History - Cowichan and Babine Lake

[Time]

For those who may have some time, and are not satisfied with one or two line answers to questions of aboriginal rights on the rivers etc., Google books has some interesting excerpts from "Fish, law, and colonialism: the legal capture of salmon in British Columbia By Douglas Colebrook Harris".

Google books, to avoid problems under copywrite laws, provides excerpts from the text - sometimes quite large excerpts - plus the appropriate references for obtaining a copy of the book itself, whether through purchase or a library.

I do not have a copy of the actual text, but it appears to be primarily concerned with pre WW1. The Babine Lake section is covered pages 79(where the excerpt starts) to 126, and the Cowichan on pages 127 -168 (where the excerpt stops). Some pages are excluded within these, but you can get the thrust.


I stumbled on this while searching on the net for some other info on the Cowichan River/Lake, and thought some of you might find it interesting and informative. Interesting that some of the issues on the Cowichan that still are current date back to the 1890's.





http://books.google.ca/books?id=Agm...gK#v=onepage&q=cowichan fish hatchery&f=false

 

[alley cat]

That was a good read Time , I spent awhile this afternoon scanning through the data , seems our debate continues w with the same protagonists as in the past and the fish population continue to take the hit while we ALL prevaricate.

AL

 

[Cuba Libre]

Very interesting read. Anyone else see the parallels between the Natives fight for what they believe is thiers and the recent commercial grab for halibut from the sports sector??? Its not that far fetched.......

20ft Alumaweld Intruder

 

[Little Hawk]

One primary difference between 'then' and 'now' is today's great effort by the Cowichan Tribe involved in the operation of the hatchery in an effort to help save the beleaguered Cowichan Chinook.

Curious as to the reference to 'Atlantics' early on in the excerpt.

 

[Time]

The reference to Atlantics refers to the attempted introduction of Atlantic salmon into selected Island rivers.
The intent I believe was to replicate the sports fishing that occurred in the British Isles, i.e., to have a salmon that would rise to a dry fly.

On page 163 the author refers to the release of 20,000 Atlantic salmon fry in 1904/05 into the Cowichan.

The atlantics did not thrive, unlike the brown trout which were also introduced into the Cowichan about the same time, and which are still with us.

A note on the Google book excerpts: I clicked on the above link and noticed that some pages which were not previously provided now appeared, and some which I recall reading had disappeared. Perhaps the Google machine shuffles the sections made available to avoid problems under the copywrite laws. Still leaves enough to get some idea about the start of the evolution of the fishing controversy.