Ama su k’ooł – Happy New Year! Did you know that you can catch fresh likleksm buwel (general term for prawns and shrimp) right here in laxyuubm Ts’msyen (Tsimshian territory) ?

 

Xmasgm buwel (spot prawns; the red prawns below) , and xsmiłiitgm buwel (coon stripes/ king shrimp; the green prawns below) are the most common prawns harvested in this area.

This goomsm – winter , Stephen and I needed some new gear for gathering gwa̱xgoomsmk [gwa̱x/*goom/smk] – winter food … our time to shine!

So what did we do? We invested in a key item – a line puller, for pulling up traps for harvesting likleksm buwel and ḵ’a̱lmoos [ḵ’a̱l/*moos] – crab . Often times we are setting likleksm buwel traps in 200+ feet of water, and it is tiring to pull up multiple traps by hand power!

The great thing about living in Lax Kxeen (Prince Rupert) is that our playground is the ocean, and the boat launch is just a few blocks from our house. I especially like winter fishing because “first light” is 9:00 am (perfect for me because I like to sleep in). This particular morning we got up at 7:00am, had enough time to make breakfast sandwiches, and moseyed over to the boat launch by 8:30am. In the suunt (summer) , Steve gets so excited for fishing, sometimes he can’t sleep and is up by 4:00am, ready to go!

It can be tough getting to the winter fishing grounds sometimes, and on this day we had to plan our trip carefully to make sure we weren’t bucking into the rough tide, wind and Ksyen (Skeena River)  outflow. We went straight to our likleksm buwel spot, dropped our traps, and came back into sheltered waters to fish for yeem goomsm (winter spring salmon) . When we went back out, the wind and tide had picked up, making it a little rough getting back out to our likleksm buwel spot. Thankfully we invested in another key winter fishing item – a floater coat!

The new floater coat is PERFECT for me for winter fishing, because the built in life jacket adds a layer of insulation – but isn’t restricting when maneuvering in the boat. Omg am I cozy in these winter conditions.

The electronic Scotty line puller plugs into the same electrical outlet as the Scotty down rigger – so it’s easy for us to unplug one and plug in the other (using the same Scotty mount for the line puller). We check our traps every couple hours. This helps to prevent black cod, sculpins and octopus from getting into the traps and eating all the prawns!

You have to clean prawns while they’re still fresh. They’re kind of like crab in that way, you can’t let them die before you go to process them.

To clean likleksm buwel, you pinch them on the shell between the head and the tail, and pull the head off. The head goes into the discard pile (or you can save the heads and boil them for a broth), and the tails go into the bowl. Make sure you shake off any leftover residue from the tail before it goes into the bowl.

You have to watch out for their sharp heads, and poky shells. We wear gloves while we’re processing likleksm buwel, for added protection against the pokies lol

Ts’msyen (Tsimshian people) fishing in laxyuubm Ts’msyen are able to keep all the likleksm buwel they catch as our traditional right within our territory. DFO’s calls this communal Food, Social and Ceremonial (FSC) catch. For non First Nations people, you have to follow the Fisheries and Oceans Canada fishing regulations – which says individuals may keep up to 125 prawns per day, all egg bearing females must be released, and there is a limit of 4 traps per individual.

T’oyaxsut nüün Mr. Campbell for helping us with the translations for this blog post.

Ga łgüsgüüdm luudisk – happy harvesting!

An earlier version of this post used the word buwel as a general term for prawns/shrimp, however Mr. Campbell corrected this: likleksm buwel is the general term for prawns and shrimp. Buweel means sand fleas or jumping jacks .

S&L – January 8, 2021