Northwest Coast First Nations fishing methods a fascinating read

To say fish played an important role in the lives of the First Nations of the Northwest Coast is gross understatement. No other food source was as vital to community survival as what came out of the ocean.

Over millennia, a complex and highly specialized technology was developed to achieve greater success in fishing, and the late Hilary Stewart documented this in detail in this book, originally published in 1977.

Forty years later, the material that she compiled about hooks, lures, sinkers and so forth makes for fascinating reading. Consulting with elders, workers at fish camps and with museum staff, the explanations of how to make such things as large bentwood hooks could provide no end of home projects to try. The book also digs deeper into the experience of fishing to coastal peoples, focusing on ceremony, art and other cultural practices.

From the Tlingit myth recounted by the late Billy Wilson Senior of Hoonah, Alaska, that opens the text to its assorted historical images, this is fascinating material. But the heart of the book is certainly the meticulous hand-drawn illustrations of everything from the Northern halibut hook to the complex reef nets used during salmon spawning season.

In the days before easy computer graphics, everything from cookbooks to construction manuals used to be illustrated this way, and there is a folksiness to it that just adds for the appreciation of this book. Stewart also mined archives for some excellent photos.

Images such as whole salmon drying in the warm winds of the Fraser Canyon is something you can also experience right now. Such is the case with many of the methods described in Indian Fishing. A great deal of modern commercial fishing

gear is designed using traditional technological knowledge for just this reason: when something works as well as these techniques did, you don’t mess with a good thing.

As for messing with traditions, it’s well documented how so much of the ceremony around opening different fishing seasons and harvest was impacted by government policies. Thankfully, the prayers and practices which Stewart touches upon in the final sections of the book have survived and are honoured now.

Modern Indigenous scholarship has greatly expanded upon this area and a great deal more is known and presented in better fashion than it is in this book. But Indian Fishing stands the test of time for its careful presentation in the 450-plus illustrations.

This is a perfect gift for anyone curious about life in this region and what it took to get one’s supper.