Fishing for Wild Sockeye

On a grey August morning, fishing boats queue up along Aero Trading’s dock just south of Port Edward, ready to offload their catch. Using cranes, dock workers hoist thousands of pounds of fresh-caught salmon from each boat, moving efficiently to keep the slush-chilled fish cold.

On the deck of the Irenda, a 35-foot fishing boat, Mitch Dudoward opens the hold and gets ready to offload the remaining fish from this week’s catch. Over the last four days, he and his wife, Sharon, caught 215 sockeye from the waters near the mouth of the Skeena River. This catch, which brings in revenue to offset the high costs of fuel, gear, and maintenance for the Dudowards’ boat, is part of a dual commercial fishery coordinated by the North Coast-Skeena First Nations Stewardship Society (NCSFNSS).

Both my kids grew up on the boat with me.

A member of Lax Kw’alaams Band, Mitch grew up on the North Coast and began fishing with his father when he was five years old. At 69, he’s spent more than six decades on the water, fishing both commercially and to harvest food for his family and friends. In that time, he’s taken what he’s learned from his father and built on that knowledge, testing new equipment and techniques, and adapting to changing conditions and regulations. He’s also helped the next generation to learn, bringing his son, daughter, nephews, and great-nephews along on fishing trips.

“Both my kids grew up on the boat with me,” he says. “It’s great having family aboard and teaching them what I was taught by my dad – the different spots and the different tides, there’s quite a lot to it. What type of gear to use, what colour of web, how to hang the web.”

“In the demo fishery, we were allowed to keep all non-targeted species,” says Ken Lawson, another Lax Kw’alaams member who participated in this year’s dual commercial fishery, which has created an opportunity for NCSFNSS and fishers to test “dual fishing” under DFO licensing, which allows Indigenous harvesters to keep commercial and FSC harvest caught on the same trip. For now, only “non-target” species can be retained for FSC (DFO refers to this as “type B” dual fishing), but in the future, participants will likely have “type A” dual fishing licensing, which will allow harvesters to retain sockeye for personal FSC use.

Being able to keep and share those additional fish “benefitted so many people” Ken says, adding that he and his wife were able to distribute part of their catch to nearby families and to a local school’s food program.

We basically came in to get fish off [the boat], get more ice, and then back out again the next day. We’re very busy – and that’s not a complaint.

Like other fishers on the coast, Ken and his wife, Patty (who is Mitch’s sister), work 12, 14-hour days in “back-to-back fisheries” in the spring and summer months, and then focus on other lines of work – trucking, in their case – in the off-season. This year’s dual commercial fishery was a welcome opportunity for the Lawsons to bring in more income, while also supporting their family and community.

“It was a very busy year for us: we did contract fishing for our band, for starters, and then the commercial fishery kicked in and the demo fishery right along with that,” Ken says. “We basically came in to get fish off [the boat], get more ice, and then back out again the next day. We’re very busy – and that’s not a complaint. Because our season’s so short, you have to make the best of it.”

Piloting a First Nations Commercial Fishery

For tens of thousands of years, Ts’msyen peoples have harvested and traded salmon, eulachon, herring roe, and other traditional foods from the waters in their territories. These harvests, carefully timed and managed using traditional methods and laws, supported thriving communities and complex trading arrangements between coastal and inland communities.

With the arrival of Europeans, fishing on the Skeena and other parts of the coast grew to an industrial scale, with thousands of boats and fishers competing to harvest salmon for the dozens of canneries operating at the turn of the century. In an attempt to manage the demand for salmon, the Canadian government introduced fishery licenses, which became progressively more complex and prescriptive regarding the kinds of boats and equipment to be used and the numbers of fish to be caught.

Federal policies gave priority to white fishermen, who had access to the financing and collateral needed to purchase fishing boats and gear. At the same time, colonial laws limited traditional Indigenous fishing methods, like weirs, dip nets, and stone traps, that allowed for selective harvesting.

[Indigenous fishers] would have to separate their commercial and food fish activities, which meant two trips instead of one.

Those colonial laws and policies effectively banned traditional fishing practices that are only now being revived, says Angela Addison, Executive Director of the North Coast-Skeena First Nations Stewardship Society (NCSFNSS), a regional group that includes the Gitga’at, Gitxaała, Kitsumkalum, and Kitselas Nations, and collaborates with other Ts’msyen Nations on fisheries and coastal stewardship.

“Indigenous people were not allowed to fish for commercial gain or trade, plus FSC [food, social, ceremonial] at the same time – and that, essentially, made their fishing practices very inefficient,” she says. “[Indigenous fishers] would have to separate their commercial and food fish activities, which meant two trips instead of one.”

To address this inequity and create more opportunities for Ts’msyen fishers to benefit from fishing in their territories, NCSFNSS established a pilot Indigenous demonstration commercial salmon fishery in 2016 and repeated the program in 2018, 2019, and again in 2024.

“The North Coast-Skeena demonstration fishery was created as a special licence available to Ts’msyen fishers, allowing them to have an Indigenous-only commercial opportunity,” Angela explains. To set up the fishery, NCSFNSS worked with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to allocate some of the harvest share from the regular commercial salmon fishery in the Skeena and to allow more flexibility for boat and gear types.

In a typical commercial fishery, fishers need to have access to a commercial license, use specific gear prescribed by the license category, and have access to a commercially-licensed vessel. These limitations present significant barriers for some First Nations people, who may be used to a specific fishing method taught by a relative, or may face barriers accessing financing to purchase and maintain a fishing boat.

“The demonstration fishery doesn’t require all of that,” says Angela. “If someone wanted to fish with a small boat or a short net and do lower-intensity fishing, they could do that. The fishery could include a variety of gear types to capitalize on the abundance that’s available. So, fishers could use seine nets, which are much larger and allow for harvesting larger volumes…or they can use gill nets, which are more passive, have lower catch rates, and are easier to use with one person. At in-river locations, fishers can also choose to use fish wheels or set-nets to harvest more selectively and at a smaller scale.”

There’s just a handful of us out there competing for the numbers. And, of course, we do our best to catch the most we can.

That flexibility has been key to restoring Ts’msyen fishers’ ability to fish for economic and food purposes at the same time, without competition from non-Indigenous commercial fishers.

“What’s different about this is that I’m not fishing amongst the whole fleet,” Mitch says, pointing to the impact that large commercial fishing fleets have had on salmon populations in the Nass and Skeena rivers. “There’s just a handful of us out there competing for the numbers. And, of course, we do our best to catch the most we can.”

“If I did the commercial fishery alone, it would be okay. It might pay your bills, your fuel, and you might have a few bucks left over,” explains Ken. “Whereas the demo fishery was kind of an added bonus. Every fish that I brought in was way better for the pocketbook, you know.”

In the commercial demonstration fishery, Mitch, Ken, and other fishers have been able to fish in the places their families have harvested in for years, choosing the equipment that meets their needs and earning income that offsets the costs of boat and equipment maintenance.

North Coast-Skeena First Nations Stewardship Society’s Role

In its two decades of operation, NCSFNSS has worked with its member and partner First Nations on shared stewardship and policy priorities, with a strong focus on fisheries.

In 2012, Ts’msyen elected Chief Councillors on the NCSFNSS board spearheaded efforts to update DFO’s commercial salmon allocation framework, which determines how each year’s salmon quota is shared between commercial fishing fleets. At the same time, through the Pacific Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative (PICFI), DFO was buying back licenses from large commercial fishing operators and transfer licenses and commercial fishing assets to First Nations.

After decades of fishery policy limiting First Nations fishers’ ability to harvest in their territories, the NCSFNSS board saw an opportunity for First Nations to have more control over fisheries and a fairer share of the economic benefits.

NCSFNSS’s work on the allocation framework laid the groundwork for the first demonstration fishery pilot in 2016, creating a more flexible commercial license category for First Nation fishers like Ken and Mitch. To establish the pilot, NCSFNSS accessed economic development financing through Coast Funds, and used other funding to purchase fishing boats, nets, and gear – and cover maintenance and insurance costs – to support the pilot fishery and help sustain FSC fisheries in Ts’msyen territory.

To develop the pilot program, NCSFNSS worked with DFO to set aside some of the commercial salmon allocation (about five per cent of the total allowable catch) and develop a community-based, Indigenous fishery that could be implemented.

Angela recalls years of planning and negotiation, in close collaboration with Ts’msyen fishers who wanted more flexible access to harvesting sites – especially in areas close to reserve communities – and a more responsive approach to allocation planning. (“How do you determine what five per cent is in a fishing season, given that you don’t know how many fish are available to be harvested until they’re being harvested? It’s a perennial problem with salmon – you don’t always know what’s available until it’s migrated through the fishing areas and gone to the spawning grounds.”)

It’s a challenge fishers like Mitch know all too well. “With the amount of licenses the fisheries department created, there were way too many boats and too much gear fishing too few fish,” he says. “Now that the fleet size has dwindled down to more reasonable numbers, there should be a way to get us out on the water a lot sooner than we’re fishing now.”

To make the license category mesh with existing commercial fishing regulations, NCSFNSS and DFO worked with Indigenous fishers to identify sites and harvesting times, and to develop a dockside monitoring program to ensure compliance.

Even with all that collaboration, the dual fishery nearly stalled in its first year.

“When we actually got our license approved for the first time, we had local officials resisting it,” Angela recalls. “We just pushed for it…we had to call the DFO Regional Director General at like, 10:00 at night, the night before the fishery was supposed to open, and we had to negotiate intensely to get this through.”

At the time, DFO’s Conservation and Protection division had major concerns about the pilot, and were worried that the demo fishery would be used to “launder” food fish from the FSC fishery into the commercial fishery.

Having pushed for approval of the demonstration fishery proposal despite DFO concerns, the NCSFNSS and their member Nations have proven through the initial pilot and in subsequent years that the additional flexibility has helped bridge the divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous commercial fishing, including decision-making about how much of a catch to keep and how much to sell.

In 2024, NCSFNSS retained the services of Ecotrust Canada, which carried out the dockside monitoring for eight demonstration fishery openings – including six with dual licensing permitting non- commercial target FSC catch. Aero Trading, a local seafood buyer and processor, supplied ice to the fishers and guaranteed a price for the year’s catch of sockeye.

The dual fishery gives more autonomy to the Indigenous fishers to manage their fishery themselves

Looking to the future, Angela stresses the importance of local decision-making and its role in conservation. In her work, she’s seen how Indigenous fishers will apply their knowledge to adapt their fishing techniques and gear choices to suit the conditions and maintain the abundance of future harvests.

“The dual fishery gives more autonomy to the Indigenous fishers to manage their fishery themselves,” says Angela. “They know how much fish they’re allowed to catch. They’re given an allocation. And then they have the autonomy to decide how to catch it.”

This initiative represents more than just a shift in fishing practices: it is a restoration of balance. By enabling dual fishing, NCSFNSS’ demonstration fishery represents a meaningful step towards untangling the web of colonial regulations that disrupted First Nations’ time-tested harvesting cycles and practices.

Looking to the Future

For the NCSFNSS team and the fishers they work with, the dual commercial salmon fishery goes beyond this year’s catch — it’s about supporting First Nation fishers to have the same access and flexibility as non-Indigenous fishers.

By adding more flexibility to commercial fishing licenses, Ts’msyen fishers can efficiently meet their family and community needs, just as non-Indigenous fishers do. Independent monitoring ensures that the fishery operates within its quota and tracks the numbers of targeted and non-targeted species harvested.

In future years, Angela expects that the demonstration fishery will adopt “type A” dual fishing licensing, which would allow Indigenous fishers to keep some of the targeted fish (sockeye, pink salmon) for FSC use. She also points to opportunities for integrating traditional fishing methods with commercial licensing – Kitselas First Nation operates an in-river fish wheel to catch FSC fish and could sell some of its catch commercially, for example.

Fishers like Mitch and Ken are optimistic about the program’s potential, hoping it will expand to include more families, additional catch windows, and an earlier start to the season. Both would like to see more opportunities for younger generations to participate, ensuring the continuation of traditional practices and fostering a new generation of skilled fishers.

“I’d rather be out fishing than sitting on the dock waiting for another opening,” says Mitch.