We are salmon people’: First Nation leaders in B.C. demand audience with fisheries minister – Canada’s National Observer
June 10th 2022
It’s been nearly five years since Tribal Chief Tyrone McNeil has pulled salmon from the Fraser River and strung fish over wooden racks to dry in the wind, preserving food for his family and his people’s ancestral traditions.
He and other First Nations leaders and communities in B.C. dependent on salmon are grieving the ongoing disappearance of the fish that defines them. And they are angry Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) continues to deny their constitutional right of first access to fish, said McNeil, president of Stó꞉lō Tribal Council.
“We are salmon people,” McNeil told Canada’s National Observer on Wednesday.
“There’s a really strong feeling that DFO’s management of the fishery is preventing us from passing on ancient knowledge to our younger generations.”
