Coast Mountain News Thursday, April 10, 2014
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Vol. 30 | No. 7 Thursday, April 10, 2014
Serving the Bella Coola Valley and the Chilcotin
page 8
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Michael Wigle photo
The pole was carried to the Bella Coola riverbank by the whole community
Community celebrates eulachon with Sputc Ceremony By CaiTLin Thompson It has been decades since the waters of the Bella Coola have been black with eulachon and the riverbanks buzzing with preparations, fishing and people. But that loss hasn’t dampened the appetites people still have for the small fish and its coveted grease. Megan Moody, a young Nuxalk scientist specializing in eulachon research, still remembers what it was like when she was a child. “We used to take ice cream buckets down to the river and catch them with our bare hands,” she recalls. The eulachon was more than a food source for Nuxalk people; it was a species key to their survival. The return of the eulachon meant an end to the long months of winter hunger, and signaled that spring was about to begin. “People just don’t know what to do anymore when spring comes now,” said Moody. “All that activity, the camps, the woodcutting, the fishing, it’s all gone.” A key organizer of the March 29 Sputc Ceremony, Moody said she was inspired to hold the event because she felt the com-
munity needed to come together and celebrate. “There are eulachon in the river now, they are coming back,” said Moody. “There is still hope.” Horace Walkus certainly hopes so. As one of the few community members left that still knows the art of making grease, Walkus’ house stands kitty corner to the newly erected pole. Walkus still consumes grease regularly but guards his precious reserves like gold, some of it dating back decades. “We called it the saviour fish and I truly believe it is,” said Walkus. “It was more than a food for us, it was a medicine, a lifestyle. Grease was on the table all the time, just like salt and pepper. It was a major part of our diet.” Walkus said that he never learned how to make grease; as a child he was made do it. “When I grew up I said I would never do it again,” he admits. “But then you get a craving for grease, and you’re out there on the river.” Walkus said he started noticing a steady decline in the number of eulachon returning with a coinciding warming of the climate. “I remember the runs coming earlier and earlier,” he
Michael Wigle photo
Nuxalk Hereditary Chief Noel Pootlass addresses the crowd. said. “It used to be the end of April and there would still be ice on the river then, it was Easter weekend. But by the time the last run came in it was March.” This observation corresponds with the findings of Moody’s master’s thesis. Moody believes that climate change was already contributing to a slow decline in eulachon populations, something that had been happening since the 1970s. However, it was
the arrival of shrimp trawlers in Queen Charlotte Sound in the mid-90s that appears to have been a major contributer to the spectacular disappearance of 1999. “Eulachon bycatch was a huge problem for the shrimp trawlers in Queen Charlotte Sound,” explains Moody. “There are estimates that between 90 and 150 tonnes of eulachon was being caught as bycatch by the trawling industry.”
The trawlers knew the eulachon bycatch was a serious issue and tried to avoid them, often warning fellow fishers on the radio if they were running into a lot of ‘e-fish.’ Alterations were eventually made to nets and fishing gear to allow eulachons to escape, but Moody wonders how effective they really are. SEE
EULACHON
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