Indigenous fishers in N.W.T. focus on industry revival – APTN News

Ten kilometres from shore, and 17 metres deep is where Marius McCallum makes a living.

“You use to have to go 11 miles out but DFO changed the quota because of all the Coney (fish) coming in,” McCallum said as he quickly fillets and fills bins with his fresh catch from the back of the bombardier.

He’s commercially fished the waters of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories after he moved to the area in the 1970s from a community northern Saskatchewan, but expertise-aside, McCallum credits his success to setting his own prices as a business owner.

“I got lots of customers; all these companies buy fish here. Fort Providence, Fort Simpson, Jean Marie River, and some use to even come from Fort Liard, Fort Smith and Fort Resolution too,” he said.

McCallum is the only fisher in Hay River, N.W.T. with his own fish plant, where he processes, packages and keeps his catch in the north selling to local restaurants and private customers.