The Salmon Wars of Boundary Bay
Canadian officials move to counter American trap nets with their own, escalating pressure on the Fraser River's dwindling salmon runs.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The American canners at Semiahmoo and Point Roberts are not going to have the rich salmon fisheries of Boundary bay all to themselves next summer. Inspector of Fisheries McNab received a dispatch yesterday from the department of fisheries at Ottawa, stating that pound nets would be permitted in Boundary bay this year. The pound net is to all intents and purposes a trap net, and the privilege offered is pretty certain to be availed of by nearly all canners on the river. Some time ago the fisheries department was made aware of the situation regarding the fisheries in Boundary bay, and the danger the Fraser river canning interests stood in from the operations of American fishermen, who are permitted to use any kind of net or trap. The new order places the canneries on an equal footing with those at Point Roberts and Semiahmoo, and it will probably have the further effect of checking the development of the industry at the latter point.
“The American canners at Semiahmoo and Point Roberts are not going to have the rich salmon fisheries of Boundary bay all to themselves.”
The late 19th-century 'fish wars' over Boundary Bay illustrate the early, aggressive industrialization of the Salish Sea's salmon stocks. Today, the struggle has shifted from unregulated harvest competition to the desperate restoration of habitat and tribal treaty rights as species teeter on the brink of extinction.
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