Continuous declining of fish stocks put the B.C. commercial fishing industry on life support, but Alan Haig-Brown offers a “state of the industry” report in Still Fishin’: The BC Fishing Industry Revisited, discovering pockets of activity among the vistas of closed processing plants, downsized fleets and corporate consolidation.
In the report fishermen such as seiner John Lenic, who is taking advantage of the miraculous reappearance in B.C. waters of the pilchard, once thought extinct, and Albert Radil and his two brothers, who have found success trawling hake in Queen Charlotte Sound. Boats will also get equal time with people and fish. Haig-Brown discusses the activities of fishboat superfan Randy Reifel, who uses his considerable wealth to buy up endangered boats and keep them in working order, and laments the destruction of some historic old seiners under the wrecking ball.
Haig-Brown seined salmon and herring through the 1960s and early ’70s. He became editor of the Westcoast Fisherman in 1986 and later founded the Westcoast Mariner and the Westcoast Logger.
