She enjoyed the course and school and continues to advance those aspirations by looking at further education opportunities including VIU and on-the-job training. Lauren works out of Klemtu, B.C., on Swindle Island in the central coast. It's the southern end of Tsimshian Nation where she lives and was born and raised. "I work on site in an eight-day shift and we live in a float-house," explained Lauren, "I like it. It's very nice and sometimes it gets interesting during the winter." Winter storms make the water choppy..
Lauren feeds MHC Atlantic salmon that are grown by Kitasoo Seafoods Ltd and processed in a facility in Klemtu, "Right now that's my main job, to feed the fish." It's an amazing event each day, whereupon, "The fish really get going, it's all on camera." Daily operations are under the watch of MHC personnel like Lauren,. "We are connected to head office by phone and internet." In her job, "We do one feeding session once-a-day at the present size of the fish in my pens," whereas, "When they're smolts they get more feedings per day."
The work in fish farming is exciting, "It's fun to watch the fish grow and interesting to see how big they get." Lauren describes the routine, "At harvest time," which for the site she works on will be relatively soon; meantime, "Various facets need to be done on site by employees, for example, we do mort-cleaning on 14 pens and go to each pen every second day for inspections with part of the operation automated and part done with a dip-net." Dying fish are rare in the net-pens and they find one or two per pen out of literally thousands of fish, but she is educated about and fully apprised of the potential for disaster on a farm site. "A plankton bloom could really kill a lot of the fish in the pen. A harvest takes about two years to produce.
"We get moved from site to site occasionally depending on the personnel situation, or you might stay there on the same site for many months working eight days in and six days out."
She loves the company, "Marine Harvest Canada is a really good company," and she is knowledgeable about fish farming, "Before Marine Harvest Canada came to Klemtu my dad ran a fish farm that was owned by Kitasoo for four years. He managed the site." Her dad has since moved from Klemtu.
She remains a central coast person , "I liked it growing up here and I love living here today," but when she gets a break she travels from the remote area to Campbell River or the Lower Mainland.
