nəc restoration project gave Pierre an opportunity to spend time on land she had never been to — the land of her ancestors. It’s one emotional moment of many that were shared during the celebration, as others reflected on the marine and wildlife already making appearances in the marsh.

Dikes were built to create flat land for agriculture in the area since the late 1800s. Restoring the marsh’s connection to the river has immense ecological benefits and cultural benefits for local First Nations.

“Conservation organizations in previous decades had a different approach to conservation land management that I think sometimes excluded other organizations and nations,” Ducks Unlimited senior restoration biologist, Eric Balke, said.

“I think we are learning new and better ways of moving forward, more collaborative ways, and this project is a great example of that.”

Balke has been involved with restoring Xwíʔləm̓nəc since brainstorming and planning days, eventually passing the reins to his colleague Alison Martin.

“What excites me about this project is it’s all about restoring relationships,” he said. “You’re restoring the relationship between the river and these wetlands that were formerly alienated by dikes. You’re restoring the relationship between Xwíʔləm̓nəc and juvenile salmon that previously were prevented from accessing the site … it’s also restoring the relationship between Katzie and their kin.”

Wetland restoration benefits salmon

In the Pacific Northwest, both people and the ecosystem know how important salmon is. Xwíʔləm̓nəc is connected to Canada’s largest salmon-bearing watershed, the Fraser River. 

According to the Pacific Salmon Foundation, “floodplains provide critical, food-rich habitat for juvenile salmon. These low-lying areas adjacent to stream channels allow young salmon to grow healthy and strong before their journey to the ocean.”

But dikes disrupt the river’s connection to the marsh, blocking valuable nutrients and harming the salmon and other species.

“Wetlands, such as tidal marshes, help to collect sediment that build up the marsh platform, helping to protect our communities from flooding,” Balke said.

“This land that settlers found is super valuable for farming and agriculture, it was valuable because of the sediment that was delivered, because of the nutrients that were delivered by the river,” he said.

“When we construct dikes we disconnect the river from its floodplain. The river can no longer deliver those critical ingredients.”

A huge benefit of restoring tidal marshes is that they are one of the most effective ways of capturing and storing carbon, contaminants and pollutants that flow downstream. 

Further, Xwíʔləm̓nəc is home to wapoto and tule, two traditional plants for Katzie First Nation that have been impacted from dikes. Restoring the wetland is giving members of the nation hope that these plants can be harvested for food and mat-making once again.

The marsh is also home to sandhill cranes, whose local population has hovered around 30 to 35 birds for decades, Myles Lamont told the Narwhal. He was brought into the project by Katzie as a sandhill crane consultant.

“The remaining birds seem to nest in golf courses and some very small regional parks … Unfortunately they’ve been getting struck by golf balls. Quite commonly over the last 10 to 15 years, I’ve had to rescue a few birds that have had broken legs or injuries as a result of golf ball strikes, particularly in Richmond,” Lamont said. 

He is hopeful that restoring Xwíʔləm̓nəc to a wetland will bring in enough water to create a nesting habitat for the birds, drawing them away from golf courses. As folks went around the sharing circle, Lamont spotted one overhead, calling out, “Crane!” 

“It’s really cool being a part of it. Just knowing that we’re making a difference, I’m making a difference,” Adams said.“The salmon habitat has a place to go throughout the winter and so do the sandhill cranes and birds. It’s a good feeling … I feel accomplished.”

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As the morning sun beams down upon them, dozens of elementary students eagerly make their way from their bus to a large garden plot of soil by the banks of sq’awsitkʷ (the Okanagan River).

Waiting for the group from Outma Sqilx’w Cultural School are shrubs native to syilx homelands — snowberry, chokecherry, saskatoon berry and wild roses — and trees including willow.

The saplings, still in their infancy, are ready to be planted with the help of the children’s hands and enthusiasm. 

“We’re going to save the world! We’re going to save the world!” one student enthusiastically proclaims as they stride along.

And with the guidance of adults — who had brushed the saplings’ roots with mycorrhizal fungi or bone meal fertilizer to help support their growth — the students get to digging and planting. Just steps away, the river roars past. 

The vegetation will not only grow to provide shade and help keep the water cool for future salmon migrating through the passage site, but it’ll also create habitat for different animals, too — birds, rodents and bugs, to name a few.

Changed landscape, restored ecosystem

The community planting event was a two-day effort that began on Nov. 7. Participants planted roughly 500 native species into the land around the dam’s fish passage channel, which opened in August.

At this point the waterway diverts into two channels — the main vein going straight through the Okanagan Lake Dam in sn’pink’tn (Penticton), and a smaller flow bypassing the dam into kɬúsx̌nítkʷ (Okanagan Lake) through the fish passage.

The Okanagan Nation Alliance and several partners built the fish passage around the dam earlier this year to support returning salmon as they migrate to the upstream side of the dam, hoping to spawn in waterways connected to the lake.

“In 10 years, it’ll be an absolutely changed landscape,” said Lee McFadyen, an environmental advocate who helped organize the event.

“It will have a changed feel to it — it will become an ecosystem unto itself.”

For decades, salmon were blocked from moving upriver into the lake because of the dam and channelization — an engineering process to straighten a winding waterway. For thousands of years before settler colonialism, the fish swam freely into kɬúsx̌nítkʷ and its creeks.

McFadyen said this fall season’s salmon run saw the first sockeye in decades return to the lake. 

“The first time since the 1920s,” she said, proudly.

To build the fish passage channel, some trees had to be removed, disturbing soil in the area. McFadyen said part of Okanagan Nation Alliance’s philosophy is to plant native species when soil is disturbed by a project.

Planting event was a ‘collaborative effort’ with over 200 children and adults participating

The group from Outma Sqilx’w Cultural School were among the 115 other students across four schools in the region who took part in the planting event’s first day. 

Additionally, roughly 100 adults joined the planting, too, as well as community youth groups including Penticton Scouts and Venturers.

“What I really love about it is the collaborative effort — the coming together of communities. That is so important,” said McFadyen.

“If we all don’t work together, we’re not going to make it.”

She said it was wonderful to have syilx kids there, whose ancestral relationship with salmon “has been so much part of their history.”

Being out on the land and learning gives the children “a sense of place, a sense of time, a sense of pride and a sense of belonging,” she added.

“One of the things that they might take away — and I hope that they do — is a pride of place, and a reconnection with their past. But moving forward with it.”

She called the planting event “a historical moment” for everyone involved.

“It is righting a wrong,” she said. “It is food for the future for so many species and communities.”

Land-based learning is integral to syilx education, teacher says

nx̌əx̌sítatkʷ Shayla Allison, a culture and language teacher at Outma Sqilx’w Cultural School, accompanied three of her grade school classes to the planting event.

She said that the land-based learning activities that her classrooms engage in — from planting and harvesting, to visiting hunting camps — are “authentic to who we are as a people.”

“Before there were Western systems, schools and classrooms, our children have always learned … by being, connecting, learning and being intimate with the connections around you, like life and land,” Allison said.

“That’s how we survived and lived. We knew about the science of plants, ecosystems, habitat — everything. The ways that we learned came from those ways of connecting with people and places.”

Every week, she said, they go out on the land and learn.

“Just connecting with the land. Also making sure that we’re respectful to the land, and leaving it better than it was when we got here,” she said.

“The way I always try to look at it, is wanting these kids to not learn from a book. Or learn that science is from a Western construct, or done and taught in Western old school ways of sitting in a class.”

The beauty is seeing young people with learning or social challenges “thrive in that outdoor environment” and become “whole new kids.”

“They get out, they’re the ones that are digging in the land — they’re smiling and they’re helpful. You see a new person,” she said.

“You see the value of taking them out, and seeing them be less censored and scared or afraid of being wrong. There is no wrong.”

Whatever teachings they learn on the land are then brought back to the classroom, where they then “solidify what they learned and how they learned it,” Allison said.

“Everyday, they learn how — one, they’re sacred as being children — but also, they can do good things and be helpful, even with learning. Your energy, your prayers and your thoughts go into everything that you do,” she said.

“They learn, each time, about coming with good intentions and good feelings, being helpful.”

Coming in with good intentions enables them to be mindful of where they are and who they’re with, she said.

“We’re all here to learn. We may make mistakes, but we make sure to come with good intentions and heart,” she said.

“It teaches them to be more observant and seeing — seeing the natural world and the people.”

There’s no better place to educate children “than getting out and doing things” through experiential learning, she concluded — “finding a way to connect everything to what we’ve already always known — to be authentic in sqilx’w and Indigenous teachings wherever you can.”

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Less than two months after receiving approvals from the provincial and federal government, Prime Minister Mark Carney has referred the Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility to the Major Projects Office for review.

“Ksi Lisims will become Canada’s second-largest LNG facility with the capacity to export 12 million tonnes of LNG per year to new markets in Asia,” Carney said on Thursday, adding that the project is expected to yield $4 billion per year in gross domestic product.The North Coast transmission line was also on the latest list of projects picked for the Major Projects Office to review. Carney also announced BC Hydro will get a $139.5-million loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to support initial work on the transmission line.

The Major Projects Office was created to oversee the Liberal government’s effort to speed up approvals for major infrastructure projects deemed to be of national interest. In September, Carney’s government referred an initial list of candidate projects — including Phase two of the LNG Canada export terminal and the Red Chris Mine expansion in northern B.C. — to the office for consideration.

Ksi Lisims LNG is a joint venture involving the Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government, U.S.-based LNG project developer Western LNG and Canadian natural gas consortium Rockies LNG.

While the B.C. and Canadian governments have emphasized the Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government’s stake in the Ksi Lisims project, documents filed with the B.C. government show the primary owner and operator of Ksi Lisims is Texas-based Western LNG. Employees of Western LNG, which has offices in Houston, Texas and Vancouver, met with senior provincial government officials 69 times since the beginning of 2024, according to B.C. lobbying records.

Both Ksi Lisims and the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline — which will supply fracked gas to Ksi Lisims and LNG Canada, a larger export terminal in Kitimat, B.C. — are backed by Blackstone Inc., a U.S. investment company.

In March 2024, the Nisg̱a’a Nation and Western LNG announced a deal to buy TC Energy’s proposed Prince Rupert gas pipeline project. The project has also finalized two agreements to sell its product. The agreements commit Shell Canada and TotalEnergies to buying two million tonnes of LNG per year from the plant — totalling roughly one-third of Ksi Lisims’ expected annual production.

Four of the eleven projects referred to the Major Projects Office are in B.C., a fact Premier David Eby highlighted at his own press conference on Thursday.“British Columbia is going to be the economic engine of this new economy that we’re building going forward, and it is great to see some recognition from Ottawa that this is going to be the case,” he said.

The Nisg̱a’a Nation is backing Ksi Lisims but other First Nations oppose it

Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government president Eva Clayton has described Ksi Lisims as an economic opportunity that will benefit the nation and the world.

“Ksi Lisims LNG represents a transformational opportunity for all participating B.C. nations, and it will be developed in line with our nation’s high environmental standards,” Clayton said in a statement emailed to The Narwhal following the approval of Ksi Lisims.

But other First Nations oppose the project. The Lax Kw’alaams Band, for example, is southwest of the newly approved LNG facility and tankers filled with the liquefied gas will pass by the village’s coast regularly. Lax Kw’alaams says the LNG facility would negatively affect its traditional territory and has expressed concerns about the project’s potential impact on B.C.’s ability to meet its climate targets.

In September, B.C.’s environmental assessment office concluded dispute resolution processes initiated by Lax Kw’alaams and the Metlakatla First Nation as part of Ksi Lisims’ environmental assessment. The resolution failed to address the First Nations’ concerns about the project’s potential impacts on their communities, according to the environmental assessment office.

In October 2024, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, whose traditional territory includes parts of the Nass and Skeena watersheds, filed an application for judicial review with the provincial court. The Hereditary Chiefs alleged the environmental assessment office failed in its duty to consult and to adequately protect fish species was rejected by the court in early September.Simogyet Watakhayetsxw (Hereditary Chief) Deborah Good said Ksi Lisims could destroy habitat essential to local salmon populations.

“We’ve had to go to court to fight for our way of life and especially the continuing health of our salmon stocks,” Good said in a statement. “We won’t give up because for us, this is a fight for our way of life — for the salmon that have sustained our economy, culture, people and way of life since time immemorial.”In October, Lax Kw’alaams and the Metlakatla First Nation each filed requests for judicial review with the Federal Court, alleging the minister of environment and climate change ignored their concerns about the adverse impacts of the massive LNG project.Eby said he expects the Major Projects Office will help the province work toward resolving the “complexity” created by projects that span multiple First Nations’ territories and often involve issues of federal jurisdiction.“That’s very helpful to us to resolve long-standing issues, to win support for the project or to help do things faster,” he said. 

Ksi Lisims may eventually connect to B.C.’s grid, but first it will run on gas

Ksi Lisims is located near the Nass estuary at the north end of Pearse Island, an area that is home to salmon, oolichan and many other fish, as well as shellfish and mammal species important to local First Nations. The floating facility would be capable of producing up to 12 million tonnes of LNG annually. 

Like the second phase of the LNG Canada facility, which was among the first crop of projects earmarked for potential federal fast-tracking in September, Ksi Lisims has been approved by the provincial and federal governments. But it has yet to receive a final investment decision — the definitive commitment to investing in and proceeding with a project — from its backers.

Carney said the Major Projects Office will offer support on financing and “help coordinate timely approvals” of the main aspects of the Ksi Lisims project. That includes the pipeline to supply Ksi Lisims with fracked gas, a new electricity transmission line and the floating LNG export facility, as well as “related transmission infrastructure” — namely, the North Coast transmission line.Ksi Lisims will be “one of the world’s cleanest LNG operations,” according to Carney, who said the facility has “the potential to reach net zero by 2030.” To achieve that goal, Ksi Lisims will need to access clean electricity via the North Coast transmission line.

But the transmission line — which the government has exempted from environmental assessment and plans to block the B.C. Utilities Commission from reviewing — isn’t expected to be operational until 2032, while Ksi Lisims hopes to begin operations in 2028. That would have left the facility out of compliance with a 2023 provincial regulation requiring all LNG facilities to be net zero by 2030. However, B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix issued “a clarification” of the 2023 net-zero policy in March, advising the environmental assessment agency that new LNG facilities need to be ready to become net zero by 2030 but can use natural gas if clean electricity is not available “due to circumstances beyond the control of the proponent.”

The provincial approval allows Ksi Lisims to use natural gas-fired barges to power its operations until access to BC Hydro’s grid is available. A 2024 briefing note prepared for Eby shows Ksi Lisims requested 600 megawatts from BC Hydro, making it one of the most energy-intensive projects the province has ever seen.

With files from Matt Simmons

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Two salmon conservation technicians slowly drag a wide net through the north arm of the Fraser River, past the entrance to a marsh that until recently was so densely packed with invasive cattails, even small juvenile salmon may have struggled to navigate it.

As they start to close the net, known as a seine, to temporarily trap any fish they may have caught, biologists Dave Scott and Daniel Stewart wade into the river to help. They use a small netted scoop to pluck out a tiny fish and deposit it into a bucket for a closer look.

The team’s already caught a pile of three-spined stickleback and a small staghorn sculpin today, but it’s the juvenile salmon that elicits a cheer.

While most young coho and sockeye salmon pass through the Fraser River estuary more quickly, for juvenile Chinook salmon these tidal marshes offer a crucial refuge where they can feed and grow for about six weeks before venturing out into the sea. But a lot of these important marshes have been degraded or lost entirely to urban and industrial development, just one of the many challenges declining B.C. salmon populations are struggling to overcome. And the difficulties faced by salmon in this particular marsh reveal that repairing those habitats is no easy solution.

This marsh — known as the Woods Island Marsh — was created in the 1990s as compensation for habitat destroyed by a temporary barge off-loading facility used during construction of a runway at the Vancouver International Airport. In a statement, Alexandra Coutts, a spokesperson for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said the proponent was released from requirements to monitor and maintain the marsh after it met its targets for effectiveness. 

Today the marsh sits within the Sea Island Conservation Area managed by Environment and Climate Change Canada. But for a long time after it was deemed to be functioning effectively, there was very little management of the marsh itself, says Scott, the Lower Fraser research and restoration director with Raincoast Conservation Foundation. 

“Me and Dan aren’t of the opinion that you can build a human-constructed marsh area and then think that it’s going to turn into a natural ecosystem that needs zero management in the future,” Scott said. “It’s just not very plausible.”

The evolution of Woods Island Marsh supports their hypothesis. Invasive cattails moved in, which “really changes the whole food web dynamic,” Stewart said. Cattail can take longer to break down than some native plants, and ultimately affects the availability of food for growing salmon preparing for their journey into the vast Pacific Ocean. 

Some three decades after it was first constructed, Raincoast has been working to restore the marsh and improve salmon habitat with federal funding. In March, Fisheries and Oceans Canada committed $2.6 million to support Raincoast’s salmon habitat restoration work in the Lower Fraser, including at Woods Island, over three years. The federal and provincial governments also jointly committed $5 million last year for Ducks Unlimited Canada’s habitat restoration efforts, which includes restoration of old offset projects, Coutts said. 

Much of the restoration work at the Woods Island Marsh was done earlier this year. Piles of sediment were dug out to improve water flow and thousands of seedlings, mostly Lyngbye’s sedge, were re-planted after their cattail competitors were cut back. 

At low tide, the tall tufts of grass-like sedge offer splashes of green against the mucky marsh bottom. In just a few years each ebbing tide will reveal a lush meadow of prime rearing habitat.

“Sedge is this highly productive plant that breaks down and is an important part of the detrital food web of this estuary,” Stewart said. The bits of broken-down sedge are food for invertebrates which are in turn eaten by juvenile salmon, like the one swimming in the researchers’ bucket. 

Ongoing maintenance needed to ensure offset projects offer good salmon habitat

The newly restored area will require ongoing monitoring and maintenance in the years ahead. 

So the two biologists and their team will continue to cut back any invasive cattails and check in on how juvenile salmon use the restored area. (Though Stewart did note non-governmental organizations sometimes struggle to get long-term support for monitoring and maintenance from funders who would rather support new restoration efforts.)

It’s this ongoing attention they’d like to see paid to all offset projects in the estuary. For decades, companies have been expected to invest in habitat compensation sites to offset the impacts of industrial projects. More than 100 tidal marshes have been created in the Fraser River estuary since the 1980s, according to a study by Stewart and his co-authors, which was published in the journal Wetlands last year. But they found that sites have a limited chance of success if they are ultimately ignored, even after some initial years of monitoring. 

“We’ve sometimes been a little bit overconfident in how they’re functioning,” Stewart said. “In some cases, it kind of feels like we’re flying in the dark.”

Alongside issues with invasive plants, their review of 78 constructed marshes found half had lost vegetated area since they were first built, leaving mudflat where there was once marsh. While further study is needed to better understand the cause of those losses, the researchers suggest grazing by Canada geese and erosion from boat wakes could be partially responsible. Overall, about nine per cent of the marsh area in their study had died back, undermining the goal that these projects would help offset habitat destruction from industrial projects.

“There is something broken about the way we manage these ecosystems,” Stewart said. “A lot of sites are in disrepair, are completely invaded by invasive species and are really in need of ongoing maintenance.”

Scott said it might be difficult to require project proponents to return to their offset projects every 10 years or so for maintenance — “that just isn’t really going to fly in development,” he warns — but he does see a role for the federal government in long-term management.

While Raincoast and its partners were able to secure federal funding to support restoration of the Woods Island Marsh, there’s still no consistent long-term management plan for legacy offset projects to ensure they continue to meet their goals. 

As it stands, projects authorized under the Fisheries Act are required to monitor offsetting projects for five-to-10 years or more, depending on the results, to ensure they’re functioning as intended, Coutts said. Once they’ve met their effectiveness targets the proponent is released from its responsibilities and the site has the same federal protections as all other fisheries habitats, Coutts explained in the statement.

More industrial pressures in Fraser River add urgency

In the Fraser River estuary, an area that’s already lost the majority of its floodplain habitat and where major new industrial projects are still being built, the lack of long-term management planning is an especially pressing concern. 

It’s one of the reasons Stewart opposed the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project, which will destroy about 177 hectares of habitat in the Fraser River estuary. The Port of Vancouver says it is creating and restoring 102 hectares of habitat for species like Chinook and Dungeness crab, including tidal marshes. But Stewart isn’t convinced this will adequately offset the harms the project creates in the long-term.

“Based on the mixed outcomes of habitat compensation and offset projects in the estuary to date, including recent projects, I am concerned that the resources required to effectively manage and maintain these projects over the long-term may be underestimated. Also, insufficient accountability may exist to ensure their functioning in the long-term,” he said in an email to The Narwhal.

Going forward, Stewart said he sees a need for a fund that companies contribute to, which could support long-term monitoring and maintenance of offset sites by First Nations or non-governmental organizations. 

As part of his doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia, he’s also comparing the insect and fish populations that use constructed marshes relative to natural marsh areas. This kind of research is important, he said. “The more we can learn about these sites, the more opportunity we have to do things better going forward.”

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Environmental groups and U.S. elected officials are raising concerns about a proposed gold mine they say could contaminate the Taku River watershed and threaten wild salmon across the B.C.-Alaska border.

The Canadian-owned mine, called New Polaris, is in the early stages of a B.C. environmental assessment to determine if it can proceed.

Despite its name, New Polaris isn’t new. The northwest B.C. mine, which sits on the banks of the Tulsequah River, roughly halfway between Atlin, B.C., and Juneau, Alaska, operated from 1937 to 1951. It used to be called the Polaris Taku mine. At the time, it was owned by Cominco, a predecessor to Canadian mining giant Teck Resources.

Cominco also owned another mine five kilometres upriver called Tulsequah Chief — which later became infamous for leaching toxic waste into the river for decades. Cleanup and closure of the Tulsequah Chief mine has been underway for several years but is still not completed. 

Since the early 1990s, New Polaris has been owned by Vancouver-based Canagold. In July, as gold prices rose, Canagold submitted a detailed project description to B.C.’s environmental assessment office, kicking off the formal review process. 

Environmental groups advocating for the cleanup of the Tulsequah Chief mine and protection of the Taku River watershed say it’s problematic to revive the New Polaris mine while Tulsequah Chief is still polluting.

“We think it’s unconscionable for B.C. to be giving any consideration to the development of a new lower Taku mine when the nearby Tulsequah Chief mine continues its pollution unabated,” Will Patric, executive director of Alaska-based Rivers Without Borders, told The Narwhal in an email.

He said the group will be sending comments to the B.C. environmental assessment office during a public engagement period that ends on Dec. 12. The engagement period is described by the province as “public feedback on the draft plan” to inform what will be included in the assessment. Patric said the group will submit specific comments about the plans as well as “emphasizing our main point that there should not be consideration of a new lower Taku mine as long as Tulsequah Chief’s toxic discharge into the Taku watershed continues.”

“From a big picture perspective — what makes sense for the public interest, what is respectful of downstream stakeholders and what’s appropriate for an international river system that is the top salmon producer for the entire transboundary region — we believe it’s the message B.C. needs to be getting,” he said.

New Polaris mine would be developed within Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area 

The New Polaris mine is located in what’s described as the largest roadless Pacific watershed in North America. The Tulsequah and Taku rivers are highly productive salmon rivers and the area is home to large populations of wildlife including moose, wolves and bears. 

In early 2023, after decades of pollution from Tulsequah Chief, the Taku River Tlingit First Nation declared the area protected as the T’akú Tlatsini Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area, or T’akú IPCA for short. An IPCA is an area where Indigenous people lead conservation and stewardship efforts in accordance with their own priorities and laws. The Taku River Tlingit protected area doesn’t preclude mining projects, however, with the remaining 40 per cent of the watershed identified as “specially managed landscapes,” according to the declaration. 

“These specially managed areas include zones with high mineral potential, where the T’akú IPCA provides opportunities for respectful, clean mineral extraction and other uses that support a low carbon economy,” a press release at the time noted.

The Taku River Tlingit First Nation was not able to provide comment before publication. Canagold indicated in its government filings it is working with the nation on developing the mine and has signed agreements that uphold the nation’s rights.

U.S. Congresswoman urges greater protections for transboundary mining impacts

On the other side of the border, U.S. groups are pushing for a seat at the table. To build and operate the mine, Canagold would have to cross the international border regularly, shipping construction supplies into the mine site and transporting ore out. 

“Canagold is talking about a huge number of flights in and out of the lower Taku to support its mine, but a lot of barging will also be required,” Patric said. “The Taku is not well suited to barging; previous attempts have been failures and Alaskans are very concerned about the impacts of barging on shallow and very critical salmon habitat.” 

According to the detailed project description the company submitted to the assessment office, the underground mine will produce up to 1,000 tonnes of ore daily for 10 years and employ about 200 people. 

In August, two U.S. senators and a congresswoman, Mary Sattler Peltola, wrote to President Joe Biden, demanding the administration increase pressures on Canada to clean up the Tulsequah Chief mine and to “establish an international framework to prevent and resolve disputes in these transboundary waters.”

“Without unified action from the executive branch, Canadian mining activity in this region will increasingly endanger U.S. communities and resources, such as salmon, without any mechanism for recourse or compensation,” they wrote.

Salmon Beyond Borders director Breanna Walker said Alaskans “have no real voice” in the mine planning process. 

“Anyone familiar with the Taku knows it’s a shallow, dynamic river system that quickly changes and isn’t easy to navigate,” she said in a Dec. 4 press release. “Canagold’s plans are high-risk and an accident would damage some of the best wild salmon spawning habitat in the world.”

Canagold did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment before publication but the company has stated it is engaging with Alaska tribes and other potentially affected U.S. groups.

“Although not explicitly mandated by the province of B.C., Canagold is committed to engaging with Indigenous peoples in Alaska,” the company said in its project description.

Updated on Dec. 6, 2024, at 1:00 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to clarify the New Polaris mine would produce up to 1,000 tonnes of ore daily, not of gold, as previously stated. On Dec. 10 at 12:43 p.m. PT, the subbed of this article was also updated to reflect the change.

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This story is a collaboration with the newspaper The Guardian. 

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On a clear August morning, Skookum John maneuvers his fishing boat, Sweet Marie, out of the Tofino harbour and into the deep blue waters of Clayoquot Sound on Canada’s west coast. 

On shore, the late summer sun shines on visitors from all over the world who have flocked to Tofino, a bustling fishing town on Vancouver Island, to wander in and out of surf shops, art galleries and restaurants and pile into small boats in the hope of glimpsing orca, humpback and grey whales.

“You’ll never find this anywhere in the world,” John says, gesturing through Sweet Marie’s window at the mosaic of islands and mountains, cloaked in thick green rainforests, that form part of the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. 

The Sweet Marie motors deeper into Clayoquot Sound, past a web of inviting channels and inlets, and cruises past a raft of sea otters resting in the gentle swells. Once hunted nearly to extinction, sea otters are one of the iconic species found in the biosphere reserve, along with sea lions, seals, wild salmon and bald eagles.

John, a member of Ahousaht First Nation, makes his living on the water, where he helps train Coast Guard members in marine rescue, ferries passengers to islands and hot springs and takes visitors on whale watching tours. Today, John is taking members of Clayoquot Action, a local conservation organization focused on protecting wild salmon, to the site of one of the area’s more controversial industries: open-net pen salmon farms.

Dan Lewis, the co-founder and executive director of Clayoquot Action, is incredulous that industrial salmon farming is allowed to take place in a globally recognized protected area.

“Why are we doing this here?” he wonders, gesturing at the rich waters, home to a colourful array of sea life that includes giant rock scallops, tufted anemones in green, pink and white, dark green kelp forests, red sea urchins and purple-tinged Dungeness crabs.

Clayoquot Sound is also home to some of the last 60 salmon farms left on Canada’s west coast. For decades, as many as 100 farms in Canadian waters have raised mostly non-native Atlantic salmon in pens in the Pacific Ocean. 

But now the salmon farming industry, blamed for contributing to the collapse of wild salmon stocks, faces an uncertain future. In June, the Canadian government announced open-net pen salmon farming will be banned from coastal waters in July 2029, as part of a commitment “to protecting wild salmon and promoting more sustainable aquaculture practices.”

Concerns about the industry’s impact on wild salmon played a major role in the closure of about three dozen farms in the province of British Columbia over the past seven years, after Clayoquot Action and other groups documented sea lice outbreaks and other diseases such as piscine orthoreovirus in farmed fish, including at farms along migration routes for wild salmon. 

Sea lice are parasites that feed on fish, causing stress and damage to their immune systems and making them more vulnerable to disease, while piscine orthoreovirus causes damage to the heart, liver, spleen and other internal organs in salmon.

The decision to ban all remaining British Columbia farms, lauded by conservation groups and wild salmon advocates, has been soundly criticized by Canada’s salmon farming industry, which largely consists of multinational corporations that farm salmon around the world, including in the U.K. The industry says moving salmon farming to closed containment systems on land or in the water, as the government suggests, is not logistically feasible and would be prohibitively expensive. 

For John, who has been campaigning against salmon farms since 2015, the Canadian government’s new 2029 deadline may just be an empty promise, following its earlier, unfulfilled commitment to remove open-net pen salmon farms by 2025.

“I won’t believe anything that the government says until I see it happen,” John says as the Sweet Marie slowly circles a floating salmon farm nestled into a small bay, barely a stone’s throw from the seaweed-strewn shore.

John’s skepticism is shared by Hasheukumiss, a Hereditary Chief of the Ahousaht Nation and president of the Maaqutusiis Hahoulthee Stewardship Society, which manages economic development for the nation. But the two men have very different perspectives on the salmon farming industry, mirroring broader divisions about whether open-net pen farms should be allowed to operate in Canadian waters.

In 2010, the Ahousaht Nation inked an agreement allowing Cermaq Global, a Mitsubishi subsidiary that also farms salmon and trout in Norway, Chile and Scotland, to operate in its territorial waters. The agreement was subsequently renewed with changes, according to Hasheukumiss, also known as Richard George.

“One of the things that I wanted to address was the environmental concerns because we are the true stewards of our backyard,” he says. “It was the sea lice and the pathogens that were the biggest concerns we had.”

According to Hasheukumiss, Cermaq was responsive and worked with the nation to address that concern. 

Hasheukumiss’ assessment of the Canadian government’s handling of fish farms is less rosy. Since he inherited his title in 2020, he says he has discussed the issue with three different fisheries ministers, yet has seen little in the way of consultation with his nation.

A five-year transition away from open-net pen farms is not a realistic timeline for the industry to achieve a paradigm shift, he maintains. “In five years, there is no way this industry — or any industry — can go to fully contained systems.” 

As the Sweet Marie noses slowly towards a rectangle of floating walkways bordered by black net fencing, John stands, slips the engine into neutral and flips back the tarp that tops the modest cabin. He calls out to one of the overall-clad salmon farm workers, jokingly asking why he’s pretending to be busy. It’s his nephew, who recently started working at the Cermaq farm, one of 13 facilities in Clayoquot Sound that employ about 20 Ahousaht members. 

The two banter while Lewis stands at the Sweet Marie’s bow, peering through the nets to get a view of the interior of the pens, as part of the group’s regular monitoring of the industry’s operations. 

At an unstocked salmon farm nearby, the Cermaq’s delousing boat, Aqua Service, towers over the Sweet Marie from its berth. The vessel has a large back deck outfitted with a patented water-based delousing system. The system pulls fish from the pens and uses seawater to flush off the lice. The treatment process takes just 0.2 seconds, aiming to reduce stress and fish death.

In Ahousaht territory, Cermaq has been experimenting with technology to reduce the industry’s impact on wild salmon. A semi-closed containment system — consisting of a semi-permeable bag that stretches 25 metres below the water — is used to raise young salmon smolts while reducing their exposure to sea lice. The bag draws water from deep in the water column where sea lice can’t survive. 

Fewer sea lice on the farmed smolts make it less likely wild salmon swimming past the farms will pick up the parasites. After one year, the young salmon are moved to open-net pens to grow to marketable size.

The semi-closed containment system Cermaq is trialling is expensive — running it costs $20,000 per month in diesel alone. Brian Kingzett, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, representing Cermaq and other companies, says there is little appetite to make big investments and navigate the time-consuming licensing process for new technology, especially with the future of the industry in limbo.

“There’s lots of reasons why farmers want to go to closed containment for that first year; Cermaq has been trying to do it,” he says. “It took them six years to get a licence. We only have a five-year window.” 

Kingzett says the industry was “completely gobsmacked” by the Canadian government’s decision to remove open-net pen salmon farms by 2029, calling closed containment “an unfeasible option.” 

Setting up enough land-based salmon farming capacity to replace current open-net pen production could cost $1.8 billion, according to a 2022 report commissioned by the British Columbia government. The report’s authors said it was difficult to estimate the costs of setting up medium and large-scale farms because there are no land-based salmon farms in the world that are reliably producing large amounts of fish.

B.C.’s first land-based salmon farm, Kuterra, is now raising steelhead trout, after achieving barely one-third of its production target, according to the B.C. government report. Another land-based venture, West Creek, has stopped farming salmon altogether. And on the other side of the country, near the Atlantic Ocean, the land-based salmon farm Sustainable Blue suffered a mass die-off in November 2023 and is now in receivership. 

But Lewis says closed containment systems on land are the only option if the Canadian government is serious about protecting wild salmon stocks.

“To our understanding, there is nothing that can actually have zero discharge that’s in the water,” Lewis says. “What we want to see in the next five years is all the farms come out of the water. We don’t believe there are any in-water solutions.”

Kingzett says closing down open-net pen salmon farms will harm small coastal communities. Any land-based containment systems will need to be close to plentiful power and water supplies, not to mention customers, he notes.

If B.C.’s salmon farms disappear, Kingzett is confident farmed salmon will still be sold in the country’s supermarkets – but it will come from places like Chile and Norway.

Inside the Sweet Marie’s cabin, John has placed a sticker with the hashtag #FishFarmsOut near the helm. He is eager for the industry to leave Ahousaht territory, even if it means the money fish farming has brought to the community goes with it.

“Wealth isn’t money,” he says. “What we have in our territory, what we have in the ocean, what we have in the air, that’s wealth.”

Updated on Oct. 8, 2024, 4:50 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to clarify that the three cabinet ministers Hasheukumiss met with were fisheries ministers.

Story updated on Oct. 22, 2024, at 10:49 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to remove reference to a medium-sized land-based farm costing $1.8 billion to set up, according to a report commissioned by the B.C. government. In fact, the B.C. government report stated that setting up enough land-based salmon farming capacity to replace current open-net pen production could cost $1.8 billion.

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On Aug. 4, 2014, a tailings dam breach at the Mount Polley mine in B.C.’s Interior flooded the local watershed with contaminated water and debris. 

The faulty dam released 25 billion litres of water mixed with mining waste — enough to fill about 10,000 Olympic swimming pools — into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake. Contaminants included 134.1 tonnes of lead, 2.8 tonnes of cadmium and 2.1 tonnes of arsenic, according to a national inventory of harmful substances released into the environment. 

It was, and still is, the worst mine waste disaster in Canadian history.

Ten years later, here are five things you should know about the Mount Polley mine and Imperial Metals, the company that owns it.

Metals from the 2014 tailings dam breach are still detectable in Quesnel Lake

About 19 billion litres of toxic sludge poured into Quesnel Lake, the deepest lake in the province. The heavier elements eventually settled over six kilometres of lake bed in a waste plume up to two kilometres wide and up to 10 metres deep.

A decade later, tailings debris still coats the bottom of Quesnel Lake. Seasonal currents stir the material back up into the lakewater that flows out into the Quesnel River, a major tributary of the Fraser River.

“The fact that 10 years on we still see sediment enriched in copper coming out of the lake is quite amazing,” researcher Phil Owens told The Narwhal.

Owens and his colleague Ellen Petticrew are both research chairs at the Quesnel River Research Centre and professors at the University of Northern British Columbia. They have detected higher-than-usual concentrations of metal in zooplankton, a food source for local fish including lake trout and sockeye salmon. 

And the pair didn’t just find those metals in Quesnel Lake. 

Water samples collected from lower Hazeltine Creek also contained high levels of metals, including copper, which can disrupt the migration of fish like salmon and make them more susceptible to disease.

“We don’t know where that’s coming from,” Owens, who teaches environmental science, said. 

“There’s a problem somewhere and they don’t seem to be willing to deal with it,” Petticrew, a geography professor, added. “While they [Imperial Metals] say that they’re finished remediation, it’s not fixed.”

Imperial Metals never faced fines or legal repercussions for the disaster

An expert report commissioned by the B.C. government found the Mount Polley dam breach was the result of poor design that failed to account for a weak glacial silt layer underneath the tailings facility.

Eventually, the unstable ground underneath the tailings dam caused it to shift and shear, resulting in the breach, the 2015 report concluded.

Imperial Metals reports paying $70 million to clean up the spill and remediate Hazeltine Creek. 

But the company has never been fined or faced legal repercussions for the tailings dam failure — and B.C. taxpayers covered $40 million in cleanup costs.

Mount Polley is still operating and dumping wastewater into Quesnel Lake

Imperial Metals didn’t wait very long after the breach to restart mine operations. In 2017, the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy granted the company a permit to discharge wastewater into the fish-bearing Quesnel Lake. 

“Their water treatment only removes solids. It does not remove any of the dissolved chemicals, like nutrients and metals,” Doug Watt, who lives on the shores of Quesnel Lake and used to work at the mine, told The Narwhal. “They’re still dumping that into the lake.”

In December 2020, the provincial Environment Ministry issued a $9,000 administrative penalty to Imperial Metals for failing to investigate and test long-term water treatment systems at the mine in accordance with its permit. The company tried to have the fine reduced, an attempt rejected by B.C.’s Environmental Appeal Board in September 2021.

One year later, in 2022, Imperial Metals re-launched gold and copper mining operations at Mount Polley, which employs about 350 people. 

Imperial Metals now wants to extend the height of the same tailings dam

Imperial Metals is now seeking to expand the Mount Polley mine pit. The company wants to extend the same tailings pond dam by another four metres and continue discharging wastewater into Quesnel Lake. 

Notice of the public consultation period for the company’s application for the proposed tailings dam expansion is expected to go out by mid-August, according to an email from the B.C. Mines Ministry.

Imperial Metals under-reported emissions, inspections uncovered compliance issues

The B.C. Environment Ministry says it conducted 14 inspections of the mine since 2017 and issued five notices of compliance, five advisories and three warnings, as well as the 2020 monetary penalty. The ministry’s most recent Mount Polley inspection took place in 2021; a ministry spokesperson said the mine is scheduled for reinspection this year. 

According to a database of compliance and enforcement actions against natural resource companies, the ministry’s December 2021 review of the mine’s annual environmental and reclamation report found key information was missing. 

A January 2024 inspection to determine if Imperial Metals was obeying provincial greenhouse gas reporting rules found the company had under-reported its emissions by more than 6,600 tonnes and failed to have its figures verified by a third party, as required. The company subsequently corrected its reporting, the Environment Ministry said.

In its email responding to questions from The Narwhal, the Mines Ministry said officials have conducted five inspections at the Mount Polley mine since April 1. Those inspections resulted in a warning for improperly storing aerosol cans, an advisory about the potential need for a permit amendment and requests for more information about the tailings storage and dam, according to the ministry.

The Mines Ministry said it plans to conduct “a minimum of 12 inspections” at Mount Polley in the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

Updated on Aug. 1 at 3:15 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to add that B.C. taxpayers paid $40 million in clean-up costs following the Mount Polley dam breach.

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Along the west coast of British Columbia, dozens of fish farms are raising salmon in what are known as open-net pens. Each pen can contain hundreds of thousands of fish — largely non-native Atlantic salmon that are doused with pesticides and given antibiotics when sea lice or disease are present.

Now, a deadline is looming for the federal government to release its promised plan to transition away from open-net pen salmon farms in B.C.

One First Nation is taking the federal department that oversees the farms, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, to court, while close to 100 nations have expressed frustration with the federal government’s sluggish response to threats facing wild salmon, including disease, habitat loss and climate change. They accuse Fisheries and Oceans Canada of breaking promises, making decisions based on inaccurate science and putting industry priorities ahead of the health of wild Pacific salmon stocks. 

At the same time, proponents of fish farms say modernizing practices — such as using integrated pest management to tackle sea lice — can help reduce risk to wild salmon. They’re asking for fish farm licence extensions of up to six years to put those practices into place.

Last year, then-federal fisheries minister Joyce Murray shuttered fish farms in the Discovery Islands, a group of islands between Vancouver Island and the mainland, as a precaution to protect the health of wild salmon. Further north, multiple fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago had already closed following an agreement between First Nations and the B.C. government. The remainder closed last year after Broughton First Nations (ʼNa̱mǥis, Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis and Mamalilikulla) said they did not consent to the continued operation of the farms in their territories.

But that still leaves dozens of open-net pen salmon farms in operation in B.C. All 85 fish farm licences are set to expire at the end of June — and holders of 66 licences are seeking renewal. 

In May, ʼNa̱mǥis First Nation announced it is resuming a 2019 lawsuit against Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in an effort to compel the department to test salmon for disease before stocking open-net pen farms in B.C. 

“The ʼNa̱mǥis has lost all faith in the DFO, the minister and the prime minister to implement the prime minister’s mandate to remove the net pen feedlots from British Columbia waters. We believe the only way to protect our rights and the wild salmon is to go back to court,” ʼNa̱mǥis First Nation Chief Victor Isaac said at a May press conference. “We will again prove that the DFO’s consultation with us was a sham and they ignored the peer-reviewed policy science.”

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has yet to release any details about a transition plan. In April, Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier told Ha-Shilth-Sa, Canada’s oldest First Nations newspaper, that no aquaculture facilities will be forced to close in 2025.

What’s happened to the promised salmon farm transition? 

Read on. 

What are open-net pen salmon farms?

Almost all B.C.’s farmed salmon are raised in open-net pens up and down the coast, in sheltered bays where the tide flushes away part of their waste. 

Some salmon farms are along migration routes for Pacific salmon, where scientists have raised the alarm about the transfer of sea lice to vulnerable wild juveniles. Sea lice are a parasite that feed on fish, causing stress and damage to their immune systems and making them more vulnerable to disease. 

Most open-net pen fish farms in B.C. raise non-native Atlantic salmon. They sometimes escape into Pacific waters, where it’s feared they could breed. 

Washington state banned open-net pen salmon farms in 2022, leaving B.C. the last jurisdiction on North America’s west coast to allow them.

In December, B.C. Premier David Eby said the social licence for open-net pen salmon farms “is expired in British Columbia.”

“We know that those have to move into closed containment systems,” the premier said. 

About six-dozen land-based salmon farms are operating, planned or in construction around the world. But B.C. has fallen behind other jurisdictions in making the transition to farming salmon in facilities on land.

What exactly was the B.C. salmon farm transition promise? 

In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an election campaign commitment to transition away from open-net pen salmon farming in B.C. waters by 2025. 

But the mandate letter Trudeau gave then-fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan had slightly different wording. It asked the minister to create “a plan to transition” away from open-net pen salmon farming by 2025. The letter also asked the minister to work with the B.C. government and Indigenous communities.

Around the same time, ʼNa̱mǥis First Nation launched legal action over Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s policy of not testing salmon for a deadly disease known as piscine orthoreovirus before restocking open-net pen salmon farms. Research shared by Wild First, a non-profit organization dedicated to moving open-net salmon pens out of Pacific waters, says the virus is commonly found in farmed salmon and is “extremely contagious,” spreading through water to wild salmon near fish farms. The virus, according to Wild First, is linked to issues with the heart, liver, spleen and other internal organs in salmon.

The ʼNa̱mǥis First Nation put its legal action on hold in 2021, following further confirmation from the Trudeau government it intended to carry through with the promised transition away from open-net pen salmon farms. 

Additional confirmation came the following year, in a Fisheries and Oceans Canada transition plan framework, released after an engagement process. 

Is the federal government going to keep its promise? 

In June 2023, following pressure from the salmon farming industry, Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced it would extend consultations and delay the final transition plan decision to an unspecified date.

In an email to The Narwhal, a spokesperson for Fisheries and Oceans Canada said the government remains “committed to work on a responsible plan to transition from open-net pen salmon farming in coastal British Columbia waters by 2025.”

The spokesperson also said the government has not made any decisions about the 66 fish farm licences up for renewal this month. 

Clayoquot Action, a Tofino-based conservation society dedicated to protecting the biocultural diversity of Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, questions whether the federal government’s salmon farm transition promise is sincere.

The group points to Ottawa’s recent approvals of salmon farming company Cermaq Canada’s applications to expand tenure size and associated infrastructure for farms in Clayoquot Sound. 

The new permits allow Cermaq to expand capacity at existing facilities, which Clayoquot Action says is equivalent to adding almost two new fish farms in the Clayoquot Sound biosphere reserve region, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) site. 

The company has yet to receive permits to increase fish production, but has applied to do so at three locations.

“So, is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) removing fish farms from B.C. waters by 2025 (ie. this year)?,” Clayoquot Action recently asked on its website, referring to the federal government’s original pledge to remove farms by 2025. “Or are they planning to expand the industry, locking the coast in for another six years of parasites and pathogens?” 

Why do some First Nations want to keep salmon farms in the water? 

While a majority of coastal First Nations want to see an end to open-net pen salmon farming, some First Nations point to “economic reconciliation” as a reason to keep the farms open. 

Dallas Smith, spokesperson for the Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship and a member of Tlowitsis Nation, said reconciliation “can’t just be about the stopping of things.”

“It has to be about how we develop opportunities together, just like the 94 recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.”

The finfish stewardship coalition is made up of 17 First Nations — mostly unnamed — that support aquaculture and salmon farming. The coalition is asking the federal government to “uphold its commitment to reconciliation and the rights of Indigenous Peoples,” and to follow through with its promise “to support the participation of First Nations in the management of ocean resources, including fisheries and aquaculture.”

What do most First Nations say about open-net pen salmon farms?

Those advocating for an end to open-net pens say wild salmon don’t have time to wait. They point out wild salmon are already suffering significant declines due to increased stressors from climate change, human activity and farming operations. 

“The time for bold action to protect wild salmon is here, and it’s now,” Bob Chamberlin, chair of the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance and former elected Chief of Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis First Nation, said at the ʼNa̱mǥis press conference. 

Chamberlin said accommodation of Aboriginal Rights comes first and economic reconciliation happens downstream.

The threat to wild Pacific salmon — a keystone species of great importance to Indigenous culture — is enough to close the farms, he said, adding any measures that could possibly eradicate wild salmon are a move away from reconciliation. 

“If you protect salmon — you rebuild salmon — you are accomplishing province-wide reconciliation,” Chamberlin said. “You are working towards food security, which is a component of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. You are strengthening the opportunity for traditions and culture that’s consistent with the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] report.”

The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs is also calling on the federal government to fulfill its commitment to phase out open-net pen salmon farms by 2025, urging both Ottawa and the B.C. government to protect wild salmon habitat.

Did the federal government silence scientists who were researching threats to wild salmon?

Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials are being investigated by the public sector integrity commissioner over allegations senior officials attempted to silence scientists researching open-net pen fish farms and their threats to wild salmon, according to The Globe and Mail.

At the press conference, ʼNa̱mǥis councillor Kelly Speck said she hopes the investigation leads to fundamental changes in Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

“The allegation is they suppressed [scientific information] and then misled parliamentary committees. This is unacceptable,” Speck said.

What do First Nations who support salmon farming say about risks to wild salmon?

Smith said the Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship questions both DFO science and the science used by fish farm opponents.

The coalition, along with the BC Salmon Farmers Association and the BC Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences, recently released a 500-page “textbook” on salmon farming. Copies of the textbook were sent to dozens of First Nations across the province, according to a news release. (Smith chairs the board of the BC Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences, which builds research and diagnostic capacity in fisheries and aquaculture.) 

He said First Nations in Campbell River have taken over the governance of the BC Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences, an internationally accredited and independent marine laboratory, and will undertake pathogen studies to determine what risk fish farms pose to wild salmon.

“If there are concerns around science, let’s sit down and collaboratively have a side discussion. Let’s have the First Nations sit down with the government and say, ‘Okay, here’s the science that we need to do to either prove or disprove the myth on either side of the table around pathogens and bacterias,’ ” Smith said.

Smith said First Nations should be trusted to protect wild salmon — just as other First Nations are embarking on resource-based projects related to forestry or liquefied natural gas (LNG). 

“Because of this aquaculture issue being so contentious, we’re not given the benefit of the doubt to put our mitigation plans in place and show how we’re managing the future protection and enhancement of wild salmon.” 

What’s the next step for B.C.’s fish farms?

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has yet to release any details about a transition plan for open-net pen fish farms. In an email, a spokesperson said a fourth round of consultations with First Nations, the province, industry, environmental non-governmental organizations and British Columbians closed on March 15 and no final decisions have been made.

Stan Proboszcz, senior scientist and policy analyst with Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said he’s worried the transition plan will be greenwashed, given the language the ministry is using.

In its email, Fisheries and Oceans Canada said “protecting wild Pacific salmon is a key priority and one element of that is ensuring our aquaculture industry is sustainable, innovative and minimizes interactions between farmed and wild fish.”

“They’ve been saying that for decades, that’s not a new line. That is not a new plan,” Proboszcz said.

He said it’s time to take drastic measures, since maintaining the status quo could be detrimental to wild salmon stocks.

“It’s something we have control over, and potentially control over, immediately — as opposed to something like trying to fix climate change and warming waters.” 

ʼNa̱mǥis Chief Victor Isaac said Fisheries and Oceans Canada was given 90 days’ notice, set to expire Aug. 13, of the nation’s intention to resume legal action.

“We’ll be ready to fight to protect our rights,” he said at the press conference. “We will again prove that DFO’s consultation with us was a sham.”

— With files from Shannon Waters

Updated on June 20, 2024, at 1:53 p.m. PT. This story has been updated to clarify that the remainder of the fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago closed in 2023 after Broughton First Nations said they did not consent to the continued operation of the farms in their territories. 

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Months before releasing a stark scientific assessment of the impact of fish farms on Atlantic salmon, federal officials grappled with how they would share the conclusions with industry and provincial regulators, according to internal correspondence obtained by The Narwhal.

The March 2024 report was the first to formally assess the threat of interactions between wild salmon and escapees from the fish farms that dot the coastline in Atlantic Canada.

According to internal correspondence, Fisheries and Oceans Canada originally aimed to publish the science advisory report in December 2023, following a June 2023 national review meeting of federal scientists, foreign government scientists and non-governmental organizations. There was no indication of the reason for the delay in the documents, but advocates say it is not unusual. 

The assessment summarizes scientific evidence of ongoing risks of interbreeding between farmed and wild salmon populations, as provincial and federal regulators contemplate an expansion of aquaculture in Atlantic Canada. But a few months before its release, senior officials with Fisheries and Oceans noted the task ahead of engaging with industry and the provinces about the findings.

“There is a hard conversation in here about management decisions for the population of salmon as a whole,” the regional manager, aquaculture management wrote in an October 2023 email to the regional director, released through access to information legislation.

A month later, the regional director of aquatic ecosystems, Newfoundland and Labrador region, wrote to the regional director for science in that region to ask about plans for the assessment’s publication. “I am anxious to ensure that there is sufficient lead to ensure engagement with key partners, in advance of publication, particularly the provincial government and industry association,” she wrote. “We have invested considerable time to strengthen dialogue and relations, and if we do not provide sufficient time and space to engage appropriately in advance, it could be very damaging. Done well, it could provide a valuable opportunity to build trust, dialogue and identify common ground.”

The warnings in the emails highlight internal divisions within the federal department, where some see their role as protecting wild fish, and others have devoted their careers to developing the aquaculture industry, according to an advocacy group that promotes the restoration and conservation of Atlantic salmon.

“I don’t think it’s surprising that there would be some trepidation from those quarters of the department,” Neville Crabbe, executive director of communications at the Atlantic Salmon Federation, told The Narwhal in an interview.

The internal emails suggest there was concern over the potential impacts of the report, despite the fact the assessment did not take into account one area of crossbreeding that could further exacerbate the poor state of wild salmon: the use of foreign strains in aquaculture. Though it was out of the scope of this specific assessment, documents reviewed by The Narwhal show federal officials have grown increasingly concerned with this risk in recent years.

Nonetheless, Crabbe says he’s “very confident that what’s contained in that risk assessment will weigh heavily on future decisions about expansion.”

“I think the positive, if there is one, is that they did conduct a risk assessment, and they did publish it,” Crabbe added.

When what happens on the salmon farm doesn’t stay on the salmon farm

While farmed and wild salmon in Atlantic Canada are the same species, they’re separated by a gulf of domestication. 

Farmed salmon — which primarily come from a strain that originates in the Wolastoq or Saint John River — have been bred to grow faster, and are more aggressive. When these fish interbreed with the region’s wild salmon, their offspring are less likely to survive and are less able to adapt to climate change or other pressures.

The new risk assessment, which examined the likelihood of interbreeding and the consequences for wild populations, suggests a high risk for salmon in areas where there’s a concentration of salmon farms, including in the Bay of Fundy in southeastern New Brunswick and along Newfoundland’s southwest coast.

“Where we have lots of salmon in cages, that’s where we have elevated risk of these sorts of interactions,” says Ian Bradbury, research scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and one of the authors of the risk assessment (speaking as a scientist, not as a representative of the department).

In a response to questions about industry reaction to the risk assessment, Jamie Baker, executive director of the Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association, said in an email that it is well established that salmon populations have been declining since before salmon farming started. He said salmon producers have responded to the potential risk to wild fish “by practically eliminating fish escapes through investments in technologies and training that effectively and safely contain their salmon.”

But risks go beyond escapees from domestic strains of salmon. 

Introduction of European genes put Atlantic salmon at greater risk

Fisheries and Oceans’ science advisory report did not explicitly consider the additional impact of farmed fish that originate in Europe, but Bradbury says European genes elevate the risk. 

European Atlantic salmon have evolved separately from North American Atlantic salmon for thousands of years, producing genetic differences associated with processes like immunity or navigation. 

Fertile European salmon are not authorized for use in aquaculture in Atlantic Canada and have never been approved. Yet European genes have been detected in wild and farmed populations in the Atlantic for years. Internal documents suggest the presence of these genes has sparked suspicion.

A 2013 Fisheries and Oceans Canada report released through access to information legislation mentions requests from two aquaculture companies to import “alternative Atlantic salmon bloodlines that could potentially increase Canadian aquaculture industry competitiveness.” These were Norwegian-origin salmon, which documents noted were sought for their improved performance over domestic fish. 

Those requests were denied. 

Yet in response to a 2021 analysis by Fisheries and Oceans Canada that showed the presence of European genes in both aquaculture salmon and in wild fish, a memo for the minister noted that “results suggest either the recent importation or the maintenance of European-origin salmon by the aquaculture industry.”

Department scientists’ further analysis of farmed salmon and escapees in Newfoundland found European genetic ancestry as high as 40 per cent; in one instance, scientists captured two fish with 100 per cent European ancestry as part of a recovery effort following an escape event.

While the risk of European genetics are not mentioned in the published risk assessment, a slide in a 2023 draft internal presentation on the assessment stated that “some salmon farmed in Atlantic Canada have been significantly and continuously interbred with European salmon,” with “implications for non-compliance by the industry.” 

European ancestry has also been found in recent escapees, including fish intercepted at the Magaguadavic fishway, near the Maine-New Brunswick border. In late 2023, 63 escapees were detected at the fishway.

Samples of those fish have been tested at Bradbury’s lab in Halifax. Results indicate continued and potentially elevated presence of European genes, compared to what scientists have observed previously, Bradbury said.

As officials struggle to respond to the impacts of existing farms and interbreeding, they also face industry attempts to bring new sources of genetic material to the region. 

Fish farm escape puts Bay of Fundy wild salmon in jeopardy

In 2023, Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials circulated an email on a “significant” request from Cooke Aquaculture, one of the major aquaculture companies in the region. To make up for a shortfall of eight million domestic-origin eggs, the company proposed importing sterile Norwegian-strain eggs (also known as triploid eggs), as well as fertile eggs from Tasmania, with an eye toward incorporating the latter into long-term production. 

Federal scientists’ advice was that the potential importation of Tasmanian eggs (from a strain believed to originate in a river in Nova Scotia, but which has been domesticated in Tasmania for decades) was “directly analogous” to past requests for fertile European eggs, where scientists had identified a risk to wild populations and recommended against the introduction.

Documents describe Cooke’s intention to place salmon born of those Tasmanian eggs in pens in Spring 2024.

When contacted by The Narwhal to ask whether this request had been approved, and for a response to the risk assessment, Cooke Aquaculture spokesperson Joel Richardson declined to comment.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not respond to a question about whether or not the request for Tasmanian eggs had been approved. In a statement, a spokesperson said the department works with other federal departments and federal regulators on decisions of mutual interest, such as the importation of salmon eggs, and that in 2023, a licence was issued to Cooke Aquaculture for triploid European-origin eggs for anticipated use in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. 

Managing the risk to Atlantic wild salmon after fish farm assessment

Regardless of the origin of farmed fish, scientists and advocates say the risk assessment highlights the need for additional mitigation measures to protect the genetics of wild populations. This could include improvements to net pen systems, and requirements for industry to use sterile eggs.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientists have also developed a test to detect European ancestry, which has been available for more than a year.

In an emailed statement, Fisheries and Oceans said the report provides an improved understanding of the risks of interbreeding between wild and farmed salmon, which will help inform advice to provinces considering new or expanded aquaculture sites.

The statement also said the Atlantic provinces are responsible for overseeing the containment of farmed salmon and preventing escapes, and referred those questions to provincial governments.

When asked for comment on the apparent trepidation about the release of the risk assessment reflected in internal emails, the department provided a statement reading that it “fully respects the authority of Atlantic provinces in their management of aquaculture.” 

In the meantime, Crabbe says the growing evidence of the effects of interbreeding underscores the risk of industry expansion, including on Nova Scotia’s south shore and on southern Newfoundland, where two companies are planning to add millions of salmon to sites along a mostly undeveloped stretch of coastline. 

“We frequently hear from provincial leaders, even the federal minister, that this industry and wild fish can coexist,” says Crabbe. “This assessment is a heavy weight on the already tilted scale that says they cannot.”

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Author’s note: Ray Williams, Ghoo-Noom-Tuuk-Tomlth, passed away just two months after he was interviewed for this story — on October 31, 2022. This story is dedicated to his memory. Like the coastal wolves Ray was named for, he was highly aware, family orientated and protective of his territory. Let his spirit live on. 

Ray Williams recalls the day Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) confiscated all the Mowachaht boats from Yuquot — his hometown and ancestral territory on the southeast tip of Nootka Island — in the 1960s.

“There were still a few boats left on the beach that day,” said Ray. “But the DFO came and burned them.” 

With no prospect of earning a living, most of the community was forced to relocate to reserves near Gold River on Vancouver Island. Before long, Ray became the last remaining Mowachaht/Muchalaht to live in Yuquot year-round.

Ray was 80 years old during an interview in August 2022. A pillar of the remote Yuquot community and Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, Ray also holds the name Ghoo-Noom-Tuuk-Tomlth, which means “spirit of the wolf.”

As he tells his story from the small wooden house on the beach — the same one he grew up in — he looks out to sea and the memories rush over him like the tide. Memories of secret fishing spots, plentiful food and a way of life stripped from him and his family.

Although Ray and other Nuu-chah-nulth people have witnessed some progress on fishing rights — thanks to a landmark court case led by five Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations — it hasn’t been enough to break the cycle of harm caused by Canada’s forced control over fish management in their unceded homelands.

This disconnection from a keystone of Nuu-chah-nulth’s culture, territory and ancestral wealth — stemming back to the creation of the colonial capitalist fishery — has permeated through generations.  

Sammy Williams, Ray’s grandson, has grown up seeing his grandpa criminalized for trying to earn a livelihood through fishing in his traditional territory. Like his grandpa, Sammy has struggled to keep on the “right” side of colonial law.

One of Sammy’s earliest memories is of a strange, white authority figure removing his grandpa’s longline and taking his fish supper away. It was a fisheries officer from Fisheries and Oceans. 

“This is what they do,” said Sammy, now a rights-based commercial fisher. 

Even though he was just a child at the time, Sammy remembers that day clearly. 

“We headed out there waiting for the hours to go by,” he said. Sammy and his grandpa spotted a sailing boat edging towards their long line. 

Working undercover in an unmarked sailing boat wasn’t normal practice for Fisheries and Oceans. “I seen him take two halibut off, put them in his boat, took my long line away and put it in jail in Tahsis,” said Ray. “Two years later, they gave it back to me.”

In an email commenting on the events shared by the Williams family, Fisheries and Oceans acknowledged: “The memories shared by Ray Williams about his experience of DFO’s past relationship with his community are painful.”

The department also highlighted its commitment to “reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples” and said they are committed to working with First Nations “to increase their participation in the fisheries and to support the exercise of their rights.”

“In more recent years, efforts and progress have been made towards rebuilding a nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations, including the Mowachaht community, based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership,” the statement said.

“Today, DFO works closely with the community through collaborative programs, such as the Aboriginal Fisheries Program (AFS), consultation, bilateral meetings and other means, to collaboratively manage fisheries and protect fish and fish habitat.”

Long after the Mowachaht boats were confiscated and burned by Fisheries and Oceans, Ray said vessel owners were compensated with $7,000 per household, “to keep us silent about our fishing rights,” he said. “It wasn’t just their livelihood that was taken, but their identities as fishermen.”

Sammy stressed that $7,000 is barely enough to compensate for the destroyed fishing vessels. “It buys you a skiff, not an actual boat,” he said. IndigiNews did not independently verify this settlement amount.

“When they did that to our Elders, they took away fishing for our generation,” said Sammy, who learned to fish commercially from settlers. “We could have been on the water with our grandpa and my dad, learning the right way.”

When Sammy first entered the world of commercial fishing, he “got in with one of the wrong guys,” he said, referring to the infamous rule-breaker Scott Steer, who has been convicted multiple times for illegal fishing and now faces a lifetime ban. 

Before long, Fisheries and Oceans had seized Sammy’s boat and truck. “Pretty much what they did to my grandparents back in the day,” said Sammy, who began to feel as though history was repeating itself. 

Before colonization, the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people were wealthy fish traders, with abundant territories and carefully-managed fisheries that made returns year after year. With the introduction of colonial commercial fisheries, the resource was exploited to feed a capitalist system hell-bent on making a profit.

Even though colonial officials had no ancestral ties or expert knowledge about these lands, animals and waterways, they began using the force of colonial law to “manage” the resource above the expertise of Indigenous locals.

In 1877, the federal Fisheries Act was extended to all of British Columbia. For the first time, “food fishing” was defined and imposed as a limitation on what Indigenous Peoples in the province could, and could not fish for. 

It became illegal for Indigenous people to fish for any harvest amount that could be interpreted by imposed colonial standards as more than what was necessary for eating. The act also required all Indigenous people to purchase a fishing licence, and outlawed traditional fishing technologies such as weirs, spears and hooks.

A handful of court cases have attempted to uphold Indigenous Rights to fishing for a livelihood. Where there’s been success, Canada has been criticized for not properly implementing them.

In 1987, Dorothy Van der Peet, a Stó:lō woman, was charged for selling 10 salmon for $50, caught by her husband and brother with a food fishing licence that forbade them to sell their catch. At trial, the judge held that the right to fish did not extend to the right to sell. Van der Peet appealed her conviction, but in 1996, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed her appeal. 

Although the case was a loss for Van der Peet, it became pivotal in further defining Indigenous Rights, as outlined in Section 35 of the Constitution.

In 1996, the Supreme Court deliberated on the landmark Gladstone case, involving two Haíłzaqv (Heiltsuk) men who faced charges under the Fisheries Act for exceeding their licensed allowance in selling herring roe-on-kelp — a traditional annual resource where herring eggs are attached to kelp in the water column.

It was ruled that the Haíłzaqv have a right, based on traditional practices, to sell or trade fish. But when the chief justice failed to decide whether the licence available was adequate for a “sustenance” income, they sent the question back to trial. It has not been continued. 

In 2003, 13 Nuu-chah–nulth nations began a court case to prove their right to a commercial fishery. But after pushback from the federal government, who refused to allow the 13 nations to participate without defined ocean territories, five nations pursued the claim, including Mowachaht/Muchalaht, Ahousaht, Ehattesaht, Hesquiaht and Tla-o-qui-aht. The group became known as the “Five Nations.”

In 2009, a ruling found the Five Nations had a commercial right to harvest and sell fish. The ruling also stated the Five Nations must negotiate with Fisheries and Oceans on how their commercial fisheries would be managed. The court allowed two years for negotiations, but an agreement was never reached. Fisheries and Oceans continued providing a limited allocation and restrictions on how the Five Nations could fish. 

In 2018, the Five Nations went back to court, stating that Fisheries and Oceans was infringing on their court-affirmed rights to fish commercially. But in an unexpected move, the chief justice limited the right that had been affirmed, describing the fishery as “artisanal” and “local” — only to be carried out using small boats with no technology. 

The Five Nations appealed, and in 2021, the B.C. Court of Appeal concluded all previous limitations would not be accepted. Again, fisheries were to be negotiated between the Five Nations and Fisheries and Oceans, and their rights-based fisheries were to take priority over the recreation and commercial sectors.

The ruling set a precedent for Indigenous fishers across Canada, who can now negotiate their right to sell fish with Fisheries and Oceans — without the lengthy and expensive court battle endured by the Five Nations.

However, a legal precedent doesn’t necessarily mean immediate changes out on the water. In 2021, just days after the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled that Fisheries and Oceans could not impose limits on First Nations commercial rights, rights-based fisher Harvey Robinson from Ahousaht was stopped by officials trying to land 250 fish. He was told to get rid of 240 — he was only allowed 10.

After some confrontation, Fisheries and Oceans walked away. Robinson said they were trying to impose the 10-fish rule, which applies to boats under 25 feet. But his boat was 42 feet.

“Ten fish wouldn’t cover the gas bill,” said Sammy. “Let alone ice, food and deckhands.”  

After being acquitted from 22 fisheries charges in 2019, Sammy faced five new charges in 2021 for crab fishing in səl̓ilw̓ət (Burrard Inlet), a closed area, without a licence. Sammy says the 250 crabs on his boat were leftovers from a catch from the Nanaimo area, where he did have a licence. His intention was to transport the crab to his family in North Vancouver. 

Sammy admits he made a mistake in bringing Scott Steer with him, who was banned from boarding any commercial boat, including Sammy’s.

When a Vancouver SeaBus captain reported suspicious traffic to the Coast Guard, Fisheries and Oceans headed for Sammy’s boat, recognizing Steer at the helm, according to court records. “I guess he got scared,” said Sammy. Steer took them on a high-speed boat chase while Sammy lay on the deck. He was having a diabetic attack.

When Fisheries and Oceans finally caught up with them, Sammy said he explained he was diabetic and wasn’t feeling good. Sammy alleged he was kept on the water for six hours, while handcuffed from behind, despite telling the fisheries officers it hurt. “I’m a big guy,” said Sammy. He recalled he asked why Steer was allowed to have his handcuffs in front of him in a comfortable position, while Sammy’s shoulders felt pulled from the cuffs. 

Eventually, the two men were transferred to the North Vancouver RCMP office where they called an ambulance to check on his blood sugar. “The paramedics were upset I’d been kept for so long,” said Sammy. His blood sugar level was intensely high. “They said I should have been taken to the hospital right away.” 

In the ruling, Sammy’s diabetic attack was taken into account to the extent that, “He was experiencing some physical distress due to his suffering from diabetes.” It continued, “He was co-operative with the police and was, ultimately, taken to the hospital and then released.” No additional context was provided. 

“There is no evidence that Mr. Williams was the operating mind of the operation and certainly no evidence that he was responsible for the high-speed chase through a darkened Burrard Inlet,” the ruling stated.

Despite this, Sammy, who had no prior criminal record, was sentenced to a three-year probation and a $6,000 fine. His boat, worth $20,000, was forfeited in Steer’s trial, despite it being Sammy’s property.  

“Now I’ve got no boat, no vehicle. I lost everything,” he said. “Everything I worked hard for.” 

Sammy also said he regularly experiences discrimination on the water fishing T’aaq-wiihak — with permission from the Hereditary Chiefs. To fish T’aaq-wiihak, fishers are required to fly a red flag onboard their vessel.

“It’s a red flag — a target,” said Sammy. “When me and my brother were fishing, there was probably one hundred sports boats out. DFO motored past every sports boat and came straight for us.”

For Sammy, fishing on his ancestral waters has been a fleeting refuge for him throughout his life. He struggled both in childhood and as a teenager. “We lost my mom, my sister, my grandma and my brother all within a year,” he said. “I’ve been depressed for a long time.”

One year on from the Five Nations ruling, Ray remained concerned about recreational fisheries, which he still believes take priority over their rights-based fisheries. He said he’s seen between two and three hundred recreational fishers in the area at any one time.

“There’s just too many [recreational] fishermen milking our stock out of the ocean,” said Ray. 

Kadin Snook, fisheries co-ordinator at Ha’oom Fisheries Society, says part of the problem is that the recreation fishery is seen as non-harmful.

“The thinking is, if I’m only catching two chinook a day, I can’t possibly be doing any harm,” he said. “But vessel participation is huge.” 

British Columbia has a reputation for being one of the greatest saltwater fishing destinations in the world — with more than 300,000 fishers participating in the tidal fishery every year, mostly for salmon.

Snook, who is Mowachaht/Muchalaht, worries about other impacts of recreational fishing. 

Rarely considered, he said, is the harm caused by the catch and release of unwanted fish by recreational fishers. He said, in a single day, there could be up to 4,000 fishers in the Mowachaht/Muchalaht area. That’s a lot of injured fish. 

Commercial and rights-based fishers aren’t afforded the same flexibility from Fisheries and Oceans as recreational fishers, who can fish both inshore and offshore, and are not required to report their catch, said Snook. 

Snook argues that the guiding industry, which requires only a recreational licence, is unfair. 

“There’s commercial interest and a lot of expertise, yet they are operating on a [recreational] licence,” he said. “They’re everywhere, and they’re not being monitored.”

Ray said he would like to see recreational licence fees flow to the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation when recreation fishers harvest from the territory’s waters.

“DFO has no business in charging the sports fishermen to fish in our territory, in our ocean, our food,” he said. “It has to be our Ha’wiih [Hereditary Chiefs] that approves fishers to fish in our area.”

Ray also said fees should be increased to slow down recreational fisheries. In 2023/2024, an annual recreational licence in tidal waters costs a Canadian resident only $22.59, or $108.64 for a non-resident. To catch salmon, fishers must also purchase a “salmon conservation stamp” for $6.46.

“I can see it failing in front of my eyes and we’re not doing anything about it,” said Ray. “It’s important for the future of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to see the changes that we might be making today, starting today.”

Some T’aaq-wiihak fishers have been attempting to fish as a group, but Fisheries and Oceans has, in some cases, shifted their attention towards targeting fish buyers, explained Sammy. “They raided our buyer in Quadra [Island],” said Sammy. “Thirty fisheries officers because our fish was sold there.” 

Sammy hopes that T’aaq-wiihak fishers and buyers can unite in defiance of colonial laws. “As long as the fish buyer knows you’ll stand behind him in court,” said Sammy, “Then our fishing rights will go a long way.”

In the future, Sammy would like to see an Indigenous-owned fish purchasing plant. “When you own that fish plant and you’re the one selling it for your people, then everyone gets paid a lot more,” said Sammy. “It’s pretty much cutting out the middleman.” 

Ultimately, Sammy said, he just wants his people to live healthy lives. 

“One day we’ll have a wealthy lifestyle. Our kids won’t have to worry about anything. I’ll go out, I’ll work hard to make sure we have a roof over our head, clothes on the kids’ back and food in the freezer — and that’ll be all,” said Sammy. “It’s a struggle right now, but I’m hoping one day it won’t be.”

This story was produced as part of the Fish Outlaws project, a multidisciplinary collaboration supported by the National Geographic Society. The Fish Outlaws project launched a living website on Earth Day featuring stories, research and participatory opportunities exploring how destructive colonial fisheries management and environmental practices have compromised Indigenous fishing rights and community wellbeing.

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