Hatchery essential to Kitimat way of life

The Kitimat River Hatchery is a big reason Kitimat is referred to as the fishing capital of the Northwest, says local guide Ron Wakita.

“Fishing on the Kitimat is made possible by the hatchery,” he said last week. “Without question, it makes Kitimat a sports fish destination. As the hatchery goes, the sports fish industry will go.”

At a recent council meeting, councillor Mario Feldhoff said the local hatchery’s annual budget of $232,000 is under constant pressure, even though the current money allotted is “well below their capacity for producing fish.”

He also proposed a decision to write federal Fisheries minister Gail Shea, calling for hatchery funding to be pushed to a level that would support fish production at full capacity. Feldhoff’s actions stemmed from an announcement that funding for the Queen Charlottes’ hatchery had been slashed by nearly one-third.

Wakita says it’s only a matter of time before the Kitimat hatchery undergoes the same budget scrutiny.

“Politicians making budget cuts have no idea how much their stroke of a pencil affects our way of life,” he said. “There are political organizations that need to assemble here to protect our way of life.”

“Any budget reduction means a reduction in salmon,” added Tracey Hittel, chairman of the Kitimat Sport Fishing Advisory. “Without the hatchery, we wouldn’t have anything. Tourism would drop off - that hatchery indirectly represents a lot of jobs here.”

“Fishing is a lifestyle here,” explained Wakita. “Summer activities and tourism revolve around it. I don’t think there’s a dinner table, ball game, or any other social event in Kitimat where a fishing story isn’t being told.”

Begun across from the Eurocan Pulp and Paper Mill in 1977, the Kitimat River Fish Hatchery presently releases over 7 million fish each year. The numbers of salmonids raised include 5-million chum, 1.5-million chinook, 500,000 coho, and 50,000 steelhead.

Born with a fishing rod in his hands, Wakita knows how important the hatchery is to the district. Wakita recalls hiring as many as 12 summer students in the early ‘90s to supplement fishing tackle sales at his Home Hardware store downtown.

He has seen the fish numbers on either side of the hatchery’s opening, explaining that “a lot of species would have extinguished themselves without the hatchery. Today, most fish are a product of it.”

Hatchery staffers do an exceptional job with the “mediocre” budget they’re handed, Wakita noted.

Wakita said he wants the area’s world-class fishing to be available to future generations.

“To have our way of life jeopardized is unnerving,” he said.

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Local fishing issues like the Kitimat River Hatchery are big reasons why residents are invited to attend local Sport Fishing Advisory meetings, held twice every year in the Kitimat council chambers at the fire hall.

The next meeting will be held December 1 at 6:30 p.m. Representatives from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the Kitimat hatchery, and the Conservation are all present at these meetings, said local advisory chairman Tracey Hittel.

“We represent the North Coast,” he said. “We put motions forward for what we want done here.”

The Sport Fishing Advisory Board has been advising the DFO since 1964.

Hittel said issues such as local hatchery funding require a united front from city officials, First Nations groups and local sports fishermen.

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