Tag Archives: Working the slime line
Celebrating 100 years of canning salmon
Greg Smith’s father always told him one thing: Whatever you do, don’t get into the fishing industry. Like any self-respecting teenager, Smith didn’t listen. He grew up slinging salmon alongside his father, who worked in fisheries up and down the west coast, and his grandfather, who ran the Kildonan fish processing plant. Now vice-president of business development for Gold Seal, a B.C. brand celebrating its 100th anniversary, Smith vividly remembers his youth working “the slime line” in B.C.’s canneries. >click to read< 09:56
Some Alaska fisheries had a record-setting year for wild salmon. But no one wanted to gut all those fish
At the outset of the salmon season, fisherman Everett Thompson was looking forward to a banner year. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game had estimated that 41 million wild sockeye salmon would come to Bristol Bay, an eastern nook of the Bering Sea formed by the Alaskan Peninsula. Ultimately, 59 million salmon returned—the most since 1980—leading to record hauls in parts of the region, which contributes 40 percent of the world’s annual sockeye harvest. For a state that prides itself on sustainable salmon and ranks its seafood industry just below oil and gas, this should have been good news. As the annual migration reached its peak around July 4, Thompson and his deckhands were netting 15,000 pounds of salmon in six hours. Then he got an unexpected call from the plant manager. The message: Stop fishing. click here to read the story 09:28
