I was a small boy when my father first took me salmon fishing. He was a teacher, and his friends were the farmers and woodsmen of the veteran’s community of Cormack, in the valley of the Humber River. In early summer, they would often take a break from their work to fish salmon for enjoyment and for food, while we played amidst the pulpwood on the river’s banks.
They were young men then, and the Great War in which the veterans fought had broken down many social barriers. We youngsters grew up assuming that it was natural for everyone to be treated equally, and that all people, no matter what their walk in life, could enjoy the vast public spaces and all the wonderful things they had to offer.
In that time, Newfoundland seemed far away from other countries where the great fishing rivers and hunting grounds were already jealously possessed and controlled by wealthy estate owners. We were blissfully unaware that only the wealthy and privileged few in those countries could enjoy the things we took for granted here. So my five brothers and I, though of common stock and modest means, were free to become salmon fishermen. Angling skill and luck could be found in anyone you met on the river.
Not many paid notice as control of the salmon resource quietly slipped from the new province of Newfoundland to the mainland of Canada in Ottawa in the 1950s. As Atlantic salmon stocks dwindled in American and Canadian rivers, powerful lobby groups grew and began casting a covetous eye on the remaining salmon in the rivers of Newfoundland and Labrador. As the financial state of our province weakened, and the health of the salmon stocks was battered by overfishing and environmental degradation, pressures were mounted to try to shift us away from our culture of sharing and equality for all. Exploitation for the elite few, all wrapped in the guise of economic development and conservation, has begun to creep into salmon angling.
The message being pushed is that “ordinary Newfoundlanders” are incapable of recognizing the value of the salmon resource, and are incapable of grasping the need to conserve. The fact is that most Newfoundland anglers have a story similar to mine, and do very much value and care about Atlantic salmon. They have become entwined with the patterns of our migrating salmon as they get together with family and friends from their faraway homes every year when the salmon fishing season begins.
Yes, they would find it difficult to further limit or stop angling. It must be made clear through unbiased, sound science, that these steps are necessary.
Make no mistake, we “ordinary Newfoundlanders” will fight for and support only a fair and equitable management plan to ensure the survival of the Atlantic salmon. Those returning war veterans would not be pushed aside by the “elite few” and neither will we. We owe it to what we have learned from them, and from the salmon.
Doug Sheppard
Past Chair of CORA
Citizen’s Outdoor Rights Alliance
