Casting about for tales from ‘the big lake’
Great Slave Lake outing gives one a taste of the life of a commercial fisherman
GREAT SLAVE LAKE, N.W.T.— It was Shawn Buckley’s two-sentence email that helped me finally understand our time together on his fishing boat. “Nice to meet you,” he wrote. “Thanks for coming out and seeing our life on the big lake.”
I realized that the most interesting fishing trips don’t have to involve catching fish or even much actual fishing. I realized that spending time aboard the Jennifer Dawn was a rare chance to simply hang out with a third-generation commercial fisherman and learn about his life as a northerner with Indigenous heritage.
It was June in Yellowknife and I couldn’t wait to get out on North America’s deepest lake (Great Slave Lake is 614 metres deep). I joined two road trippers from Lac La Biche, Alta., — Romeo and Louise Gauthier — for an afternoon with Great Slave Lake Tours.
We figured we would see how commercial fishing works, catch our limit of whitefish sport fishing and celebrate with a shore lunch. But our host had work to do, namely setting his nets for the next day’s haul and picking up three locals and a dog from a distant island where he had dropped them off to camp.
So we sat back and relaxed, cruising by Yellowknife’s famous houseboat community and pleasure cruisers and talking to Buckley, who prefers to call himself “mixed” instead of Métis.
“I grew up with a traditional lifestyle living on the lake and land,” he says. “We travelled to drop off fish every second day and pick up groceries and gas. It was my mom, dad and six kids.”
He’s 49, just like me, and defines himself simply as Canadian. He only went to school to Grade 7, and by 15 was running his own fishing outfit.
Buckley wasn’t always proud of his heritage, or comfortable talking to strangers, but slowly realized that tourists are thirsty for cultural exchanges.
He started bringing people on his boat in good weather, and Bombardier in winter, to supplement his fishing income about 16 years ago with encouragement from his mom and ex-wife.
“I didn’t know why people would want to see a dirty boat, dirty Bombardier or dirty fish camp, but I pushed through,” he says.
“I do tourism with a lot of heart, you could say.”
So what I mistakenly figured was a mere fishing trip is what Buckley would describe as “sharing my lifestyle with guests with a lot of add-ons and a lot of history.”
His youngest son didn’t come, but we heard that he’s 7, home-schooled and a natural on the lake who seems poised to become a fourth-generation fisherman.
Today, Buckley’s deckhand Stephanie Vaillancourt, originally from Quebec, serves us Labrador tea and crackers with smoked inconnu, whitefish caviar, homemade cranberry jelly and cream cheese. Later, it’s all-we-can-eat pan-fried Lake Trout served with hot sauce and coleslaw.
The Jennifer Dawn, a 43-foot commercial fishing boat named for Buckley’s sister, has two bunk beds, a composting toilet and a stove. Some guests ask for overnight trips and get to sleep on the boat.
We drive about an hour-and-a-half before watching Buckley set four, 100-yard nets in the commercial fishing zone.
“By tomorrow, on a good catch, we’ll have about 300 pounds of whole fish to sell,” he says. He’s one of about two dozen commercial fishing outfits on the lake.
While Buckley picks up the campers using a smaller boat to get to shore, we fish briefly in the sport fishing zone before having our shore lunch on board and heading back.
“You can’t just go sailing everywhere like it looks like,” Buckley says. “I’m listening to the engine and watching the temperatures. There’s a lot of stress.”
To make a decent living, he not only sells fish but takes tourists and researchers on the lake, does boat shuttles for campers and hauls freight.
We don’t catch any fish with our rods, but Buckley sets one commercial fishing net for an hour and then pulls it up to show us a few of Great Slave Lake’s famous whitefish.
He makes quick work of filleting them to sell them back in Yellowknife for $5 a filet, or about $10 a pound.
We move our chairs to the back of the boat to catch the sun and relax for the long journey back, watching the big and beautiful lake go by.
“Some days you don’t want to be out here,” Buckley says, nodding at the clear skies and fairly calm waters. “This is a good day.” Jennifer Bain was hosted by Parks Canada and Northwest Territories Tourism, which didn’t review or approve this story.