January 23 @ 10:30am

Join us for our December/January CFRW Book Club Meeting! This time, the book is real fishy because it’s all about the British Columbia commercial fishing industry!–It features halibut, black cod and fish thought to be extinct! So, we hope you’re ready to put your hooks into Still Fishin’: The BC Fishing Industry Revisited by Alan Haig-Brown.

“It is generally known that the West Coasts once-great commercial fishing industry has fallen on hard times, but as Alan Haig-Brown demonstrates in this new book, reports of its demise are exaggerated. A veteran of the industry himself, Haig-Brown here offers a state of the industry report, discovering pockets of surprising activity among the vistas of closed processing plants, downsized fleets and corporate concentration. The Ray Phillips family of Pender Harbour continue to support a second generation by fishing halibut and black cod. Albert Radil and his two brothers have found success trawling hake in Queen Charlotte Sound. Seiner John Lenic is taking advantage of the miraculous reappearance in BC waters of the pilchard, once thought extinct. Former Vietnamese boat person Lon Truong hopes to finance a triumphant return to the Mekong Delta by trawling BC shrimp. The Assu brothers of Campbell River still seine chum salmon in the same Johnstone Strait tide rip their father used to fish, as did many generations of Assu ancestors before them, but they have to work fast to get their work done in the near-impossible 12-hour time limit set by the DFO. In Haig-Brown’s story of the west coast fishery, boats get equal time with people and fish. He laments the destruction of some historic old seiners, just as he relishes the preservation of an old Finn Slough gillnetter named the Eva and approves the activities of fishboat superfan Randy Reifel, who uses his considerable wealth to buy up endangered boats and keep them in working order. Is the whole fishing industry now on life support? It seems to be headed that way, but this book offers many practical and persuasive reasons why it doesn’t have to be.”

Pomegranate Books will have copies of Still Fishin’ available for purchase, and CFRW Book Club members receive a 15% discount. Thanks to everyone who participated in any of our discussions via Zoom during this pandemic! This next meeting will be in-person and socially distanced with chairs 6ft apart outside of Pomegranate Books! (Please bring your own outdoor chair.) Book club was created and is facilitated by CFRW Board Member Chantay Allen.