Web of Life — Salmon, Part 2
Coastal First Nations have always relied on Pacific salmon as an important food source and, until displaced by colonisation, Indigenous communities closely managed the streams and rivers that served as the salmon’s spawning grounds.
The Story
Since colonisation, salmon stocks have been heavily impacted by habitat loss and overfishing. Now Indigenous communities are reestablishing traditional practices and implementing new scientific methods to restore balance that has been lost.
Cryogenics studies the impact of very low temperatures on all kinds of matter, and has been experimented with as a way to preserve people who want to be re-animated in the future. Maureen Ritter, the lead technician at Canada Cryogenetics Services, shows us how this extreme cold is being used to preserve and catalogue various salmon species in First Nation territories.
We will also meet Pete Erickson who is from the Nak’azdli Whut’en First Nation. Pete works with Maureen Ritter implementing a new hatchery program using a new compact technology called “hatchery in a box”. It is a portable and compact hi-tech hatchery system placed into cans that can be put into remote locations. Their hope is to restore the salmon back in their original streams.
The Location
