Construction is moving ahead on a new hatchery in Gitanyow territory aimed at helping rebuild the struggling Kitwanga River sockeye population.
The Government of Canada announced Tuesday that a construction contract worth more than $7.5 million has been awarded to Progressive Ventures Construction for the Wilp’Ho Dix Hatchery.
The facility will be built on the Kitwanga River and operated in partnership with Gitanyow Nation. It will have the capacity to raise 300,000 juvenile sockeye each year, with the potential to expand to 400,000.
CFNR News spoke with Joel Starlund, Executive Director of the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs Office, about the decades of work behind the project.
Starlund says Gitanyow has managed its fisheries for thousands of years. Historical research, combined with Gitanyow oral histories, has helped document the dramatic decline of the Kitwanga sockeye.
He says the population was once between 40,000 and 50,000 fish, while modern counts have sometimes been around 200.
“This isn’t something to just produce more sockeye economic benefit,” Starlund says. “It’s really to save a potentially species that may be going extinct.”
Starlund says the hatchery also builds on decades of Gitanyow monitoring and stewardship, including the use of fish fences and modern fish-counting technology.
For Gitanyow, recovery would also mean restoring access to a fishery that some house groups have not been able to harvest for more than 50 years.
Starlund says the project also represents an opportunity to repair a difficult history between Gitanyow and Canada, including past government opposition to Gitanyow’s traditional fishery management.
He calls the hatchery a significant step toward reconciliation.
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