Indigenous Fishers First

$4.90/lb at the dock — and multiples of that on the menu.
That gap isn’t just “market dynamics.” It’s the story of how Canada’s seafood supply chain has been designed — and who it’s been designed to benefit.
This week, I’m honoured to join a panel at the Common Ground Food Forum roundtable to speak about sustainability, supply chain harms, and what it actually takes to build a seafood economy that’s equitable and resilient.
Here’s what I’ll be bringing into the room from our work alongside Nuu-chah-nulth and other coastal nations:
• Sustainability has to include social sustainability. Not only stock health and traceability — but whether rights-holding harvesters receive fair value and real market power.
• The extractive model is a design choice, not destiny. If the system was built to move value out of communities, it can be rebuilt to keep value in them.
• Food sovereignty is bigger than food security. Sovereignty means nations define what’s harvested, how it’s processed, who it’s sold to, and at what price.
• Ownership is the shift. Processing, branding, and direct market participation are how communities capture full value from resources stewarded since time immemorial.
Question for you: When we say “sustainable seafood,” whose return are we actually measuring — and who gets left at the dock?
If you’re attending the forum, come say hello. If you’re not, drop a thought in the comments — I’ll carry the best of them into the roundtable.

🎣 Let's have an honest conversation.

When a "big deal" gets dangled in front of community leaders like a trophy — shiny, impressive, something to hang on the wall — it's worth asking: Who actually wins?

Corporate consolidation in fisheries isn't community development. It's extraction dressed up in a suit.

When processing moves to a distant city, profits flow to shareholders who've never stood on a dock, never mended a net, and will never know the name of the person who pulled that fish from the water. The jobs, the training, the processing capacity, the community food security — all of it gets stripped down to one metric: the bottom line.

And the bottom line doesn't live in your community. It lives in a boardroom far away.

Here's what gets lost:

🏘️ Local processing jobs that sustain families and communities

🐟 Community-controlled food resources from harvested fish and game

💡 The entrepreneurial spirit of individuals who WOULD hire locally, invest locally, and grow locally

🌊 Decision-making power that belongs to harvesters — not shareholders

Corporate ownership doesn't just take profits. It takes possibility.

It stifles the small business owner who would have hired three people from the community. It silences the harvester who had a vision. It replaces innovation with compliance, and community wealth with quarterly reports.

The question isn't "Is this a good deal?"
The question is: A good deal for WHOM?

Deals built on shareholder value cannot be confused with community development. One prioritizes return on investment. The other prioritizes return to community — through jobs, food sovereignty, skills, and self-determination right where the harvest is happening.

Before your community signs on the dotted line, ask:
✅ Where will the jobs be?
✅ Where will the profits stay?
✅ Who controls the decisions in 5 years?
✅ What happens to local processing capacity?
✅ Does this build entrepreneurs — or eliminate them?

The trophy on the wall fades. Your community's future doesn't have to.

💬 Share this if you believe resource wealth should stay where the resources — and the people — are.

The fish leaves. The value leaves. The community gets the work without the reward.
For generations, that's been the deal for coastal, remote, rural, Northern, and Indigenous communities. A harvester lands a beautiful catch, sells it whole at the lowest point in the chain, and watches the filleting, the smoking, the branding — every step that multiplies the value — happen somewhere else, for someone else.
We're plotting a different course.
At Indigenous Fishers First, the tools, infrastructure, and data we've spent years building are finally connecting into one engine: community-owned processing, the 100% utilization model, traceability, direct-to-market channels, and fisheries data that puts harvesters in the driver's seat. From Tofino to Gold River to the Bay of Islands — two oceans, one model.
The principle is simple: keep the value where the harvest happens.
The train is picking up speed, and there's a seat for everyone — to fund the work, do the work, or support it any way you can.

All Aboard: The Indigenous Fisheries Train Is Picking Up Speed A message from Indigenous Fishers First For a long time, the work felt like laying track in the rain — one tie at a time, with no train in sight. That season is behind us.

What if “Build Canada” started at the dock — and the value didn’t have to leave home to be created?
What if there was a way to deploy modular/mobile processing infrastructure to Canada’s rural, coastal, remote, and Indigenous harvesters and producers — supported by a full system, not a single piece of equipment:
• Cold storage + cold-chain solutions sized for remote landings
• An integrated traceability backbone (boat-to-plate) that protects product integrity and premium value[Memory +1]
• Marketing, branding, product development, and value-added capacity built with harvesters and Nations
• Wraparound support (training, compliance, operations, market access) so communities can actually use the infrastructure to grow
Because the reality across Canada is this:
the resource is harvested at home — but the value is too often created somewhere else.
That means jobs leave. Ownership leaves. Food leaves.
And at a time when Indigenous households continue to face disproportionately high food insecurity, building local capacity to process, store, and distribute high-quality protein close to home isn’t just an economic strategy — it’s a food-systems strategy.[Memory]
Right now, Canada is talking about “building” again — including major new investments in core infrastructure like small craft harbours. That matters. But reinforcing the dock is only step one.[Memory]
If we want coastal and Indigenous economies to grow, we need the shoreside processing, cold storage, traceability, and commercialization infrastructure to match.
So here’s the question for policy makers, program designers, and Canadian funders focused on productivity, reconciliation, and rural prosperity:
What if we stopped asking communities to ship their resources away to create value — and instead built a modular, mobile, traceable processing network that lets value stay home?
Indigenous Fishers First and our building and supply partners are prepared to do exactly that — with Indigenous leadership at the centre, and a place-based pathway to prosperity that can scale coast to coast to coast.[Memory]
If you work in fisheries policy, infrastructure funding, Indigenous economic development, cold chain logistics, traceability, or market development — let’s connect.
Are we ready to build it together?

Glad we have an active NDP fisheries Critic fighting for BC fish Harvesters. Our voice will be heard in Ottawa with Gord Johns for Courtenay-Alberni there spreading the word.

MP Gord Johns presents petition calling to regulate foreign ownership of Canadian fishing licenses Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Ehattesaht/Chinehkint Fisheries Mentorship Program - Prawn Season 2026 🌊

We are excited to launch with Troy John a new Fisheries Mentorship Program for Ehattesaht/Chinehkint youth interested in learning more about the fishery and gaining hands-on experience on the water!

The program will begin on Monday, May 11th with the start of the prawn season and will continue throughout the duration of the season.

📍 Location: Out of Ehatis

This mentorship opportunity will be led by Troy John, a fisher from Ehattesaht/Chinehkint First Nation, who will be sharing practical knowledge, experience, and skills directly on the water with participating youth.

Participants will take part in full-day, hands-on fishing experiences ranging from approximately 8-12 hours per day during selected fishing days. Youth can choose the dates that work best for them through the sign-up form. Ideally, each youth will participate for a full week, for example from May 25 to May 29.

This initiative aims to provide meaningful, practical experience in the fishing industry while reconnecting youth with their territories. It is an opportunity to build skills, confidence, and long-term interest in the fishery as a viable livelihood and career path.

✅ Open to Ehattesaht/Chinehkint youth
✅ Hands-on mentorship experience
✅ Flexible participation dates
✅ $80 honorarium per day for participating youth
📋 Sign up here: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/rhtBGtQfQK

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out on Facebook or to Abigail at [email protected]

Fisheries Biologist/Technician - Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government POSITION: Fisheries Biologist/TechnicianSALARY RANGE: Commensurate with qualificationsSUPERVISOR: Fisheries ManagerHOURS: Seasonal (Averaging Agreement)LOCATION: Meziadin Fishway, British Columbia NATURE AND SCOPE OF POSITION: The Nisga’a Fisheries Program includes yearly research and monitoring [...

From Harvest to Horizon: How Indigenous Communities Are Building the Economy They Deserve
A Newsletter Article by Indigenous Fishers First
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There is a conversation happening along the coastlines, in the longhouses, and across the territories of Indigenous communities on Vancouver Island and beyond — and it sounds like possibility.
When we sit with Indigenous leaders from the Nuu-chah-nulth Nations and communities across the coast, one word comes up before any other: responsibility. Not rights. Not revenue. Responsibility.
Because they understand something that many economic development frameworks miss entirely: sovereignty without responsibility is just a word on paper. The two are inseparable. You cannot claim one and abandon the other. And when both are held together — with care, with community, with long-term vision — something extraordinary becomes possible.
That is the future Indigenous Fishers First is working to build.
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The Opportunity in Front of Us
The West Coast of Vancouver Island is one of the most resource-rich coastlines on the planet. The waters, forests, lands, and traditional territories of the Nuu-chah-nulth and neighbouring Nations hold abundance that has sustained life here for thousands of years.
Today, First Nations along BC’s coast are actively asserting their role as rights-holders and decision-makers. Coastal Indigenous leaders are calling for Indigenous-led licensing, stewardship, and investment across seafood and aquaculture sectors. The BC First Nations Fisheries Council’s 2025–2030 Strategic Plan calls for self-determined decision-making and First Nations stewardship across all fisheries management — a generational shift in how resource governance works in this province. These aren’t aspirations. They are strategies — grounded, organized, and advancing.
The question is: who will be ready to move when the doors open?
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Right-Sized. Reality-Driven. Community-Built.
At Indigenous Fishers First, we believe the most powerful economic models are the ones built to fit the community they serve — not scaled to impress investors, but scaled to generate real, lasting impact for real people.
What does that look like in practice?
• Seafood processing facilities designed for the volume that Nuu-chah-nulth harvesters actually land — efficient, modern, and positioned to capture far more value from every fish than simply selling raw catch into someone else’s supply chain
• Vegetable, grain, and meat processing tied to the land-based food sovereignty work already underway, where the harvest stays in community hands from field to table
• Timber and forestry operations structured at the right scale for the territories they serve — generating long-term stewardship revenue while maintaining the ecological values that Indigenous title depends on
• Whole-resource thinking — taking seriously what has too long been dismissed as waste
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There Is No Waste — Only Unrealized Value
One of the most transformative shifts in sustainable resource economics right now is the recognition that what we previously discarded holds enormous value. Fish heads, frames, and offal — historically treated as waste by industrial processors — are now premium ingredients for fishmeal, nutraceuticals, collagen, and high-value markets. Timber slash feeds biomass energy. Processing byproducts become fertilizer and soil amendments.
Indigenous communities, whose traditional knowledge has always recognized the whole-resource value of every harvest, are uniquely positioned to lead this transition. Federal investments in Indigenous-led circular economy initiatives are already emerging across Canada — with communities turning processing byproducts into bio-fertilizer, greenhouse inputs, and manufacturing inputs, creating multiple revenue streams from a single harvest cycle. This approach doesn’t just reduce waste. It multiplies value, creates new businesses, and opens doors for Indigenous entrepreneurs that didn’t exist before.
The circular economy is not a new concept for peoples who never wasted anything to begin with — it is simply the language the rest of the world is finally catching up to.
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When We Hire Each Other, We Change Everything
Here is a picture worth holding in your mind:
An Indigenous harvester lands a catch on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It is loaded onto a truck owned and operated by an Indigenous trucking company. That truck delivers to an Indigenous-owned seafood processing plant — employing community members with living wages and training pathways. The processed product moves into cold storage owned by an Indigenous distribution company. It ships to markets across Canada under an Indigenous brand that carries cultural meaning and commands a premium.
Every dollar in that supply chain circulates within and between Indigenous communities. Every job is an Indigenous job. Every business is building wealth that stays.
This is not a fantasy. Indigenous-owned trucking ventures are already operating at scale across Canada, co-owned by First Nations and serving community economic goals. Federal programming — including BC’s Indigenous Food Pathways program offering up to $200,000 per project — is available right now to build exactly these kinds of integrated operations. The Nuu-chah-nulth Economic Development Corporation, right here in Port Alberni, exists precisely to finance and support this kind of growth.
The infrastructure for this future is being built. What it needs now is connection — the deliberate, strategic linking of these pieces into something whole.
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Collaboration Is the Competitive Advantage
No single community needs to — or should — build all of this alone. The power of Indigenous economic collaboration is that communities bring complementary assets: territorial access, harvesting rights, processing capacity, cold chain logistics, agricultural land, timber tenure, and most importantly, people.
When communities cooperate deliberately, they create scale that no single Nation can achieve independently. A processing facility shared between three communities serves all three better than one undercapitalized facility in each. A cold storage and distribution hub positioned strategically in a regional centre can serve coastal and inland Nations alike, reducing costs and increasing market reach for everyone. This is what economic reconciliation looks like in practice: not just Indigenous participation in someone else’s economy, but Indigenous communities building their own interconnected economy — hiring each other, investing in each other, and growing together.
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Indigenous Fishers First: Ready to Build With You
Indigenous Fishers First exists to be the bridge — the partner that brings together people, businesses, and place-based economic development with the depth, respect, and strategic clarity these opportunities deserve. We are not here with pre-packaged solutions from outside. We are here to work alongside communities, harvesters, leaders, and entrepreneurs to build strategies and partnerships that are:
• Inclusive — built with the people who will live with the results
• Responsible — aligned with the sovereignty and stewardship values Indigenous leaders have always prioritized
• Right-sized — matched to the real capacity and real opportunity of each community
• Integrated — connecting the dots so value stays in Indigenous hands
• Sustainable — building businesses and ecosystems that will still be thriving for the next generation
The Uu-a-thluk fisheries program of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, guided by the principle of “taking care of,” reminds us that stewardship and economic vitality are not opposites — they reinforce each other. Communities that take care of their resources build resources that take care of their communities.
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The Future Is Being Built Right Now
DFO’s own 2025–26 Departmental Plan commits to supporting Indigenous self-determination and capacity-building in fishing communities. The Maa-nulth First Nations are already accessing incremental community-based economic fisheries, with Huu-ay-aht harvesters entering commercial salmon fisheries under new Me Too Agreement negotiations. Federal programming for Indigenous food sovereignty, circular economy development, and business access to capital is available help build the economy.
The policy environment is shifting. The economic opportunity is real. The resources, the rights, and the knowledge are in Indigenous hands.
What transforms opportunity into reality is strategy, partnership, and the willingness of communities to move together.
Indigenous Fishers First is ready to make that move.
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Interested in exploring how your community or organization can build collaborative, place-based economic opportunities with Indigenous Fishers First? Connect with us on LinkedIn or reach out directly. The conversation starts with responsibility — and it leads somewhere extraordinary.
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What if the most powerful act of nation-building Canada could do right now… was to invest in the communities that have been feeding this land for thousands of years?
Let me tell you a story.
On the west coast of Vancouver Island, Nuu-chah-nulth fishers have harvested the ocean's bounty for millennia — chinook, halibut, herring, gooseneck barnacles — with a knowledge of tides, seasons, and stewardship that no textbook can replicate. Their relationship with the sea isn't just cultural. It's economic. It's nutritional. It's national.
And yet — the processing infrastructure, cold storage, distribution networks, and market access that would turn that harvest into community wealth, food security, and economic sovereignty? Too often, it simply isn't there.
That's not a resource problem. That's an infrastructure problem. And infrastructure problems are solvable.
Canada is sitting on a profound opportunity.
Right now, rural, remote, coastal, Northern, and Indigenous communities across this country hold the keys to our national food sovereignty — but they lack the physical infrastructure to unlock it. The supply chains that feed southern cities run past these communities, not through them. The capital that builds processing facilities, cold chains, community freezers, and distribution hubs flows to where infrastructure already exists — not to where it's needed most.
This is a gap. But more importantly, it's a door.
When you build the right infrastructure in the right place, everything changes.
A community fish processing plant doesn't just create jobs — it creates intergenerational wealth. A cold storage facility doesn't just preserve fish — it preserves the ability of a Nation to feed itself and its neighbours. Wharf access, vessel support, Indigenous-owned supply chains — these aren't niche investments. They are the foundation of Canadian food sovereignty.
Canada's own government has acknowledged this urgency. Investments in Northern food infrastructure are multiplying. But the pace is too slow. The scale is too small. And too often, these solutions are imported into communities rather than grown from within them.
There is a better way. And it starts with place-based infrastructure.
At Indigenous Fishers First, we believe that the pathway to Canada's food sovereignty runs through the very communities that have been its original stewards. Not as recipients of programs — but as economic drivers. Not as beneficiaries of goodwill — but as owners of infrastructure, masters of their harvests, and partners in building a more resilient Canada.
We are working to connect capital to communities. To bridge the gap between the investment that exists and the infrastructure that's needed. To ensure that rural, remote, coastal, Northern, and Indigenous communities aren't just on the map — they're on the balance sheet.
Canada can't keep waiting on food sovereignty. The people, the knowledge, and the resources are already there.
What's missing is the will to invest — and the right partners to make it happen.
🌊 Join us. If you believe that the future of Canadian food security is Indigenous-led, community-rooted, and infrastructure-enabled — let's build it together.
👉 Follow Indigenous Fishers First | Connect with us | Share this post and start a conversation.
Because the tide doesn't wait — and neither should Canada.

Indigenous Fishers First is thrilled to launch a new partnership with LFS Marine & Outdoor (LFS Inc.) in Bellingham, Washington – a long-standing commercial fishing and marine supplier serving fleets across the Pacific for nearly 60 years.

To kick things off, we’re helping coordinate a HUGE warehouse / inventory blowout sale in May, with commercial fishing gear moving at very low prices – in many cases pennies on the dollar. This includes gillnet web (with more web available), plus other commercial items like swivel longline gear and additional surplus stock that’s too extensive to list in a single post.

LFS carries a full line of commercial fishing gear and marine supplies – nets, lines, rain gear, pots, hardware and more – and we can now help get that gear moving directly into Canada for Indigenous harvesters and community fleets. If you’re looking for specific items, reach out to us with your gear “wish list” and we’ll ask LFS what they have on special, on clearance, or in stock and ready to ship.

Over the next phase, we’ll be integrating this partnership into the Indigenous Fishers First website and membership platform so that qualifying orders can be set up for tax-relieved delivery onto reserve, in line with existing rules for shipments to reserve communities. Once that’s live, members will be able to place tax-free orders and coordinate direct delivery on-reserve through our network.

For now, let’s get started with a BIG first order to show LFS how strong the demand is from Indigenous fishers and communities across Canada. If you’re a Nation, community enterprise, or individual fisher interested in the May blowout sale or ongoing gear access, comment below or send us a message with:

Your community and location

The fishery/fisheries you’re gearing up for (e.g., salmon gillnet, halibut longline, crab, etc.)

A rough list of the gear you’re looking for

We’ll pull together interest, work with LFS to build a more exhaustive inventory list, and help you secure the gear you need at the best prices possible. Let’s open a new, reliable gear supply line from Bellingham straight to your community and support stronger Indigenous fisheries across the coast.

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