Canada's rich inland fishing history

Today the relics of the fishing and trapping industry are kept at a series of marine museums that often seem out of place on the prairie landscape. But at the start of the 20^th Century, inland fishing on the prairies was a booming industry, expanding rapidly to meet the demands left by the collapse of the freshwater fishing industry on the Great Lakes.

The topic is explored in the March 2010 issue of The Canadian Historical Review by Liza Piper, an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta.

Western Canadian freshwater fishing was in fact largely dependent on American markets to the south, specifically located in major urban centers like New York city. Fresh fish served an important dietary role for Jewish families on the Sabbath.

Freshwater fishing went from the Lake Winnipeg all the way west through Saskatchewan and Alberta to Lake Athabasca in the north. The fishery was an important source of revenue for local fisherman and fish packers, spawning a larger industry.

At the start of the 1930s, drought sweeping across the prairies also had a significant effect on freshwater fish spawning beds. “Whitefish and goldeye production crashed after 1930,” Piper notes, “while the production of other species fluctuated dramatically.” Combined with uncontrolled fishing, the results were disastrous.

But the most significant pressure came from the major markets to the south. Stress on the market brought fish under increased scrutiny, raising a small parasite to larger prominence. 

Triaenophorus, a small parasite found on a variety of Canadian fish, suddenly provided an opportunity to restrict Canadian exports. Piper describes how:

“The peaceable coexistence between Triaenophorus and some of its hosts had allowed parasite-infected but otherwise high-quality fish to be marketed for decades. Economic circumstances in the 1930s prompted the application of the inspection regulations that transformed the parasite and its cyst from a harmless imperfection in fish flesh to a visible object of disgust, brought shipments of tullibee to a halt, and threatened the fishery as a whole.”

Despite government interventions, there were few ways of adequately addressing the issue of the parasite, and the fishing industry continued to decline. The story is an important demonstration of how humans and nature continue to interact and effect each other in an ongoing relationship.

Liza Piper is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alberta. “Parasites from ‘Alien Shores’: The Decline of Canada’s Freshwater Fishing Industry can be found in the March 2010 issue of The Canadian Historical Review.