Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: Morty on October 14, 2020, 11:23:46 AM
-
In discussion about the harvesting rights and use of BC's salmon there are sometimes comments related to salmon, and some aboriginal groups, being here "forever". I'd like to add another perspective to that.
Up until agrueably 9,000 to 12,000 years ago all of BC, including Vancouver Island, and parts of Washington State as far south as Seattle-Tacoma, were covered by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet. Therefore there was logically no Fraser River during that time, and obviously no salmon in it. And unless they lived on the harsh environment of the surface of a glacier, there were no aboriginal peoples here either.
After the melting of the glaciers "our" world famous salmon all came here from somewhere else. So did the aboriginal peoples. Neither has always been here!
The so-called 'First Nations' peoples were in fact here first and based on historical, universally accepted practices, relating to colonization they do have some special rights tied to their traditions.
-
What caused the global warming at that time?
-
What caused the global warming at that time?
Dinosaur farts
-
Dinosaur farts
maybe you should seek medical help about that... ;D
-
In discussion about the harvesting rights and use of BC's salmon there are sometimes comments related to salmon, and some aboriginal groups, being here "forever". I'd like to add another perspective to that.
Up until agrueably 9,000 to 12,000 years ago all of BC, including Vancouver Island, and parts of Washington State as far south as Seattle-Tacoma, were covered by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet. Therefore there was logically no Fraser River during that time, and obviously no salmon in it. And unless they lived on the harsh environment of the surface of a glacier, there were no aboriginal peoples here either.
After the melting of the glaciers "our" world famous salmon all came here from somewhere else. So did the aboriginal peoples. Neither has always been here!
The so-called 'First Nations' peoples were in fact here first and based on historical, universally accepted practices, relating to colonization they do have some special rights tied to their traditions.
First off - most of the First Nations and Aboriginal peoples of the America's have creation myths that have them created right where they are now ...or where in the case of those that were relocated. Certainly Europeans were not here "forever" or in Europe " forever". Fact is humans or more correctly Homo Sapiens has only been on earth for a very short period (about 1/4 million years) relative to the age of the planet and the time life has been on the planet.
Second the glaciers by their very nature destroyed whatever evidence of life, human and otherwise, that was on the parts of the earth immediately before they covered them.
During glacial periods ocean levels were hundreds of feet lower than currently since so much of the water in the water cycle was locked up in ice. People may lived along the margins of the glacial sheets where there was land just as there is in Greenland today. Evidence of such habitation that could be much older than current evidence would be covered under hundreds of feet of water.
The dates we have from evidence recovered is the oldest we have to date. It's not the final word though most archaeologists and geologists believe that is about the limit since the earliest human habitation evidence for Eastern Siberia isn't much older than the dates for North America.
No there wasn't a Fraser River but there was a Columbia River and salmon bearing rivers in Oregon. Most of Eastern BC's watersheds flowed south through the Columbia including the upper Thompson watershed. Likewise rivers of now inundated coastal margins also had salmon. (Greenland has rivers with huge populations of Arctic Char). Haida Gwaii was never glaciated and neither was much of Alaska That's likely why the Fraser and other coastal rivers formed after the ice retreated were so quickly colonized by salmon. It also shoots your little 'theory' in the foot. (Not dead just wounded).
FWIW most scientists now consider that we are still in an 'ice age' since there is permanent still present in many parts of the world including BC. Just go north of the Fraser valley and it is possible to enter an ice age zone. The cause of the ice age isn't well understood but seems to depend on 2 things; Milankovitch cycles; the wobble of the earth's axis every 23,000 years or so and the carbon cycle. Carbon that gets created by life gets bound up either in rock strata (ie oil and coal) or in the depths of the ocean. Glaciation also reduces carbon essentially making a larger portion of the earths surface more or less lifeless. The carbon that causes glacial retreat is thought to come from the carbon sinks in the depth sof the ocean. The glaciers move south to some limit and then melt releasing liquid water formerly bound as ice. This corresponds to a warming part of the Milankovitch cycle.The melt water that enters the oceans, changes ocean currents and concentrates heat in the equatorial zones and southern latitudes pushing sequestered carbon out of the deep ocean carbon sink. At least that's a current theory. One thing that is fairly certain is that increases in atmospheric CO2 always lead (come before) dramatic rise of average global temperatures.
-
Either way you look at it, wild salmon would still thrive if it weren't for unfettered western capitalism based on quick profit and insatiable GREED.
-
Either way you look at it, wild salmon would still thrive if it weren't for unfettered western capitalism based on quick profit and insatiable GREED.
BINGO!
-
time immemorial
phrase of time
used to refer to a point of time in the past that was so long ago that people have no knowledge or memory of it.
"markets had been held there from time immemorial"
-
Either way you look at it, wild salmon would still thrive if it weren't for unfettered western capitalism based on quick profit and insatiable GREED.
I think that’s largely debatable, even in arras of this planet that don’t have western capitalism and greed fishery stocks are depleted.
-
There is a lot of evidence that suggests the "Ice sheet was well inland from the coast.
-
I think that’s largely debatable, even in arras of this planet that don’t have western capitalism and greed fishery stocks are depleted.
Well, let's debate it.
I will start by providing this short article:
https://www.nationthailand.com/edandtech/30386281
Some shocking (but positive) information in it. As the COVID-19 pandemic brought the hospitality industry (the main consumer of commercially caught fish and seafood) to a grinding stop, many commercial fisheries interrupted their activities.
The result? Marine life recovering, fish stocks increasing.
I think it was Ralph who long ago suggested that if the human race stopped commercial fishing altogether for 4 years, ocean fish stocks would probably manage to recover substantially, along with our salmon.
I tend to agree. In that respect, maybe the pandemic is a blessing in disguise. Time will tell.
-
I read that much of the First Nation population was started by Hawaiin and Polynesian settlers.
It would be good for the fish if there was stop on all fishing for any amount of time but unfortunately many of our fish disapear due to rogue ships taking everything and anything in International waters.
Ive been doing my part and havent caught a Salmon in about 4 years.lol
-
I read that much of the First Nation population was started by Hawaiin and Polynesian settlers.
Really? Where? There is little or no evidence of any contact until the Kanakas came to BC from Hawaii in the 19th century. The Americas were settled over 8,000 years before Hawaii. There is some suggestion that some Haida reached Hawaii within the last couple hundred years.
-
Well, let's debate it.
I will start by providing this short article:
https://www.nationthailand.com/edandtech/30386281
Some shocking (but positive) information in it. As the COVID-19 pandemic brought the hospitality industry (the main consumer of commercially caught fish and seafood) to a grinding stop, many commercial fisheries interrupted their activities.
The result? Marine life recovering, fish stocks increasing.
I think it was Ralph who long ago suggested that if the human race stopped commercial fishing altogether for 4 years, ocean fish stocks would probably manage to recover substantially, along with our salmon.
I tend to agree. In that respect, maybe the pandemic is a blessing in disguise. Time will tell.
You said western capitalism my point is that in areas of this world that are not governed by western capitalism have still depleted their stocks. I was not arguing that eating fish is not an issue clearly it’s the main issue,
-
You said western capitalism my point is that in areas of this world that are not governed by western capitalism have still depleted their stocks. I was not arguing that eating fish is not an issue clearly it’s the main issue,
Forgive my ignorance, but which areas of our world today haven't fallen prey to globalization - the latest iteration of western-style capitalism? Since the dawn of the capitalist era, by means of colonization first, and globalization in the last few decades, capitalism's hunger for profit has been slowly, but surely, sucking the life out of our wilderness and oceans.
I urge everyone to watch David Attenborough's "A Life on Earth" (2020) on Netflix; It is his witness statement on what population growth and the market economy have done to our resources, especially since the advent of globalization.
-
in areas of this world that are not governed by western capitalism have still depleted their stocks.
If those countries exist, to Milo’s point re globalization, I bet you’ll find foreign owned fleets plying their waters, or the catch being destined for foreign, not domestic, markets.
-
Fair enough
-
......, maybe the pandemic is a blessing in disguise. Time will tell.
I think the Summer and Fall weather this year is also somewhat of a blessing to the salmon populations. Evidenced by higher, cooler water level in most of the returning salmon waterways, and surplus of windy & rainy days keeping many of us off the Strait and rivers.
-
If those countries exist, to Milo’s point re globalization, I bet you’ll find foreign owned fleets plying their waters, or the catch being destined for foreign, not domestic, markets.
in comparison to that, it's believed by some historians that after they obtained rifles, Canada's aboriginal peoples were a major factor in the near extinction of the prairie buffalo populations they depended on.
-
Another and Important Perspective
by Bob Hooton
A long time friend and wonderfully outspoken advocate for wild steelhead, Ehor Boyanowsky, is a man of many and diverse talents. His professional qualifications include graduate degrees in human and social psychology. Until his recent retirement he was a faculty member at Simon Fraser University. He is a past president of the Steelhead Society of BC and now resides on the banks of his all time favourite river, the Thompson, near Ashcroft.
Ehor has never been one to shirk responsibility to say what wouldn't be said otherwise. He follows (fish and environmental) politics closely and sometimes has views and opinions that don't survive political filters or conform with the views popularized by mainstream media. Earlier today Ehor forwarded me a copy of a piece he prepared and distributed to a long list of personal contacts. I read it and contacted him immediately to seek approval to share it here. For those who might like to broaden their perspective on where we find ourselves today and what may lie ahead, enjoy.
"Today’s news that non-aboriginal Nova Scotia lobster fishermen have escalated their protest to destruction of boats and catch against a massive lobster fishery mounted out of season by aboriginal fishermen is heartbreaking, but sadly, expected, even inevitable. Nova Scotia is perhaps the most peaceful idyllic place in Canada, even North America. I found its people welcoming of strangers rather than clannish when I moved there many years ago. It is why several members of my family moved back there recently to escape the social, political and climatic uncertainties, the turmoil besetting the normally preferred promised lands of BC and California.
Why inevitable? Because as research all over the world, including some conducted by my colleagues at the University of BC, Hong Kong and by me has repeatedly recorded: when an identifiable minority, often ethnic, is repeatedly awarded special status, privilege or even just preference by government and the courts to compensate for past injustices, it creates resentment and psychic tension. When the tensions reach breaking point, sometimes over an unrelated issue, the result is violence toward those minority groups seen as privileged. Accompanying that violence is a growing hatred where none existed before, a psychological phenomenon justifying the violence in the minds of the perpetrators as they witness themselves committing acts they would never before have contemplated.
Witness the slaughter in Rwanda where hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were murdered, cut to pieces with machetes by their once friendly neighbours even though many of them had intermarried with the marauding Hutu majority. Why? Because over the last century, the colonial Belgians had shown preference in treatment, education and government jobs toward the lighter skinned Tutsi minority. But that was in the distant past? No, scarcely 26 years ago while the United Nations, the world stood idly by.
But that was Africa you might argue where the people are traditionally tribal, backward, suspicious of outsiders, believe in witches and demons, even today. As anthropologist Claude Levi-Straus observed, humanity ends at the outskirts of the village. Why almost every tribal group’s name for itself means simply ‘the people’ and so everyone else is a nonperson as the Japanese perceived the Chinese in Nanking during their invasion. Again wanton massacre ensued.
But alas, not just in Africa or Asia. So too in every country on earth. As the ironically, relatively (by comparison to what followed) benign shroud of communistic equality slid from Yugoslavia, Serbs, and Croats resumed ethnic identities, resurrected old grievances, descended into age old enmity and slaughtered each other and Muslims in their midst. Not simple tribal people but those with PhDs, lawyers, physicians and poets driving BMWs not oxcarts and not worshipping obscure idols.
Judges in Canada have been in a frenzy to promote the welfare of aboriginal people. Alas, there is now a whole generation of judges and lawyers trained very narrowly and badly by crusading law professors, demagogues who do not promote logic and deduction and the serious negative implicatons of favouring aboriginal plaintiffs, but declare by fiat that aboriginals have a special position in society based on ancient treaties or even merely statements made by the colonial English in a time when those governing officials, now foreign to Canada, gave what they saw was a crust of bread to a minority of people: hunting and fishing rights in exchange for their loyalty in conflicts with the Americans.
They did not envision a mosaic of tribal groups that are part of larger Canadian society, the fastest growing sector in Canada, even as they reproduce at the highest rate and incorporate nonaboriginals into their group. Two years of living common law with a status aboriginal makes you eligible for aboriginal status and all of its privileges as my recent mover, a pleasant young man of Russian descent recently joyfully declared: “No more taxes, no more hunting or fishing licences.” I was happy for him but I silently wondered if he knew the societal unrest he was contributing to.
Pierre Trudeau, the elder, in his wisdom, despised by many for being unfeeling, (entirely ‘left brain we say in psychology) was prescient, saw the coming conflict and societal disarray and instructed his apprentice Jean Cretien to patriate the constitution from Britain and with it to eliminate any special status for aboriginal people, for Quebec, for anyone. Today in hindsight it is clear how much conflict, resentment and mistaken reliance on the federal government for bounty at the individual and provincial level that would have avoided. Alas, a national alarm was sounded by men of limited vision with perhaps misguided, kind intentions, personified by Ed Broadbent of the NDP… and Trudeau backed off.
His offspring Justin, now PM in a confusing frenzy to ‘reconcile’ with aboriginal people has rescinded the aboriginal accountability bill that forced chiefs to show where they are spending taxpayers’ money (hopefully for housing, sewage and health rather than personal condos in the USA), he visited the family of an armed home invader (who had posted his intentions to rob on Facebook) who was shot (but not those innocent ‘settlers’ who were invaded), and he appointed as the leading lawmaker in government an aboriginal lawyer of little experience who had written a long, dense book about how to disassemble Canada and return it to aboriginal ownership.
As a former ten year member of The BC aboriginal treaty negotiation advisory committee I urged the BC government to proffer land, money and administrative expertise to aboriginal groups but not to isolate them nor to perpetuate special rights and privileges. Clearly the federal courts did not follow such a plan and have created a situation that has emboldened aboriginals to undertake untenable lobster fisheries against Federal Fisheries scientists’ recommendations, to allow the killing of endangered species of salmon, eg Thompson River steelhead (and putting the evidence on Facebook without repercussions) and to kill large game, even those endangered, in and out of season.
The result is a widening of distance between status aboriginal people and the rest of Canada that if history repeats itself here, even in “the peaceable kingdom” will lead to hatred and increasing violence. It always has in the past."
Ehor Boyanowsky
October 15, 2020
-
No there wasn't a Fraser River but there was a Columbia River and salmon bearing rivers in Oregon. Most of Eastern BC's watersheds flowed south through the Columbia including the upper Thompson watershed. Likewise rivers of now inundated coastal margins also had salmon. (Greenland has rivers with huge populations of Arctic Char). Haida Gwaii was never glaciated and neither was much of Alaska That's likely why the Fraser and other coastal rivers formed after the ice retreated were so quickly colonized by salmon. It also shoots your little 'theory' in the foot. (Not dead just wounded).
Interesting rant RalphH but had little to do with my point (wasn't a theory), which was - the salmon have not been here (in the Fraser system) forever as some people like to say.
-
Another and Important Perspective
by Bob Hooton
"Today’s news that non-aboriginal Nova Scotia lobster fishermen have escalated their protest to destruction of boats and catch against a massive lobster fishery mounted out of season by aboriginal fishermen is heartbreaking, but sadly, expected, even inevitable.
The result is a widening of distance between status aboriginal people and the rest of Canada that if history repeats itself here, even in “the peaceable kingdom” will lead to hatred and increasing violence. It always has in the past."
Ehor Boyanowsky
October 15, 2020
For a start the Micmac Lobster fishery is not illegal. It is quite legal.The current Liberal government can take some blame for not negotiating how it should be run. Previous governments of at least 3 parties made the same strategic error. History shows what the courts will impose is harder to administer than what can be negotiated in good faith. Blaming this situation and the violence on the FN rights is a vicious twist of justice and logic. As for what Boyanowski and apparently Bob Hooton believe on these matters, it was quite easy to have such opinions as long as the Federal Crown denied First Nations the opportunity to plead their case in court. The Constitution Act of 1984 removed that Crown prerogative. It was the cost repatriating the constitution that P.E. Trudeau was willing to pay. Both men often write like nostalgic white men who would prefer to live in the 1950s and 60s (when good faith was absent), not the 21st century.
-
Interesting rant RalphH but had little to do with my point (wasn't a theory), which was - the salmon have not been here (in the Fraser system) forever as some people like to say.
so what - it matters nothing. It is a 'theory' much like Ann Elk's theory of the Brontosaurus. There may have been a Fraser River that gathered melt water from the Cordillera Glacier and ran it across land now covered by the sea. That river likely had salmon in it as did the Columbia. There has been what we call a Fraser River on and off for about 60 million years at least. At one time it gathered much of the water that now flows east through the Peace River.
-
And the Fraser used to flow out through Port moody, and the Fraser used to flow out through Cloverdale to Boundary Bay.
But there still weren't any salmon in the ice-filled Fraser River basin when all of BC was covered in thick ice!!
-
And the Fraser used to flow out through Port moody, and the Fraser used to flow out through Cloverdale to Boundary Bay.
But there still weren't any salmon in the ice-filled Fraser River basin when all of BC was covered in thick ice!!
... and Burnaby Mountain is a piece of the ecocene paleo-delta of the ancient Fraser River. There have been rivers flowing here at least since then and there were rivers here during the Pleistocene. The area was not always covered in ice ( do you understand what an interstadial is - we live in one now). The now inundated coastal margins never were covered in ice. There is also so much still to be learned it makes little sense to make social and political conclusions.
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/evergreen-line-drill-cores-reveal-wealth-of-geological-history-sfu-study
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ancient-bc-footprints-earliest-known-north-america-1.4599568 - human habitation on coast 13,000 years
-
The government could easily just give them a modest living wage. Why use a resource just give them the money.
-
in comparison to that, it's believed by some historians that after they obtained rifles, Canada's aboriginal peoples were a major factor in the near extinction of the prairie buffalo populations they depended on.
Some historians they must be!
Until the arrival of the Europeans, natives hunted in a sustainable way. Period.
This is probably much closer to the truth:
Quote from Wikipedia: "The species' dramatic decline was the result of habitat loss due to the expansion of ranching and farming in western North America, industrial-scale hunting practiced by non-indigenous hunters, increased indigenous hunting pressure due to non-indigenous demand for bison hides and meat, and cases of deliberate policy by settler governments to destroy the food source of the native Indian peoples during times of conflict."
And then there is this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/
Do you really, REALLY believe that the natives were a MAJOR factor? ::)
-
Some historians they must be!
Until the arrival of the Europeans, natives hunted in a sustainable way. Period.
This is probably much closer to the truth:
Quote from Wikipedia: "The species' dramatic decline was the result of habitat loss due to the expansion of ranching and farming in western North America, industrial-scale hunting practiced by non-indigenous hunters, increased indigenous hunting pressure due to non-indigenous demand for bison hides and meat, and cases of deliberate policy by settler governments to destroy the food source of the native Indian peoples during times of conflict."
And then there is this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/
Do you really, REALLY believe that the natives were a MAJOR factor? ::)
The U.S. circumstances were different. I was referring to Canada.
-
Not sure how the topic of bison came up but yes, indigenous people were a major factor in their decline. Were they the deciding factor? Absolutely not. That would go to habitat destruction; but they were a factor. Same as with our local salmon. Did First Nations cause the collapse of Pacific salmon stocks? No, that would go to the development of Nylon nets made worse by the development over spawning grounds. Has Native Fishing played a major contributor? Absolutely! In fact, it will probably be the final nail in the coffin after all non FN are no allowed to catch any. Many stocks are alREADY functionally extinct. How many Thompson Steelhead are there left? Between 2 and 4 hundred? I am in my mid 30s and have seen its practical extinction in my life time and it wasn't sport fishing that caused it; and it won't be sport fishing that kills the last one.
But this topic did raise an interesting point with me. I am always intrigued by the notion that Europeans brought the great scourge of greed with them. The simple matter is that it is a human nature. Every group, around the world, harvested as much as their technology would let them. First Nations did not take exactly enough fish to see them through the winter, they took everything they could harvest and carry. It may come in handy; for trade, winter lasts longer than usual, drought, poor salmon returns the following year.., who knows. You took what you could when you could! That was life.
But I do find BCs oral history very interesting. Take grizzly bear for example. If I go Alberta, Washington, Yukon, Alaska or Oregon and talk to the indigenous there (which I have) they openly admit the killed everyone they could because the were a threat and competition. In BC they many groups claim they were sacred and never hunted, only watched. But lets jump back to the bison. As I mentioned earlier, many First Nations in BC argue they only took as much salmon as they needed, used every part of the animal and that was always the way. Now look at the First Nations that lived on the planes. Some of the Nations specialized in driving huge herds of Bison off of cliffs; killing way more animals than was needed or could be processed in a reasonable amount of time before waste set in. At "Head smashed in Buffalo Jump" the bone deposits are 12 metres (39 feet) deep. Seems strange, to me at least, that in every state, territory, or province surrounding BC the history varies so much. Here an animal was only killed out of necessity and never more than needed. Yet, all around us, those areas that land disputes have been settled (terribly and horrifically in many instances, but still settled) the picture is complete opposite. Almost like when there is something at stake human nature comes through no matter the ancestry.
-
It was F.G. Roe, author The North American Buffalo which was, for a quarter century or more, the definitive work on the topic, who suggested that the the level of exploitation of the buffalo by the High Plains Native culture (ie the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Crow) may not be sustained in the very long term. He never said it was the case or would happen. The High Plains buffalo were wiped out solely by commercial hunting. It was US Government policy. They hunted the buffalo to extinction so the Natives would be forced off the plains and into the reservation system and the land could be settled by white people. Once that happened the habitat was destroyed.
Roe was a layman, not a professional historian. I read the book but don't have it in my collection anymore. I don't think anyone buys his suggestion today.
Kind of interesting that 20 years ago or so it was suggested that is was the arrival of humans that wiped out the Pleistocene mega-fauna (ie Mammoths). Not as highly considered today and there is a new theory that an exploding comet (similar to dinosaur extinction) and the end of the last ice age was the cause.
The high plains culture was produced by the introduction of the horse to North America. Before that all the big native cultures mostly grew corn in river valleys. Driving game off cliffs is certainly not unique to North America. It wasn't as relied on during the late High Plains culture as it was well before that. It's not a reliable source of food but a feast or famine strategy. Agriculture always provided a more reliable, if less healthy food source.
The Pacific Coast is perhaps the only example of a developed culture that grew that way on a gathering subsistence strategy. Salmon and clams were the protein staples plus there was many vegetable supplements as well.
-
Very interesting posts, Tylsie and Ralph, thank you for your input.
-
CBC Ideas has reposted a 3 part radio documentary podcast on the North America Buffalo, narrated by Thomas King.
As there was some discussion about the Buffalo in this topic I thought it may be of as much interest to some as to me:
Part 1 https://cbc.mc.tritondigital.com/CBC_IDEAS_P/media/ideas-b0lDWRsb-20200923.mp3
Part 2 https://cbc.mc.tritondigital.com/CBC_IDEAS_P/media/ideas-97YfDu4l-20200930.mp3
Part 3 https://cbc.mc.tritondigital.com/CBC_IDEAS_P/media/ideas-baRYerk0-20201007.mp3