(Photo credit: Sonia Strobel. Image: Sonia and Melanie in Port Alberni – May 2024)
Our members’ dedication to creating a different kind of seafood system is having a huge impact on the lives of fishing families and I want you to join me in welcoming our newest fisher, Melanie Fred-Cranmer, to the Skipper Otto Community!
Years ago when we started working with our first roster of Tseshaht Nation Economic Opportunity (EO) fishers, Melanie read about Jocelyn Dick being part of the Skipper Otto family, and was inspired to reach out. She emailed me to share stories of how challenging it was for her as an Indigenous woman fisher in the Economic Opportunity fishery to make a living. We wrote back and forth to one another for many years, but I had never met Melanie in person. I wished I could welcome her aboard Skipper Otto, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough members to warrant another fisher at the time. But we continued to stay in touch.
Meanwhile, this spring, I met Toronto/ New York-based author Nancy Matsumoto who is writing a book about women leading the charge in food systems-change in Canada. She approached me to include our work at Skipper Otto in her book and I knew right away that I wanted her to meet some of the inspiring women fishers in our fisheries food systems in the Tseshaht First Nation. I invited Nancy to come to Vancouver and join me on a road-trip to Port Alberni to meet them. And she accepted! Then I called our current roster of Tseshaht fishers and asked them to join us for lunch, and invited Melanie as well. What a great opportunity to finally meet her in person and amplify her stories, experience, and knowledge through Nancy’s book!
The day was delightful! We sat outside on a sunny patio in late May, chatted, laughed, and swapped stories of kids and fishing trips. Nancy, a seasoned writer with decades of interviewing experience, skillfully drew stories out of the women and I relished the opportunity to hear Jocelyn tell the story of our months of phone calls before our first in-person meeting. We laughed together about her initial skepticism of me and Skipper Otto, and Jocelyn articulated what it means to her to be able to fish for a woman-led business that prioritizes listening, learning, and co-creating a better system.
Towards the end of our time together, Melanie told a story from last summer that really hit home. Since Skipper Otto didn’t have enough members to add another salmon fisher to our roster yet, Melanie went about trying to find a good buyer. She made arrangements with a buyer in Metro Vancouver and they settled on plans for Melanie to gill and gut her fish, belly ice them, pack them into totes, and transport them over to the mainland on the ferry — lots of additional work that she wouldn’t normally do if she was selling to the local buyer. After a long day and night of fishing, by 3am, Melanie had a great catch of beautifully prepared and iced fish, but she hadn’t slept all night. She also wanted to help get her kids off to school before the long journey on the ferry to deliver her fish. The buyer asked her to be on the 6am ferry but Melanie called to ask if she could come a little later — on the 9am ferry — so she could have a quick nap, shower, and see her kids. The buyer refused and told her to forget it — he didn’t want her fish if she wasn’t on that 6am ferry. Melanie had no choice but to sell her beautifully prepared catch to a local buyer who wasn’t prepared to pay her a higher price for all her extra and now-unnecessary labour. Nancy and I were both disgusted to hear this story, and even more disheartened by the awareness that this kind of treatment of fishers is not uncommon.
Fishing families take on the lion’s-share of the risks and uncertainty in the fishery making it next to impossible for them to persist in a traditional way of life and raise their kids in the fishery. And this is one of the core reasons why we started Skipper Otto — to build a more just and equitable seafood system, one that treats fish harvesters with dignity, pays fairly, and co-creates better ways that preserve a sustainable fishing way of life while feeding Canadians with the best fisher-direct Canadian seafood. I use the term “fishing families” very intentionally, recognizing that fish harvesting is very often a family affair with spouses and kids and grandparents all playing a role. And as a fishing family ourselves, I know that things come up, kids get sick, birthdays and weddings and special events arise, and family is always top priority. Being a flexible, compassionate fish buyer and employer that recognizes and prioritizes family and flexibility is a core feature of who we are.
Nancy and I were both so moved by Melanie’s story and I vowed that day to find a way for Skipper Otto to be able to buy her fish. For weeks afterward, at conferences and speaking engagements and the cooking classes I hosted, I shared Melanie’s story as an illustration of why your membership matters. And last month, we were so proud to call Melanie to let her know that we are now able to welcome her aboard Skipper Otto!
(Photo credit: Sonia Strobel. Image: Melanie Fred-Cranmer at fish processor.)
Melanie was thrilled and she worked so hard in the first opening pulling in a huge load of beautiful sockeye salmon. In the EO fisheries, members of the Nation are permitted to catch fish for commercial sale but they are limited to very small boats and no hydraulic assistance. They must literally pull the heavy fish-laden nets aboard by hand! My husband and son are always exhausted when they come home from fishing and they have the benefit of a hydraulic-assist drum to wheel the net aboard so I can only imagine the strength and perseverance that Melanie and all the EO fishers have to muster to haul in their catch! She offloaded and packed her fish in ice in totes on her pick-up truck to drive them over to us and, when she couldn’t fit them all, she loaded the remaining fish into giant coolers packed with ice in her SUV which her husband, Kevin drove over!
The huge smile on Melanie’s face in this photo we snapped at the processor in Richmond tells the story of how proud she was to deliver that catch earlier this month. And we at Skipper Otto are thrilled that our members understand the value of supporting her, creating real change for families in fishing communities!
Written by: Sonia Strobel
