The first seasonal round of harvesting in laxyuubm Ts’msyen – Tsimshian territory starts in late February or early March, when the Ksiyeen – Skeena River  comes alive with wildlife and people. This time of year is called Ha’lilax six’ẅa̱h – the time for harvesting eulachon . Harvesters anticipate this annual harvest, as ha’limootk – the first run of eulachon is the first fresh harvest round after the long winter months.

Throughout the year, harvesters work to preserve their foods for winter. They jar, can, freeze, dry, smoke, dehydrate (among other methods) their foods to enjoy in the months ahead. Nowadays, this time of year marks a time when freezers and pantries start to run low and require re-stocking.

Coastal wildlife is also waiting for this important time of year to break their winter fast. When ha’limootk (the first run of eulachon) arrives, you’ll see all sorts of wildlife visit the Ksiyeen. Commonly, you’ll see thousands of predatory birds – eagles, seagulls, ravens, crows, and blue herons. In the river, you may see mammals like seals, sealions, and otters, and on land you may come across wolves, martins, fishers, and sometimes bears (if they’re hungry enough to leave their den). These bigger land animals are a little less likely to be seen from the noisy highway, but often seals and sealions will be visibly swimming in the Ksiyeen just off highway 16.

Because of all this activity on the Ksiyeen, there are often multiple user groups during the few week window of Ha’lila̱x six’ẅa̱h. For visitors coming to watch the Eulachon run – Güüdisk partnered with Visit Prince Rupert to share tips on their blog to view the Eulachon run safely. Hope you can check it out!

For this blog, I talked to James Russell about his experiences accessing the Ksiyeen for the annual Eulachon harvest. James Russell is Ts’msyen from the communities of Lax Kw’alaams and Hartley Bay, and owns and operates the charter company Oots’n Reconnection Services, which provides Indigenous-led land and ocean based experiential learning opportunities.

Meet James Russell, of Oots’n Reconnection Services. Photo provided by James Russell.

Check out our Q&A about ‘ẅa̱h – Eulachon ! James’ responses are italicized.

To start – what is your preferred method (or methods) of harvesting eulachon?

My absolute preferred method would be beach seining. Beach seining has been a part of our traditional methods, as far as I can see in the literature, and the way that people talked about how they harvested salmon and Eulachon in the river using stinging nettle nets and wooden corks and weights to build their nets. So, for me that’s kind of like a special way of doing it, because it involves more people (3-7 people), it’s just fun, [and] it’s more effective if the fish are there in a localized area. You don’t really have to leave the area – it reduces the amount of people you have running through the river chasing fish.

Of course, there is dip netting, which is probably the most fun I think, individual wise. You go out and you can chase some fish and dip net ’em. Some days you can dip net a really significant quantity, and some days it’s not a really good method to choose.

And of course, gill netting, definitely a traditional way of fishing. Our people would have made gill nets using stinging nettle twine, and same thing – wooden floats and weights. Which is a good passive way to fish – you can set it and forget it and pick it up the next day or hours later which is really effective.

ḵ’awtsii [*ḵ’aw/tsii] – common noun. grease (grease in general, or specifically oolichan grease); oil. The final product that James and their crew work towards! Photo provided by James Russell.

How do you prepare to go out to the Skeena? What do you need to consider before travelling?

We’re looking at the tide book, and only going out there for the low water events. High tide in the Skeena is quite dangerous. And then of course weather, to determine the kind of conditions we could be facing. Freezing is certainly challenging for anybody; a nice spring day would be ideal but it’s not that common. And then road conditions, so preparing to travel to the Skeena. And thinking about the type of gear that we would take, depending on the stage of the run. Like if we’re fishing Eulachons on the lower part of the Skeena, we use much different gear, and as the fish work their way up the river we start incorporating different methods of fishing. Preparing to go out there we would look at the time of the year or maybe talk to other fishers within our network and kinda figure out what’s going on. I’ll shoot Steve a message every once in a while, “hey what’d you see today?”

Stephen on an early morning tide. This temp was frigid – in the negatives with the windchill!

How do you dress when you’re going out on the Skeena?

Ooo hah, I’m still working on that one! You get wet no matter what if you’re participating. Warm clothes, natural fibres (wool is nice), fleece, a rain jacket… and then typically we use gear such as chest waders, wading boots. The neoprene ones are nice when it’s cold, the Gortex ones are nice when its sunny and warm. Dressing for harvest is something not a lot of people talk about. A lot of people get into trouble, hypothermia/exposure, when you’re not dressed appropriately. I’m usually dressed to be able to at least sustain myself for a few hours if I were to get cold and wet and lost or something.

Heavy north wind, blowing snow off the peaks of the mountains along the Ksiyeen.

When you’re out harvesting Eulachon, do you interact much with visitors who are looking to learn about the Eulachon run?

My interaction with people is not very common it seems. Usually, I’m in a part of the river that they’re not able to get to (just because they’re not wearing waders). They might catch me on the way out when we’re packing fish back, or gear. Sometimes I’ll stop and chat and answer a couple questions, but my interactions aren’t usually lengthy, usually because we’re kinda on a mission. Especially the last couple years, as soon as we got our taste of making grease – it’s been like a mission trying to catch as much as we can. And we’re harvesting at weird times of the day too – sometimes it’s super early in the morning or late at night and we don’t see people. My interactions aren’t super lengthy with travellers.

But when we’re out there it’s like big community, we’re always communicating with different fishers.

Night bite on the Ksiyeen. There were a few fishers out this night, but the dip nets were freezing up while we were dip netting! Clear skies = cold nights.

When is a good time for visitors/observers to approach fishers to learn about the Eulachon run?

Maybe if we need help packing gear up to the truck?! (hah!) We’ve had that before, you know when you kinda try to brush somebody off because you’re on a mission, and they’re like “oh, do you need help?” We’re like “ya!? We could use some help!” and then they help us out with our catch or our gear. But ya, a good time to approach fishers may be when they’re heading back to their vehicles after a successful, or unsuccessful, harvest is probably the best time. Probably wouldn’t want to approach people when they’re trying hard to get their waders on and rush out and beat the tide, kinda thing.

Of course, the best times for visitors to head out there to engage with the Eulachon run would be at low tide, usually 3-4 hours after the Prince Rupert tide. Don’t go at high tide, it’ll be pretty disappointing. There’s usually not much action. Even the birds are resting, the sealions are just kinda pacing and cruising and waiting because they’re having a hard time catching fish too at high tide, because the river is so much bigger.

James out on the Ksiyeen this year for a sunny day fish. Photo provided by James Russell.

I think it’s cool that [the Eulachon run is] being shared. Like, it’s a really big event now. That’s all you see on Facebook now in March, is people/ school busses going up there. People getting their picture taken with their single Eulachon they found on the beach. It’s really shaping up to be this really special thing that people really look forward to. Indigenous, non-Indigenous – half the crowd out there is probably non-Indigenous, just kinda watching and looking, just trying to understand something about the river. If the birds weren’t there and the sealions weren’t there you’d never know [the Eulachon] were there.

But it’s neat. When I was a kid – it wasn’t something to be really proud of. There was a lot of racism, a lot of bullying. I remember being ashamed to eat a fish sandwich at school because you get made fun of. But now it’s like people are proud to go out and harvest, people are proud to be a part of learning and sharing knowledge. Eating something that you caught, eating something nutritious. So it’s kinda cool that you see several hundred people out there on a given day, everyone’s trying to get a bit of a taste.

If a visitor to the Skeena was interested in learning about the Eulachon run, how would they find out more information?

Eulachon are like this mysterious thing. It’s not well known; the science isn’t well known. The run times aren’t… ah they’re fairly predictable, I guess. But how does one find information? You could Google it, and you’re not going to find a lot of literature about it. You could Google stuff, and the literature that you do find is all about the Fraser River, a little bit of the Nass River. The Skeena River is kinda unpublished. There are some local fisheries people that work on it and try to get an understanding, but there is not a lot of effort for knowledge sharing about it. I guess just locals, asking harvesters, asking elders. I’ve asked around, why our people didn’t fish the Skeena, or aren’t fishing the Skeena – and they just honestly don’t know. And my assumption is just that the Nass River has always been easier to catch – the weather has been more consistent, it’s either frozen solid or ice free. They like it when it’s iced up, and they like it when there’s no ice. But in the Skeena it’s like a mixture – you notice that? There’s chunks of ice, it’s never frozen solid and its never totally ice free, unless we’re unusually warm.

The Ksiyeen, full of ice on March 5, 2023.

Scientifically, I don’t know much about the fish. Looking at the harvest moon – if the crescent moon is facing up, it’s going to be a bountiful year. It’s just like – you follow the seagulls, you look at the signs of predation, which is how our people would have done it.

You ever see the seagulls fly past Lax Kw’alaams? Have a look at that next time you’re there and just look up – a clear sky like this you’ll see groups of birds flying in the same direction. It’s not flocks of them, but you’ll see like groups of 3 to a dozen or so, and just pay attention, they’re going in the same direction all day long past Lax Kw’alaams, heading up to the Nass. That was an indicator for people in the Lax Kw’alaams area before they prepare to go up to the Nass River. My grandparents showed me that, it’s pretty consistent. They fly in the same direction; they don’t deviate really.

Read Lisa’s blog? Probably the only widespread way of looking up [Eulachon].

Eulachon, as seen from an overhead view using a drone. Photo provided by James Russell.

What is your preferred way of eating Eulachon?

Oh fried. I think when it comes to any of our food, you have it fried it’s like – ok that’s the best! Of course smoked would have to be second. But, I eat Eulachon grease everyday, I’ll eat a tablespoon every single day. I’ve been doing it for about a year and a half now. And like my heath has improved, my teeth have improved, holistically I’ve improved. I was really sick a few years ago. I started eating grease, especially after we made a large abundance the last two years. I could actually afford to eat grease everyday, because it’s super expensive if you have to buy it. Eating Eulachon… my favourite way would be in grease because I eat it every day.

Eets’m ‘ẅa̱h – fried Eulachon! Ehhh, ts’maatk!  (yumm, tasty!)

Any final thoughts?

The Eulachon symbolizes such an important resource for our people – whether it’s the fish itself or the grease. I just think it is cool that you’re moving from being dependent on trading or buying, to investing in some gear and a bit of time and some knowledge and going out and trying to catch it yourself is really cool because that’s what we need to do, right? It’s like a healthy practice, it’s healthy food.

There’s not a lot of people who got the opportunity to learn that kinda stuff, right? There are some initiatives now to share knowledge, and create platforms to share knowledge which is important. Because a lot of people I know don’t do those kinds of things. And it’s not because maybe they chose not to, but it’s likely that knowledge just wasn’t delivered to them in some way. And it’s fun! It means a lot to go catch enough to go share with somebody.

T’oyaxut nüün James for chatting with us about the Skeena Eulachon run. Check his page out on Facebook – Oots’n Reconnection Services. Charters-Cultural Tours-Education.

And t’oyaxut nüün Mr. Campbell for providing these Sm’algyax translations.

S&L – March 29, 2023