As we plan for the year ahead, we begin to reach out to our families. I love reconnecting in the new year, hearing all about their holidays and their families, and getting their perspectives on what the upcoming fishing season might look like.

For many multi-generational fishing families their predictions about the season ahead are based on years of experience and traditional knowledge in commercial, recreational, and Indigenous Food and Ceremonial fishing. For some it is based on multi-generational knowledge passed down over decades. And for some it runs so deep in the fibre of their being, it’s like a gut instinct.

As I reflect on my friendship with Tseshaht Nation fisher, Jocelyn Dick, I always come back to the lessons she shared with me the first time we hung out in person on her traditional territory in Port Alberni in 2021. By watching the salmon that run in the river just outside her home, and remembering the voices of her grandparents, her dad, and other elders who raised her, Jocelyn has a deep understanding of what it means to be a steward of the ecosystem. Her father taught her never to take more than you need. I remember one time when I called to ask her if she thought the DFO would open fishing the next week, she replied “They shouldn’t. It’s way too early! We have to let those first fish go up the river before we even think about taking any fish for our community or for Skipper Otto members.” And she was right. Fishing didn’t open that week, and when it did open, she fished for her family, for her community, and for our members. 

For Jocelyn, fishing is all about family. Her respect for fish came at the early age of 6, while learning to fish with her late dad, and by age 13 she was operating her own 14ft aluminium boat. Fishing is together time, time for sharing of knowledge; and just like her father, she is now passing on this wisdom to her children. She’s teaching her adult son Erikk, and all 4 of her girls the traditional fishing way of life of generations of Tseshaht families before theirs.

As a fellow-mom, I share a lot of Jocelyn’s instincts when it comes to teaching our kids a good and right way of being. Instilling in them how to be good ancestors, how to leave the earth better than we inherited it, and to look to nature as one of our best teachers. I find great comfort in listening to and learning from Jocelyn, from our ecosystems, and from so many of our fishing families this quiet, dark time of year as we look ahead to the fishing season.

Written by: Sonia Strobel