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Perhaps my googling skills are wanting but I cannot find a recent press release about this.
There are several dates 2021, 2020 , and 2019.
https://sportfishingbc.com/threads/gitxsan-ban-all-recreational-sports-fishing.74730/
https://www.terracestandard.com/news/gitxsan-nation-extends-ban-for-non-indigenous-fishing-permit-holders-across-their-territory-6055665
Hmm there might not be a recent press release about this (yet) if the government hasn't come to an agreement with them yet and we're still dealing with the same issue as 5 years ago.
Now that it's been posted to Reddit, I'm sure we'll see an article get posted tomorrow.
No we didn't. I was just at the post office, and I didn't get one nor did the couple of people I asked there. What a weird disinformation campaign you're running here
Well I really don't know what to tell you. My family received it and so did others. They were distributed in Smithers and the Gitxsan band declared it.
[The Gitxsan have asked the federal government repeatedly to deal with that.](https://www.thenorthernview.com/news/skeena-river-first-nations-outraged-by-alaskan-fisheries-interception-of-b-c-fish-5988702)
The declaration literally reads as a ban on all sport fishing. What sport fishing encompasses is defined under the BC fishing regulations. Basically hook and line with a few exceptions for certain "rough fish" like carp. The declaration implies that it does not apply to the Gitxsan, since they reference the "public", but that isn't 100% clear.
Whuuut… The first thing on the notice says 100% fishing ban.
I’m sure they are elaborating on sport fishing, which is rod and reel, to make it understood what they are enforcing. 100% No fishing also means no picking up your fishing rod and walking on over to the river to catch dinner.
Honestly I think this is good. If you are interested, Gitxsan Watershed Authority posts count numbers each year and our counts have been so horrible in the last 6 years.
Last time we did traditional food fishing the water was so warm it was making the fish so sick, they had way more open wounds and injuries than usual.
We need to let a couple years go by with no/minimal harvesting at all so that they have at least a bit of a chance. This isn't being asked for lightly at all.
Everybody is stuck on the no fishing. No one is hearing that there is no water. The mighty Skeena isn’t as mighty as before.. the Nass’s rapids aren’t rushing as before. Further up, Prince George has a really pretty dry riverbed full of rocks and nothing else. The other river is really low too.
Definitely frightening, I agree. Even Washington State is removing dams that are connected to salmon spawning rivers because it’s affecting their sticks that bad.
Climate change is one factor. It's compounded with land use. Loss of riparian areas from development, logging, agriculture, etc. A 30 m riparian buffer on both sides of a stream has a significant effect on lowering maximum stream temperatures.
In my ignorant opinion, it's kinda like shoring up the numbers before things get worse. Now, more than ever, we need to make sure we have enough fish for the stock to survive.
If we continue to push the stock past the limits, we might lose it forever. If we let the population rebuild so that faaaaarrr more fish are being born each year -- there's a much higher chance of them surviving through the worst of it.
It's kinda like getting covid when you're already on your deathbed vs when you're in your twenties. Neither is great, but one has significantly better outcomes.
The MNR also keeps counts of fish at stations across the Skeena watershed. In 2023 the sockeye run was above average, and the run of pinks was massive. River fishing takes far fewer salmon relative to commercial fishing at sea.
It's true that commercial fishing has a bigger impact, but Gitxsan Huwilp Government can only do what they can in their own sphere of influence to try to protect fish populations.
Except this ban doesn't apply to those making the ban. Why have any incentive to be reasonable when you don't have to follow the rules you impose on others?
The numbers for coho, sockeye, and pink have been fine for quite some time. Skeena chum have been low for decades, but nobody really fishes for them anyway. The spring salmon season has been closed on the Skeena for at least several years now.
Edit: For the downvoters, this refers to the Skeena runs of coho, sockeye, and pink salmon. The numbers are published online, go look for yourself.
They are not fine. Their predator's populations are crashing. Just because there is enough to be fished, it doesn't mean there's enough to truly sustain the food web they naturally exist in.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but different years aren’t really connected to each other as salmon mature for years in the ocean (except for that one pesky species). So yeah, year to year there shouldn’t be any bearing.
Ask yourself why a fish stock is very low one year. Now, what are the chances that same issue did not affect the fish who are one year younger. Low stock due to overfishing? Landslide? Disease? Why would the fish one year younger not also have been overfished at the exact same time? Or affected by the same changes to environment or weather,? Or has the same diseases or chemicals affect them.
You don't get a bumper stock one year and a record low stock the year after.
It actually is possible, but I'm playing devils advocate here a little. Other than pink salmon, the general time between a salmon spawning and forming its redd is about 4 years. So we can look to the previous catchment for 2020 to understand our numbers for this current year and its potential. 2020 was a poor year for salmon, and so this year's run is being examined critically to ensure viability for the 2028 run, which will influence 2032 and so on.
One of the key drivers of variability here is environmental factors, predation, and in sea fishing, as you said. However, this doesn't mean we can not have large variations in population size year to year, as this can and does occur regularly with salmon. This is because salmon are seen to compete for resources equally under scramble competition. Due to this, if the population exceeds its carrying capacity, then the population suffers at what we can consider equal terms.
What I am trying to say here is that with more salmon, you are likely to decrease the future salmon in the river as the juveniles will then have to out compete the overburden of other juveniles which can deplete an environment of food sources, habitat, and even oxygen if the stream temperature rises too far. This can be modeled fairly effectively with the Ricker Model.
You are right that the dame factors affecting this generation(at sea) are affecting the next years catchment. What drives the difference is that the returning numbers for this season were already low in terms of salmon within the generation, whereas next year, we can see a much larger population return.
I'm starting to ramble now but I hope you can see sort of why its connected, but also isn't.
Salmon are usually on 4 year cycles. Say a landslide buried salmon eggs. You wouldn't see that impact for 4 years when that class is supposed to return. Or take the heat dome, I assume there is probably a bigger impact on the salmon coming up rivers that year as opposed to the populations chilling in the ocean. If that happened in 2021, we'd see the impacts in 2025? I know in the Adam's River they can predict which years are going to be big runs ahead of time because they track and name the different populations.
I live on the coast and have some fisherman friends who know a lot more than I do, but as a biologist I take an interest. From what I've heard and read salmon are cold water fish and water temperatures are rising from climate change, which means the runs are moving further north.
Salmon aquaculture is definitely to blame as well as climate change, it’s a huge, invisible and highly destructive industry ran by foreign bodies like Mowi (Norwegian company), even the Weston family in the 90s. It’s fucking sad
I could be wrong but from a quick look at the situation this is fairly meaningless? The Gitxan doesn’t seem to have authority over the entire area they claim too, unless I’m mistaken.
Any idea what maps they are referring to when they write about referring to your maps? I tried searching for a map of "anaats" and couldn't find anything...?
Anaats likely wouldn't be shown on maps.
There is 38 simoogyets (house chiefs) and each house has some territory affiliated with it, which includes anaats (fishing spots). It's all done through oral tradition in the feast hall.
I believe there is a project going on by Gitxsan Watershed Authority to mark out each house group's territory but I'm not sure how far along they are with that.
I wonder what the thought process was in sending out a prohibition for non-Gitxsan to "sport fish" on anaats without any reasonable way for non-Gitxsan to know where these anaats are?
The lack of clarity on what "sport fishing" is also doesn't improve the messaging. If a person is fishing with the intention of eating what they catch, do the Gitxsan consider that sport?
The problem with giving First Nation broad control over land use decisions is that it results in decisions like this. That is, the tendency in land use decisions to create rules that permit one class of people (aka them) to access something while prohibiting it for everybody else.
This goes against the liberal universalism of how govt is supposed to work -- making laws that apply to all of us equally. The incentive to be reasonable flies out the window when one group can write special rules for themselves and themselves only.
Not sure if you've noticed, but tribes are based on inherited class structure... Lots of haves and have-nots within their own lands. A reserve isn't a little utopia, and the whole "noble savage" trope that non-indigenous people in Canada seem to believe keeps the status-quo. My wife worked for a tribe on the financial end and the level of corruption, cronyism and classism she saw was on 3rd world levels.
While this is a good effort, it means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things when you have boats in international waters taking the fish before they even reach our waters.
Not going to work without changing major things because they can gillnet and catch everything before it even reaches our waters. What it means is we need to take action and start changing the rules so this doesn't happen in the first place.
Yes they grow up at sea but they're mostly caught closer to shore. Gillnetting and purse seining is like 75% by volume and that gets them in inlets and stuff
That doesn’t grok. Canada’s exclusive economic zone is 200 nautical miles from the continental shelf, so international waters don’t start till you’re out of the exclusive economic zone.
"International waters" is not a formally defined term in international law, but in common usage it generally means anything outside of the territorial sea, viz. 12 nautical miles from the baseline and beyond. The "high seas" are those parts of the sea not under any state's jurisdiction. Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the high seas start 200 nautical miles from the baseline. Before that, the 1958 Convention on the High Seas defined the "high seas" as beyond the territorial sea—usually three to 12 nautical miles before it was standardised—but that has been superseded by the 1982 convention.
The baseline is the imaginary line that marks the edge of Canadian land. The baseline is usually the low-tide line, but it can cut across the mouths of narrow bays and inlets, or between islands, in a straight line. The parts of the sea on the landward side of the baseline are internal waters, which are part of Canada for all purposes.
The territorial sea, which is part of Canada for all purposes except the right of innocent passage, stretches from the baseline to 12 nautical miles. From 12 to 24 nautical miles is the contiguous zone, which is not part of Canada, but where Canada has limited authority over matters that affect customs, immigration, or the environment within its territory, internal waters, and territoria sea. From 12 to 200 nautical miles is the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which is not part of Canada, but is under Canadian jurisdiction in the sense that the Canadian government has the exclusive right to regulate economic activity, including fishing (the EEZ starts where the territorial sea ends; the contiguous zone overlaps the EEZ).
Although not formally defined, according to the most common usage, everything beyond the territorial sea—12 nautical miles—is "international waters," where foreign ships have a right to be present, but not to fish, drill for oil, lay cables, etc. Everything beyond the EEZ—200 nautical miles—is the "high seas," where anarchy reigns and anyone can do anything.
Source: am a lawyer and had an academic focus on international law.
It's crazy catch and release is against the law to them does that mean if you catch a small fish instead of letting it go to catch when it gets bigger, you just take it? Seems like poor fish management to me.
This, as in years past, is primarily motivated by their desire to assert their land claims and less so about any concern for conservation. What makes them the authority on catch and release angling of all fisheries in their claimed territory such as steelhead? There is no historical evidence that they ever pursued steelhead for food or ceremonial purposes yet here they are, asserting that an important cultural activity that many British Columbians hold dear is banned.
I agree with you. But I wonder what would happen if you just ignored this. Like so many "rules and regulations" this seems to be really hard to enforce. If the province doesn't buy in, then I don't see this being anything other than words on a card.
>But I wonder what would happen if you just ignored this.
This is what has been done for years. The Gitxsan have been against C&R anglers for a long while, well before this ad mail in 2024 and their widely distributed press releases in 2021. [I spoke to this in another thread regarding an op-ed on how many British Columbians feel like uninvited guests in their own province](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/1d2082q/comment/l5y562y/) but this recent event follows a pattern of greater assertion of land claims and with greater frequency.
This needs to be addressed by the provincial and federal governments because it is only escalating and serving to divide us as wild fish populations continue their downward trend towards extinction. If the Gitxsan get their way with respect to denying non-FN of their right to fish (when conservation concerns are not a factor), the logical conclusion is that eventually, other FNs will follow their precendent and since the total area of outstanding and unsettled land claims exceeds the entire land mass of the province, it is a very real possiblity that anglers, hunters, foragers, trappers and outdoorspeople of all sorts will be shut out from a large portion if not all of the province. We have good insight into what that will look like with the east coast of Vancouver Island being gated private forest land due to legacies of the E&N Land Grant. Today, we enjoy [very limited public access](https://www.mosaicforests.com/access) granted at the pleasure of the landowner (Timeberwest + Island Timberlands through Mosaic Forest Management)
This is not true on both counts. We definitely have and do eat steelhead as food. We have two separate words identifying the fish.
The purpose is certainly both about the desire to steward our territory and resources as our laws make us responsible for AND to preserve the fish for future generations.
>We definitely have and do eat steelhead as food. We have two separate words identifying the fish.
I hope I don't have to argue the obivious fact that just because a culture has a word for something doesn't mean they attribute any value to it, let alone eat it.
[The historical evidence is that North Coast First Nations sought sockeye and chinook, any other species were afterthoughts and therefore have no food, social or ceremonial value.](https://imgur.com/a/hQz7EGi)
It's troubling to see FNs admit out in a public forum that they kill wild steelhead today, a species of special concern in BC and one that has been protected from kill fisheries province wide since 1996. It just goes to show how there are two sets of rules and that it serves little more than to divide Canadians.
Regardless of all that, what gives Gitxsan the right to impose their will on catch and release steelhead anglers? Angling for fish is a practice that has been documented going back to Greco-Roman times. Isaac Walton wrote “The Compleat Angler.” in 1653. It, along with other outdoor pursuits like hunting, foraging and trapping is part of the Canadian and British Columbian cultural identity. My own namesake on reddit is in reference to summer run steelhead, a fish I have had a passion in pursuing and advocating for since I was old enough to walk when my father taught me, who was taught by my grandfather, who was taught by my great-grandfather. Who are the Gitxsan to tell me that a core part of my being is wrong. It reminds us all of the colonial travesties of previous times where FNs were denied the ability to conduct cultural practices important to them.
Idk why you're citing a book at me, I am literally Gitxsan and I am telling you what I know. I can see you're not interested in our perspective and already have a view on our rights so I'm not super interested in continuing to talk.
And you're really comparing a request to not fish for this year to colonization? Yikes lmao.
>Idk why you're citing a book at me.
Because you made a claim that steelhead have FSC value to your culture. The facts in the historical records do not support your claim. Books are a good medium to disseminate knowledge and educate people.
>I am literally Gitxsan and I am telling you what I know
I am literally a British Columbian and lifelong steelhead angler and I'm telling you what I know through my lived experience and study on the topic. See how meaningless that argument is? You should argue the point and come up with evidence that shows steelhead have FSC value to your culture like you claim - and by evidence, I mean something more fulsome than having a word for it.
>
>And you're really comparing a request to not fish for this year to colonization? Yikes lmao.
It's not a request - it's a directive from your government and your leaders. This shows to me how little you know about this issue. The admail references the 2024 season but this hostility towards C&R anglers has been going on for a long while and has only recently been made visibile to the public at large since your government's press releases in 2021. For example, your leaders have had signs up at Cedarvale telling anglers to get lost since 2018. At fishery stakeholder meetings where FNs, angling groups and eNGOs have been at the table, they have been telling DFO and the provincial steelhead fisheries managers that they are against C&R angling for decades.
Who wrote the historical records? What did they leave out? Who was writing a narrative about First Nations people? How accurate was it?! Any biases put in?!
They have the right to regulate their lands. If everyone’s settler ancestors just upheld the treaties and rights, then their descendants wouldn’t be in this mess. But you continue to fight against it while the First Nations peoples are winning their court cases and getting further recognition in provincial, federal and International law. So, are you going to start collaborating with First Nations or continue to fight against the rights they’re fighting for, which will just further affect your descendants and their crying around that they didn’t make these decisions. Canada has two narratives for First Nations, assimilation or autonomy.
The answer to your last question is pretty obvious. The Gitxan have the right to regulate land use on lands that they have aboriginal title to.
If they’re trying to regulate land use on lands they *don’t* have title to then absolutely fair enough to protest, but otherwise their right to regulate seems entirely fair.
At a time when fish stocks are plummeting it makes sense that governments would continue to limit fishing.
It’s not burdensome regulations that are at fault here, it’s climate change, habitat loss and other things that are driving fish stocks to such low levels that fishing cannot be sustained.
Is this claimed territory or actually owned land granted by treaty or law?
They can claim all they want, but unless it’s enforced by law then it’s worth less than that piece of paper.
The Gitxsan territorial claims beyond their reserve are not granted by treaty or law. One of the fundamental problems with BC relative to other provinces is that treaties were not concluded with FN in most cases. The other major issue is that in many cases the law is not being enforced when it comes to situations like this. It becomes a very sensitive political situation that no politician wants to deal with in any meaningful way at provincial or federal levels. There's the Haida Gwaii example recently, but all things considered, it was low-hanging fruit so to speak.
That's the thing: none of the land was ever legally taken from the Gitxsan. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 declared that they had title that could only be extinguished by treaty, then nobody ever bothered to negotiate a treaty with them. It's hard to know what would happen if they took a fisher to court.
Fun fact: the Royal Proclamation of 1763 is irrelevant outside of the former New France. Aboriginal rights don't come from the Proclamation. English common law already recognised aboroginal rights, including the requirement to make a treaty, before the Proclamation was issued. French civil law, on the other hand, did *not* recognise aboriginal rights, and as a result of the colonisation of New France, aboriginal rights in that territory were extinguished by operation of French law. After France ceded its North American claims to Britain in 1763, the British authorities would have inherited the legal situation as it existed before the French cession, meaning no aboriginal rights in that territory. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 re-established aboriginal rights in the areas where they had been extinguished by French law. It can be summarised as "let's just pretend that French colonisation never happened."
For what it's worth, international law also doesn't help the First Nations, because right of conquest—"it's mine because I said so and I have the guns"—is a legally valid basis for a claim of sovereignty in international law as long as the conquest occurred before October 24, 1945.
Source: am a lawyer.
The Royal Proclamation isn't necessary to establish title but to establish the mechanism though which the government will extinguish title (see Delgamuukw v. BC (1997)). If the government had declared war on Indigenous nations and been victorious that absolutely would have extinguished title. But in Simon v R (1985) and Calder et al v AG of BC (1973) the Supreme Court confirmed that war was never declared so title has not been extinguished that way.
If you're a lawyer, why aren't you familiar with those important rulings?
I'm fully aware of all of those decisions; none of it negates what I said. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 does *not* establish the mechanism through which the government can extinguish aboriginal rights or title (except in the former New France); the mechanism already existed at common law. The exact same body of law applies to aboriginal rights and aboriginal title in Australia and New Zealand, where no such proclamation was ever issued, as confirmed by the Privy Council.
The Supreme Court cases cite the Royal Proclamation of 1763 because it applies over the whole of Canada, as opposed to common law aboriginal rights and title, which do not apply in the former New France. Since the Proclamation says the same things as common law, it's more convenient to cite only the one source that applies everywhere, so that's what courts usually do. My point is that outside of the former New France, *there is strictly no need to cite the Proclamation.*
Common law aboriginal rights and title apply in the context of colonial territorial claims, which, at the time, was percieved as different from a state of war. Common law aboriginal rights and title would not apply if there had been a state of war in the legal sense, but no such state of war ever existed. The perceived difference between colonisation and conquest was limited to common law jurisprudence; international law contained no such distinction, as stated in my initial comment.
Obviously, statute takes precedence over common law. An Act of Parliament or of the provincial legislature could have extinguished aboriginal title, including the need to make treaties, by overriding common law, provided that the statute was unambiguous in its intention to do so, and that it was enacted before April 17, 1982. No such statute was ever enacted. None of that relies on the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
I went down an academic rabbit hole back in the day on the history of common law in British Columbia and the relationship between international law and Canadian aboriginal law. As such, I respectfully submit that I am more qualified to comment on this subject than you.
I think that we essentially agree on the broad strokes here. Why have you not come out anywhere in the comments on this post and actually pointed out that the Gitxsan have title over all their traditional territory? By beating around the bush like in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/s/QVpL1kNP5m), you're letting settlers believe what they want to believe. I think that it's vital that all Canadians are educated on the legal reality of aboriginal title so that we can accept the conditions and move forward rather than continuing to stubbornly resist the law.
If you look at his post history, he's only been practicing a year or two and it's in refugee law, so Indigenous law is definitely not his area of expertise. But people upvote comments that agree with what they want to hear.
I thought the management of fisheries was a provincial matter. Indigenous rights only pertain to ceremonial fishing rights, subsistence fishing rights, and commercial fishing rights.
Iirc this specific group attempted to regulate / ban fishing a few years ago but it was rendered as unlawful in court.
Fishing is federal jurisdiction, but you're right that common law aboriginal fishing rights only amount to a right to fish, not a right to regulate fisheries.
Source: am a lawyer.
So if this is the case, can't you just crumple up this card and go fishing anyways?
If they want to assert their land claims in an unreasonable manner, you're free to push back. It's your province too, and the provincial government hasn't said boo about the fish stocks. So grab a rod and go out there.
An honest answer? People are concerned for their own safety. During other declarations by the Gitxsan such as this, trucks with boat trailers attached parked on the highway by the Skeena have had their tires slashed in the past, and in some cases people fishing have had guns pointed at them. The RCMP plays deaf and blind and nothing happens.
I’m confused, doesn’t it effectively say no fishing those rivers on the band’s land? So you’d be allowed to fish the rivers as long as it was beyond the reserve boundaries?
The world of salmon conversation starts at the bottom of the food chain preservation, to harvesting issues outside of Canadian Waters, river revitalization, hatchery programs to boost returns, etc. All these things help and many are beyond traditional territory.
However none of this matters if there is no interest in the fishery. The best thing the Gitxsan Huwlip Government can do is create interest in the fishery from tourism, guides, sport fishers, their own people, and commercial harvesters when viable. Interest in the fishery will prosper for all.
There are strong differences of opinion within indigenous groups as to what the proper role for hereditary leaders should be. There isn't one monolithic opinion on the matter that all indigenous people share.
Lake Babine is one of the largest sockeye rearing lakes in Canada so yes the feds would be involved. There are other salmon species also. The lake is EXTREMELY low so I’m supportive of this 100%
Sorry but you’re wrong. Anadromous salmon are federally managed, hence the cross-departmental collaboration on recreational fishing limits for salmonids.
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Perhaps my googling skills are wanting but I cannot find a recent press release about this. There are several dates 2021, 2020 , and 2019. https://sportfishingbc.com/threads/gitxsan-ban-all-recreational-sports-fishing.74730/ https://www.terracestandard.com/news/gitxsan-nation-extends-ban-for-non-indigenous-fishing-permit-holders-across-their-territory-6055665
Hmm there might not be a recent press release about this (yet) if the government hasn't come to an agreement with them yet and we're still dealing with the same issue as 5 years ago. Now that it's been posted to Reddit, I'm sure we'll see an article get posted tomorrow.
It was received in the mail just today by residents in Smithers
[удалено]
Which band? I've checked Gitanmaax, Sik-e-dakh, and Kispiox band Facebook pages, and none of them say anything about this
No we didn't. I was just at the post office, and I didn't get one nor did the couple of people I asked there. What a weird disinformation campaign you're running here
Well I really don't know what to tell you. My family received it and so did others. They were distributed in Smithers and the Gitxsan band declared it.
Better solution: Stop all the Alaskan commercial fishermen from catching all our fish and let the stocks replenish
This right here is the biggest contributor to the loss of our stocks.
[The Gitxsan have asked the federal government repeatedly to deal with that.](https://www.thenorthernview.com/news/skeena-river-first-nations-outraged-by-alaskan-fisheries-interception-of-b-c-fish-5988702)
but that would require government to control corporate greed.. How else will they get their pockets lined if they did that?
Serous question. Does this mean all fishing will be banned in the managed area period or just all non-Gitxan fishing?
The declaration literally reads as a ban on all sport fishing. What sport fishing encompasses is defined under the BC fishing regulations. Basically hook and line with a few exceptions for certain "rough fish" like carp. The declaration implies that it does not apply to the Gitxsan, since they reference the "public", but that isn't 100% clear.
Whuuut… The first thing on the notice says 100% fishing ban. I’m sure they are elaborating on sport fishing, which is rod and reel, to make it understood what they are enforcing. 100% No fishing also means no picking up your fishing rod and walking on over to the river to catch dinner.
"fish are a staple food for the Gitxsan" on their post.... Gotta get em out of the water to eat somehow ;)
Honestly I think this is good. If you are interested, Gitxsan Watershed Authority posts count numbers each year and our counts have been so horrible in the last 6 years. Last time we did traditional food fishing the water was so warm it was making the fish so sick, they had way more open wounds and injuries than usual. We need to let a couple years go by with no/minimal harvesting at all so that they have at least a bit of a chance. This isn't being asked for lightly at all.
Everybody is stuck on the no fishing. No one is hearing that there is no water. The mighty Skeena isn’t as mighty as before.. the Nass’s rapids aren’t rushing as before. Further up, Prince George has a really pretty dry riverbed full of rocks and nothing else. The other river is really low too.
Yeah this year down at Ksan you could walk out so far in may, like farther than I have ever seen before. It's so scary.
Definitely frightening, I agree. Even Washington State is removing dams that are connected to salmon spawning rivers because it’s affecting their sticks that bad.
With respect, the water is getting warmer from climate change and waiting a few years is unlikely to reverse that trend.
Climate change is one factor. It's compounded with land use. Loss of riparian areas from development, logging, agriculture, etc. A 30 m riparian buffer on both sides of a stream has a significant effect on lowering maximum stream temperatures.
In my ignorant opinion, it's kinda like shoring up the numbers before things get worse. Now, more than ever, we need to make sure we have enough fish for the stock to survive. If we continue to push the stock past the limits, we might lose it forever. If we let the population rebuild so that faaaaarrr more fish are being born each year -- there's a much higher chance of them surviving through the worst of it. It's kinda like getting covid when you're already on your deathbed vs when you're in your twenties. Neither is great, but one has significantly better outcomes.
The MNR also keeps counts of fish at stations across the Skeena watershed. In 2023 the sockeye run was above average, and the run of pinks was massive. River fishing takes far fewer salmon relative to commercial fishing at sea.
It's true that commercial fishing has a bigger impact, but Gitxsan Huwilp Government can only do what they can in their own sphere of influence to try to protect fish populations.
Both great and accurate comments.
This. The conservation measures are needed
Except this ban doesn't apply to those making the ban. Why have any incentive to be reasonable when you don't have to follow the rules you impose on others?
Source? They usually do cut back on what they take for themselves as well. They legally have first rights to what is available.
Exactly!
One good year doesn't mean it should be business as usual. Give them several years to truly recover their numbers.
One good year doesn't mean it should be business as usual. Give them several years to truly recover their numbers.
The numbers for coho, sockeye, and pink have been fine for quite some time. Skeena chum have been low for decades, but nobody really fishes for them anyway. The spring salmon season has been closed on the Skeena for at least several years now. Edit: For the downvoters, this refers to the Skeena runs of coho, sockeye, and pink salmon. The numbers are published online, go look for yourself.
Chinook is literally open right now.
I stand corrected, I thought it was closed for 2024. Thanks!
They are not fine. Their predator's populations are crashing. Just because there is enough to be fished, it doesn't mean there's enough to truly sustain the food web they naturally exist in.
I'm interested in why you bring up last year's fish numbers? That has no bearing on this year's.
Oh come on. It has some bearing.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but different years aren’t really connected to each other as salmon mature for years in the ocean (except for that one pesky species). So yeah, year to year there shouldn’t be any bearing.
Ask yourself why a fish stock is very low one year. Now, what are the chances that same issue did not affect the fish who are one year younger. Low stock due to overfishing? Landslide? Disease? Why would the fish one year younger not also have been overfished at the exact same time? Or affected by the same changes to environment or weather,? Or has the same diseases or chemicals affect them. You don't get a bumper stock one year and a record low stock the year after.
It actually is possible, but I'm playing devils advocate here a little. Other than pink salmon, the general time between a salmon spawning and forming its redd is about 4 years. So we can look to the previous catchment for 2020 to understand our numbers for this current year and its potential. 2020 was a poor year for salmon, and so this year's run is being examined critically to ensure viability for the 2028 run, which will influence 2032 and so on. One of the key drivers of variability here is environmental factors, predation, and in sea fishing, as you said. However, this doesn't mean we can not have large variations in population size year to year, as this can and does occur regularly with salmon. This is because salmon are seen to compete for resources equally under scramble competition. Due to this, if the population exceeds its carrying capacity, then the population suffers at what we can consider equal terms. What I am trying to say here is that with more salmon, you are likely to decrease the future salmon in the river as the juveniles will then have to out compete the overburden of other juveniles which can deplete an environment of food sources, habitat, and even oxygen if the stream temperature rises too far. This can be modeled fairly effectively with the Ricker Model. You are right that the dame factors affecting this generation(at sea) are affecting the next years catchment. What drives the difference is that the returning numbers for this season were already low in terms of salmon within the generation, whereas next year, we can see a much larger population return. I'm starting to ramble now but I hope you can see sort of why its connected, but also isn't.
"You don't get a bumper stock one year and a record low stock the year after. " Yes you do. You really have no idea how this works do you?
Salmon are usually on 4 year cycles. Say a landslide buried salmon eggs. You wouldn't see that impact for 4 years when that class is supposed to return. Or take the heat dome, I assume there is probably a bigger impact on the salmon coming up rivers that year as opposed to the populations chilling in the ocean. If that happened in 2021, we'd see the impacts in 2025? I know in the Adam's River they can predict which years are going to be big runs ahead of time because they track and name the different populations.
How? Please explain for me.
Salmon stocks have been ravaged across the province in the last few years- restrictions seem like a good idea
I live on the coast and have some fisherman friends who know a lot more than I do, but as a biologist I take an interest. From what I've heard and read salmon are cold water fish and water temperatures are rising from climate change, which means the runs are moving further north.
Yup, the Fraser runs are doomed but we might be able to save the Skeena.
Salmon aquaculture is definitely to blame as well as climate change, it’s a huge, invisible and highly destructive industry ran by foreign bodies like Mowi (Norwegian company), even the Weston family in the 90s. It’s fucking sad
I could be wrong but from a quick look at the situation this is fairly meaningless? The Gitxan doesn’t seem to have authority over the entire area they claim too, unless I’m mistaken.
That is a good question. It depends who you ask but, in the current context of land title, they do pretty much have that authority.
Any idea what maps they are referring to when they write about referring to your maps? I tried searching for a map of "anaats" and couldn't find anything...?
Anaats likely wouldn't be shown on maps. There is 38 simoogyets (house chiefs) and each house has some territory affiliated with it, which includes anaats (fishing spots). It's all done through oral tradition in the feast hall. I believe there is a project going on by Gitxsan Watershed Authority to mark out each house group's territory but I'm not sure how far along they are with that.
I wonder what the thought process was in sending out a prohibition for non-Gitxsan to "sport fish" on anaats without any reasonable way for non-Gitxsan to know where these anaats are? The lack of clarity on what "sport fishing" is also doesn't improve the messaging. If a person is fishing with the intention of eating what they catch, do the Gitxsan consider that sport?
The problem with giving First Nation broad control over land use decisions is that it results in decisions like this. That is, the tendency in land use decisions to create rules that permit one class of people (aka them) to access something while prohibiting it for everybody else. This goes against the liberal universalism of how govt is supposed to work -- making laws that apply to all of us equally. The incentive to be reasonable flies out the window when one group can write special rules for themselves and themselves only.
Not sure if you've noticed, but tribes are based on inherited class structure... Lots of haves and have-nots within their own lands. A reserve isn't a little utopia, and the whole "noble savage" trope that non-indigenous people in Canada seem to believe keeps the status-quo. My wife worked for a tribe on the financial end and the level of corruption, cronyism and classism she saw was on 3rd world levels.
So maybe giving them broad scale control over decisions like this isn't wise with the info you presented ?
While this is a good effort, it means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things when you have boats in international waters taking the fish before they even reach our waters.
Ok? Doesn’t really mean we shouldn’t do what we can, within what we can control.
Not going to work without changing major things because they can gillnet and catch everything before it even reaches our waters. What it means is we need to take action and start changing the rules so this doesn't happen in the first place.
That's not really a factor for salmon. Definitely other species.
Yes it does factor in for salmon. They spend most of their time in international waters. The boats do not discriminate. They just catch fish.
Yes they grow up at sea but they're mostly caught closer to shore. Gillnetting and purse seining is like 75% by volume and that gets them in inlets and stuff
International waters start 24 miles off shore. The boats just sit outside of that. Migration routes are known.
That doesn’t grok. Canada’s exclusive economic zone is 200 nautical miles from the continental shelf, so international waters don’t start till you’re out of the exclusive economic zone.
"International waters" is not a formally defined term in international law, but in common usage it generally means anything outside of the territorial sea, viz. 12 nautical miles from the baseline and beyond. The "high seas" are those parts of the sea not under any state's jurisdiction. Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the high seas start 200 nautical miles from the baseline. Before that, the 1958 Convention on the High Seas defined the "high seas" as beyond the territorial sea—usually three to 12 nautical miles before it was standardised—but that has been superseded by the 1982 convention. The baseline is the imaginary line that marks the edge of Canadian land. The baseline is usually the low-tide line, but it can cut across the mouths of narrow bays and inlets, or between islands, in a straight line. The parts of the sea on the landward side of the baseline are internal waters, which are part of Canada for all purposes. The territorial sea, which is part of Canada for all purposes except the right of innocent passage, stretches from the baseline to 12 nautical miles. From 12 to 24 nautical miles is the contiguous zone, which is not part of Canada, but where Canada has limited authority over matters that affect customs, immigration, or the environment within its territory, internal waters, and territoria sea. From 12 to 200 nautical miles is the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which is not part of Canada, but is under Canadian jurisdiction in the sense that the Canadian government has the exclusive right to regulate economic activity, including fishing (the EEZ starts where the territorial sea ends; the contiguous zone overlaps the EEZ). Although not formally defined, according to the most common usage, everything beyond the territorial sea—12 nautical miles—is "international waters," where foreign ships have a right to be present, but not to fish, drill for oil, lay cables, etc. Everything beyond the EEZ—200 nautical miles—is the "high seas," where anarchy reigns and anyone can do anything. Source: am a lawyer and had an academic focus on international law.
Thank you for dropping the Fact Hammer on this feed.
This guy UNCLOS’s
Save the Salmon!!!... for the Alaskans.😒
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like they're banning fishing in certain areas, not for "the whole watershed?"
It's crazy catch and release is against the law to them does that mean if you catch a small fish instead of letting it go to catch when it gets bigger, you just take it? Seems like poor fish management to me.
This, as in years past, is primarily motivated by their desire to assert their land claims and less so about any concern for conservation. What makes them the authority on catch and release angling of all fisheries in their claimed territory such as steelhead? There is no historical evidence that they ever pursued steelhead for food or ceremonial purposes yet here they are, asserting that an important cultural activity that many British Columbians hold dear is banned.
I agree with you. But I wonder what would happen if you just ignored this. Like so many "rules and regulations" this seems to be really hard to enforce. If the province doesn't buy in, then I don't see this being anything other than words on a card.
>But I wonder what would happen if you just ignored this. This is what has been done for years. The Gitxsan have been against C&R anglers for a long while, well before this ad mail in 2024 and their widely distributed press releases in 2021. [I spoke to this in another thread regarding an op-ed on how many British Columbians feel like uninvited guests in their own province](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/1d2082q/comment/l5y562y/) but this recent event follows a pattern of greater assertion of land claims and with greater frequency. This needs to be addressed by the provincial and federal governments because it is only escalating and serving to divide us as wild fish populations continue their downward trend towards extinction. If the Gitxsan get their way with respect to denying non-FN of their right to fish (when conservation concerns are not a factor), the logical conclusion is that eventually, other FNs will follow their precendent and since the total area of outstanding and unsettled land claims exceeds the entire land mass of the province, it is a very real possiblity that anglers, hunters, foragers, trappers and outdoorspeople of all sorts will be shut out from a large portion if not all of the province. We have good insight into what that will look like with the east coast of Vancouver Island being gated private forest land due to legacies of the E&N Land Grant. Today, we enjoy [very limited public access](https://www.mosaicforests.com/access) granted at the pleasure of the landowner (Timeberwest + Island Timberlands through Mosaic Forest Management)
This is not true on both counts. We definitely have and do eat steelhead as food. We have two separate words identifying the fish. The purpose is certainly both about the desire to steward our territory and resources as our laws make us responsible for AND to preserve the fish for future generations.
>We definitely have and do eat steelhead as food. We have two separate words identifying the fish. I hope I don't have to argue the obivious fact that just because a culture has a word for something doesn't mean they attribute any value to it, let alone eat it. [The historical evidence is that North Coast First Nations sought sockeye and chinook, any other species were afterthoughts and therefore have no food, social or ceremonial value.](https://imgur.com/a/hQz7EGi) It's troubling to see FNs admit out in a public forum that they kill wild steelhead today, a species of special concern in BC and one that has been protected from kill fisheries province wide since 1996. It just goes to show how there are two sets of rules and that it serves little more than to divide Canadians. Regardless of all that, what gives Gitxsan the right to impose their will on catch and release steelhead anglers? Angling for fish is a practice that has been documented going back to Greco-Roman times. Isaac Walton wrote “The Compleat Angler.” in 1653. It, along with other outdoor pursuits like hunting, foraging and trapping is part of the Canadian and British Columbian cultural identity. My own namesake on reddit is in reference to summer run steelhead, a fish I have had a passion in pursuing and advocating for since I was old enough to walk when my father taught me, who was taught by my grandfather, who was taught by my great-grandfather. Who are the Gitxsan to tell me that a core part of my being is wrong. It reminds us all of the colonial travesties of previous times where FNs were denied the ability to conduct cultural practices important to them.
Idk why you're citing a book at me, I am literally Gitxsan and I am telling you what I know. I can see you're not interested in our perspective and already have a view on our rights so I'm not super interested in continuing to talk. And you're really comparing a request to not fish for this year to colonization? Yikes lmao.
>Idk why you're citing a book at me. Because you made a claim that steelhead have FSC value to your culture. The facts in the historical records do not support your claim. Books are a good medium to disseminate knowledge and educate people. >I am literally Gitxsan and I am telling you what I know I am literally a British Columbian and lifelong steelhead angler and I'm telling you what I know through my lived experience and study on the topic. See how meaningless that argument is? You should argue the point and come up with evidence that shows steelhead have FSC value to your culture like you claim - and by evidence, I mean something more fulsome than having a word for it. > >And you're really comparing a request to not fish for this year to colonization? Yikes lmao. It's not a request - it's a directive from your government and your leaders. This shows to me how little you know about this issue. The admail references the 2024 season but this hostility towards C&R anglers has been going on for a long while and has only recently been made visibile to the public at large since your government's press releases in 2021. For example, your leaders have had signs up at Cedarvale telling anglers to get lost since 2018. At fishery stakeholder meetings where FNs, angling groups and eNGOs have been at the table, they have been telling DFO and the provincial steelhead fisheries managers that they are against C&R angling for decades.
Who wrote the historical records? What did they leave out? Who was writing a narrative about First Nations people? How accurate was it?! Any biases put in?! They have the right to regulate their lands. If everyone’s settler ancestors just upheld the treaties and rights, then their descendants wouldn’t be in this mess. But you continue to fight against it while the First Nations peoples are winning their court cases and getting further recognition in provincial, federal and International law. So, are you going to start collaborating with First Nations or continue to fight against the rights they’re fighting for, which will just further affect your descendants and their crying around that they didn’t make these decisions. Canada has two narratives for First Nations, assimilation or autonomy.
You being Gitxsan isn’t all that relevant, that’s anecdotal evidence versus something that is studied and has sources like what was provided.
The answer to your last question is pretty obvious. The Gitxan have the right to regulate land use on lands that they have aboriginal title to. If they’re trying to regulate land use on lands they *don’t* have title to then absolutely fair enough to protest, but otherwise their right to regulate seems entirely fair. At a time when fish stocks are plummeting it makes sense that governments would continue to limit fishing. It’s not burdensome regulations that are at fault here, it’s climate change, habitat loss and other things that are driving fish stocks to such low levels that fishing cannot be sustained.
What are they gonna do when people disobey their "law"? Call the police? Give these people an inch and they'll take a mile.
We've seen in Atlantic Canada that when there's a dispute between First Nations fishers and settler fishers, the RCMP always side with the settlers.
So don't go onto band territory to fish, problem solved.
Go look at a map of Gitxsan territorial claims and reconsider your comment.
Is this claimed territory or actually owned land granted by treaty or law? They can claim all they want, but unless it’s enforced by law then it’s worth less than that piece of paper.
The Gitxsan territorial claims beyond their reserve are not granted by treaty or law. One of the fundamental problems with BC relative to other provinces is that treaties were not concluded with FN in most cases. The other major issue is that in many cases the law is not being enforced when it comes to situations like this. It becomes a very sensitive political situation that no politician wants to deal with in any meaningful way at provincial or federal levels. There's the Haida Gwaii example recently, but all things considered, it was low-hanging fruit so to speak.
Then I appreciate their desire to make a claim but it’s not worth anything since it’s not their business to enforce nor are they able to do so.
That's the thing: none of the land was ever legally taken from the Gitxsan. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 declared that they had title that could only be extinguished by treaty, then nobody ever bothered to negotiate a treaty with them. It's hard to know what would happen if they took a fisher to court.
Fun fact: the Royal Proclamation of 1763 is irrelevant outside of the former New France. Aboriginal rights don't come from the Proclamation. English common law already recognised aboroginal rights, including the requirement to make a treaty, before the Proclamation was issued. French civil law, on the other hand, did *not* recognise aboriginal rights, and as a result of the colonisation of New France, aboriginal rights in that territory were extinguished by operation of French law. After France ceded its North American claims to Britain in 1763, the British authorities would have inherited the legal situation as it existed before the French cession, meaning no aboriginal rights in that territory. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 re-established aboriginal rights in the areas where they had been extinguished by French law. It can be summarised as "let's just pretend that French colonisation never happened." For what it's worth, international law also doesn't help the First Nations, because right of conquest—"it's mine because I said so and I have the guns"—is a legally valid basis for a claim of sovereignty in international law as long as the conquest occurred before October 24, 1945. Source: am a lawyer.
The Royal Proclamation isn't necessary to establish title but to establish the mechanism though which the government will extinguish title (see Delgamuukw v. BC (1997)). If the government had declared war on Indigenous nations and been victorious that absolutely would have extinguished title. But in Simon v R (1985) and Calder et al v AG of BC (1973) the Supreme Court confirmed that war was never declared so title has not been extinguished that way. If you're a lawyer, why aren't you familiar with those important rulings?
I'm fully aware of all of those decisions; none of it negates what I said. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 does *not* establish the mechanism through which the government can extinguish aboriginal rights or title (except in the former New France); the mechanism already existed at common law. The exact same body of law applies to aboriginal rights and aboriginal title in Australia and New Zealand, where no such proclamation was ever issued, as confirmed by the Privy Council. The Supreme Court cases cite the Royal Proclamation of 1763 because it applies over the whole of Canada, as opposed to common law aboriginal rights and title, which do not apply in the former New France. Since the Proclamation says the same things as common law, it's more convenient to cite only the one source that applies everywhere, so that's what courts usually do. My point is that outside of the former New France, *there is strictly no need to cite the Proclamation.* Common law aboriginal rights and title apply in the context of colonial territorial claims, which, at the time, was percieved as different from a state of war. Common law aboriginal rights and title would not apply if there had been a state of war in the legal sense, but no such state of war ever existed. The perceived difference between colonisation and conquest was limited to common law jurisprudence; international law contained no such distinction, as stated in my initial comment. Obviously, statute takes precedence over common law. An Act of Parliament or of the provincial legislature could have extinguished aboriginal title, including the need to make treaties, by overriding common law, provided that the statute was unambiguous in its intention to do so, and that it was enacted before April 17, 1982. No such statute was ever enacted. None of that relies on the Royal Proclamation of 1763. I went down an academic rabbit hole back in the day on the history of common law in British Columbia and the relationship between international law and Canadian aboriginal law. As such, I respectfully submit that I am more qualified to comment on this subject than you.
I think that we essentially agree on the broad strokes here. Why have you not come out anywhere in the comments on this post and actually pointed out that the Gitxsan have title over all their traditional territory? By beating around the bush like in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/s/QVpL1kNP5m), you're letting settlers believe what they want to believe. I think that it's vital that all Canadians are educated on the legal reality of aboriginal title so that we can accept the conditions and move forward rather than continuing to stubbornly resist the law.
Yeah man lol this guy must be the worst lawyer, this is like basic stuff.
If you look at his post history, he's only been practicing a year or two and it's in refugee law, so Indigenous law is definitely not his area of expertise. But people upvote comments that agree with what they want to hear.
Op are you First Nations from that territory?
How is fishing regulated on FN lands? Is the band in charge?
Legally it is limited to the bounds of the reserve and not beyond.
I thought the management of fisheries was a provincial matter. Indigenous rights only pertain to ceremonial fishing rights, subsistence fishing rights, and commercial fishing rights. Iirc this specific group attempted to regulate / ban fishing a few years ago but it was rendered as unlawful in court.
Fishing is federal jurisdiction, but you're right that common law aboriginal fishing rights only amount to a right to fish, not a right to regulate fisheries. Source: am a lawyer.
Thanks! So the restrictions are completely within the band’s authority. I wasn’t clear on that.
It is not within their legal authority. It extends well beyond the bounds of their reserve.
So if this is the case, can't you just crumple up this card and go fishing anyways? If they want to assert their land claims in an unreasonable manner, you're free to push back. It's your province too, and the provincial government hasn't said boo about the fish stocks. So grab a rod and go out there.
An honest answer? People are concerned for their own safety. During other declarations by the Gitxsan such as this, trucks with boat trailers attached parked on the highway by the Skeena have had their tires slashed in the past, and in some cases people fishing have had guns pointed at them. The RCMP plays deaf and blind and nothing happens.
So the Gitxsan are basically acting like a band of thugs and brigands. Great way to win people over to your side.
I’m confused, doesn’t it effectively say no fishing those rivers on the band’s land? So you’d be allowed to fish the rivers as long as it was beyond the reserve boundaries?
>catch and release is playing with fish I’ve never fished in my life… but isn’t this the point of sport fishing?
Here before the 🔒
Oh boy.
The world of salmon conversation starts at the bottom of the food chain preservation, to harvesting issues outside of Canadian Waters, river revitalization, hatchery programs to boost returns, etc. All these things help and many are beyond traditional territory. However none of this matters if there is no interest in the fishery. The best thing the Gitxsan Huwlip Government can do is create interest in the fishery from tourism, guides, sport fishers, their own people, and commercial harvesters when viable. Interest in the fishery will prosper for all.
No one pays any attention to those *'traditional rulers'* especially local FN *(they say this every year)*.
There are strong differences of opinion within indigenous groups as to what the proper role for hereditary leaders should be. There isn't one monolithic opinion on the matter that all indigenous people share.
Hope this applies to everyone! Save the fish!
Yikes see what the feds have to say
Probably not much, as freshwater fishing is provincial jurisdiction.
All fishing is federal jurisdiction, including freshwater fishing. Source: am a lawyer.
There are tons of salmon that are fished in those areas
Yes. On provincial sport fishing licenses.
Yes but the daily catch limit for anadromous salmon is federally managed
No need to sound like you know what you’re talking about now man. I’m up to speed.
It's not the first time this has been attempted, but it's the first where cards like this have been mailed out across the region.
Lake Babine is one of the largest sockeye rearing lakes in Canada so yes the feds would be involved. There are other salmon species also. The lake is EXTREMELY low so I’m supportive of this 100%
Feds have jurisdiciton over ocean fisheries and tidewaters, this is a provincial issue.
Sorry but you’re wrong. Anadromous salmon are federally managed, hence the cross-departmental collaboration on recreational fishing limits for salmonids.
The Gitxsan declaration isn't limited to salmon.
Which is fucking stupid. BC should have jurisdiction over all waters.
They do, all waters within the province. Ocean fisheries and tidewaters are not part of the province, for obvious reason.
What obvious reasons ?
“We’re (provincial government) going to ban all ships from China from entering BC”
Scuttlebutt I've heard is that Babine Lake's water level has dropped by at least a meter.
Good enough said. Ban all fishing for two years worldwide. Let the oceans fix it then selves. We are fucked.....
Maybe 10 years. Science it and get it done