Warning signs for the North Coast Salmon Fishery for this year?

Councillor Thorkelson
offered a short snapshot
of the fishing season to council
on Monday evening

Tough times may be ahead for the North Coast Salmon fishery this year, if some of the concerns of Councillor Joy Thorkelson come to pass as the season moves towards August.

In a short presentation to Council on Monday night Councillor Thorkelson provided a short update on the situation facing the North Coast fishery this summer, calling on her observations from her work with the Fisherman's union she observed that the season has been very slow so far.

Noting that despite indications that the area would have a very good year, there have been some problems starting to appear, with the Nass suffering an algae bloom that travels all along to the Pacific ocean and to this point there has been limited harvesting of fish from that area.

She also noted that the price of sockeye has been dropping in recent weeks and that fisherman have concerns that they may not have enough money on hand to be able to go out into the fishing grounds this year.

She also warned of a potential disaster locally, with the Canadian Fish cannery on George Hills Way
not having begun its salmon season operations as of yet.

Something that she believes could make for a dire situation for local shore workers in the community who are already having problems housing themselves, highlighting that if the cannery does not operate they have no income and it could provide for quite a crisis.

"Otherwise, It's going to be a disaster, a real disaster for some of our poorest shore workers in town who are already having a hard time housing themselves, it's going to make the housing situation even worse as there is no income coming into our community" -- Councillor Joy Thorkelson offering up some thoughts on the state of the fishing season heading into mid July

Councillor Joy Thorkelson observed for City Council
that the Canadian Fish Cannery has not yet started its
salmon season operations this year

As for any official acknowledgment of concern related to the North Coast Fishery, there have been no announcements released from the Department of Fisheries as of yet.

You can review Ms. Thorkelson's review of the situation at the moment from the City's Video Archive her comments start at the thirty eight minute mark running until the end of the council Session.



Yesterday on the blog, we highlighted some of the concerns from the fishing fleet in Southeast Alaska, with fishermen in that region expressing their frustrations with the Pacific Salmon Commission over what they fear will be low catchment allowances for their fleet for this  salmon season.

For more items related to the fishing industry see our archive page here.

For further background on City Council discussions see our Council archive.