VIU grad a biologist in a beautiful land

Vancouver Island University (VIU) has an education program in fisheries and aquaculture that is a magnet to First Nation youth of the Pacific Coast. Sabrina Halvorsen graduated a four-year degree program to become an Associate Biologist for Nuu Chau Nulth Uu-a-thluk Fisheries in Port Alberni, B.C..

“I am a member of the Uchucklesaht Tribe,” said Sabrina of a community of the Nuu Chah Nulth Nation on the west side of Vancouver Island. She received her childhood education at schools in Uchucklesaht, Bamfield, and Port Alberni; Sabrina entered VIU after working in cultivating oysters outside Barkley Sound.

“When I originally started in the Uchucklesaht oyster farm a science opportunity was presented,” and she seized it and went to work on the VIU degree. Today she does biological science for the NTC, “I’ve been doing a variety of different things this spring. We are doing stream restoration work, crab studies, sea otter studies, and general scientific observations.”

She lives in this remarkably beautiful land, “I like the work and days working in the field are my favourite days.” The office work is immersed in policy papers and proposal writing. The NTC has the greater Nuu chah nulth Nation in mind, which is basically from the height of land all the way down the west side of Vancouver Island.

Historically Nuu chah nulth people had closer relations with their northern neighbours the Kwakwaka’wakw more than with the giant Coast Salish nation opposite those heights.

Sabrina works with regional biologists Jim Lane, Katie Beach, and Roger Dunlop in the NTC lands and fisheries offices. “We have sea lice surveys upcoming, continuation of the sea otter counts, and we are conducting crab surveys. I will also be participating in the Burman and Koauk projects which will be determining Chinook salmon escapement to these rivers”.

She works with the Bamfield Marine Science Centre (U of Vic) to deliver aquatic orientation sessions to youth. “We show them the activities of a biologist and how to sample species such as salmon by removing scales and otoliths for age and origin. We teach them the importance of protecting our natural resources

and what we can do to maintain the natural environment. We also try to engage and encourage the students who are interested in working towards science-based career goals.”

The Uchucklesaht oyster and mussel farm that introduced her to the career is no longer operating. “The oyster farm was so remote a location that it’s hard to find personnel who can do it. I hope my band will start that up again someday.”

VIUFA was established in 1979, said Don Furnell, professor in the department, “offering a two-year Diploma in Fisheries and Aquaculture Technology,” and in time, “the program expanded to include a one-year post degree diploma for students that already had a B.Sc. in biological or environmental sciences.” 

In 1997 the department added a B.Sc. in Fisheries and Aquaculture, “Since opening the department has graduated approximately six hundred students,” said Don, “many of whom were of First Nations descent and sponsored by their various bands.”

Facilities have grown to include two cold water tank farms for rainbow trout and Fraser River white sturgeon. The department has a public involvement hatchery at Chase River in Secwepmec territory.

“VIU has a sea water recirculation system where laboratory specimens are kept and bred,” said Don, “an aquaponics room that grows vegetables in conjunction with warm water fish, and a tropical fish room that breeds and grows aquarium fish for the pet trade.”

VIUFA places equal emphasis on fisheries management and aquaculture R and D. Students take courses in salmonid life histories and management, an advanced course in fisheries management with an emphasis on fisheries politics and global warming, a lake survey field and laboratory based course, a course in hydrology and another in limnology, a course on the biology of fish, and another in invertebrate zoology

Even though many of facilities on campus are related to aquaculture there is a strong fisheries component to all the programs. “Because of the dual emphasis on both fisheries and aquaculture graduates find employment in a wide variety of careers in government, in private aquaculture operations,” he said, “and growing a diversity of organisms such as salmon, oysters, clams, sablefish, sturgeon and marine plants and micro algae.”

NBCC the nexus of aquaculture in New Brunswick

Rod Carney is one of the Aquaculture Technician instructors at NBCC-St. Andrews College in New Brunswick, an education institution that lies at the centre of a thriving aquaculture industry in the province. First Nations in eastern Canada have been accessing NBCC-St. Andrews for years to gain technical training in growing fish.

“Over the years we’ve run several programs specifically requested by First Nations, and within the program last year we graduated two more Aboriginal students out of Quebec,” said Rod. The Aquaculture Technician course runs over a ten-month school term from September to June each year with a combination of school work and hands-on training that offers a tech-oriented learning curve.

“St. Andrews in Charlotte County in the south-west is the centre of aquaculture in the province,” he said, describing the island-dotted south-west coast Charlotte County, New Brunswick. “Ninety five percent of the $300 million a year aquaculture industry is located in the south-west coast,” he notes. Other areas of the province have lobster beds and shellfish developments but the Atlantic salmon grow in the waters off Charlotte County.

Rod said the first commercial salt water fish farm was set-up in 1978 and the industry went through the same growing pains that have been reported elsewhere as the industry evolved into a highly regulated and industrialized economy thriving on both coasts. “We’re growing about half the amount of Atlantic salmon that is produced on the west coast,” where the fin-fish aquaculture industry is about $600 million annually, largely for export, making it B.C.’s largest agricultural export.

Rod was a graduate of aquaculture technical training at New Brunswick Community College at St. Andrews in 1979 where he’s now the teacher (one of two instructors) for Aquaculture Technicians-in-training at NBCC-St. Andrews. NBCC campuses are found in Fredericton Centre, Miramichi, Moncton, Saint John, Woodstock, and the NBCC College of Craft and Design.

“Our campus has the aquaculture focus as a practical outcome with industry and hatcheries operating in the vicinity. Our campus has several programs but the training for aquaculture has been set here and much of the training relates to on-land rearing and ocean-based net-pen aquaculture, specifically the growing of Atlantic salmon.”

Because industry is looking at other developments in fish research and development occurs in different species. “We are experimenting with halibut, cod, and shortnose sturgeon,” a fish native to the eastern seaboard and the riverine systems flowing into the east coast.

One company in the province, Supreme Sturgeon and Caviar, works in Charlotte County with 45,000 sturgeon producing three tonnes of caviar per year. The shortnose sturgeon female can live up to 60 years and grow to about 4.5 metres under ideal growing conditions, and sturgeon will live in tidal waters.

“The Atlantic salmon farms in our waters produce for the markets in the North Eastern U.S. and eastern Canada,” said Rod. Meanwhile the program for students at NBCC-St. Andrew will be part of the province to building partnerships with universities in New Brunswick, transferring certificate course credits to university and vice versa. “Our goal is to see the Aquaculture Technician program count as one year toward a four year degree.” Contact Rod at nbcc@gnb.ca or visit www.nbcc.nb.ca

World class research and training in shellfish

 The Vancouver Island University established the Centre for Shellfish Research to go deep into shellfish, including laboratory and field based research into the science of shellfish genomics, explained the centre’s main administrator, Koren Bear.

“Helen Furney Smith is the science officer leading the research into health assessments on shellfish to help industry, and to assess wild stocks,” in both the environmental and commercial context. “The research is using mussels as indicator species, and Helen’s research in genomics looks into the gene expressions of mussels, what stresses them and causes mortalities,” and the research involves species from aquaculture and wild both.

Bear said, “Mussels are a worldwide indicator species of pollution levels, and in many places in the world even if they are growing oysters they will grow mussels in the surroundings because of the gill structure,” of these animals that act as a buttress against pollutants.

Mussels are one part of a multi-tropic trend in aquaculture, as noted recently at the Aquaculture Canada show in Nanaimo. CSFR is also conducting studies into the commercial viability of cockles on the west coast. “This research looks into the commercial aspects and a steering committee is in charge of the program.

Cockles are being examined in brood stock, cockle hatchery conditions (diet, temperature, and densities), and through field investigations. “They are grown in aquaculture elsewhere in the world but they are not done here.”

The commercial aspects examine mortalities (what kills the crop) and field investigations examine sizes of fields of feed. “They feed on micro-algae by filter-feeding, and investigators are looking at long-line cultures versus beach culture,” said Bear.

CSFR-VIU is moving to Deep Bay, next to Fanny Bay to establish field stations working from a new $8 million facility. “We broke ground and it’s due to open July 2010. The Centre for Shellfish Research will be run by Brian Kingzett, as manager when we are becoming a world class research and training facility.”

In her role at CSFR Bear administers programs that, “we continue to offer on contract basis. These existing courses are offered on contract basis, however, all shellfish courses will become open enrolment courses for the general public beginning in March 2010.”

As the department prepares for moving to the Deep Bay Field Station, they are restructuring the educational scope to include Traditional Ecological Knowledge. “We are speaking to First Nation researchers, and Elders possessing traditional knowledge, and medicine expertise that exists in communities,” said Bear.

She said they will enhance the decision-making process in the study of wild animal species. “I am hoping to meet some of these folks at the Shellfish Summer Camp coming Jul 2 to 6, 2009 at Camp Morecroft, Nanoose Bay.”

CSFR is hosting a First Nation Youth Leadership Shellfish Program called FLOW, “Future Leaders on the Water for ages 13 to 18. They are invited to experience an orientation to the scientific Marine Environment, and look closely at shellfish biology.

The program at Nanoose Bay runs at a discounted rate of $250 per person, and youth are accommodated and fed. Activities include kayaking, swimming, a visit and tour through VIU Campus, including the BIO lab, and a look at life on campus.

They will see the sturgeon growing at Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, and shellfish under cultivation in CSR labs. Elders will discuss the cultural significance of shellfish middens at Deep Bay.” CSFR entered partnerships to develop a camp model that stresses hands-on activity. Bear said VIU’s Don Tillapaugh calls the camp, “using shellfish to develop essential skills and leadership.”

CSFR is doing more outreach in the coast with Overview Courses on Shellfish Aquaculture. “We go to the community and discuss different species for potential aquaculture development. We are presenting one day overview of scallops at the north end of Vancouver Island in June.”

She said the workshops go into challenges on governance, tenure, capacity issues, and offer an outreach by CSFR in one-day awareness building forums, in First Nations regional centres found in Port Hardy, Campbell River, Port Alberni, Nanaimo Cowichan, and Victoria.

COTR Adventure Training campus set in a great town, Fernie, B.C.

Picture of Joe giving the thumbs up with his dad and friends from Kwadacha

More than a few First Nation youth are taking steps into the world of education to find their way onto bigger things. Joseph Syme, age 19, from Prince George, B.C., is a descendant of the Secwepmec Nation; Joe's mother is a member of the Canim Lake Indian Band.

Joe Syme spent this academic year at the College of the Rockies Fernie Campus in their nine month program toward the Adventure Tourism Degree. He took this interesting diversion after a year at University of Northern B.C. in the Environmental Planning department.

Fernie, "was amazing," said Syme, "Pretty much the best year of my life. It was nine months of extreme activity," and he listed off rock climbing, skiing, rafting, and other activities. "It was all-season, started in September with wilderness travel, hiking, and mountaineering." He said the winter portion included ski-touring, walking uphill on skis then skiing downhill, "It's all worth the effort to get some unbelievable downhill turns."

Syme was immersed in a program involving a lot of intense physical challenges, "rock-climbing is where you tackle a rock face, and mountain climbing is part of a package that includes ice climbing. Mountaineering is taking you to the top of the mountain. You go for the peaks."

The COTR program at Fernie is about training people to manage outdoor adventures. "In-class stuff was based on first aid and risk management," said Syme, "liability waivers, and so forth from the legal point of view," sessions conducted by lawyers.

The business end of Adventure Tourism classroom study included computer time on different applications on Windows in Excel and Word in particular, said Syme, "Another class on entrepreneurship included business people from Fernie. A lot of the times in adventure tourism the companies are pretty small, and we learned about a rafting company in Fernie, and a mountain bike touring company."

Mountain biking was not part of the course, "Next year they are integrating a portion about mountain biking. The certifications that I got help get jobs in the industry. First aid and ski-instructing, swift-water rescue, and life guard training," these are valuable certificates in seeking employment.

"We did a couple of hiking trips; most of it was oriented toward winter avalanche skills training and there was a deadly snowpack this year, kind of dangerous, people died." He also engaged in winter camping, staying in tents: "We hiked in our own tents and a couple of other trips were done where we stayed in huts.

"We did winter survival and dug snow caves and stayed in those. We burrowed out a cave and it was really warm. You can also trench-dig a shelter in the snow and it is faster but not as warm a shelter. Digging the snow cave takes about an hour and it might not be the best choice in a real blizzard."

They learned how to start fires the fastest and most efficient way. "We learned a technique called the bundle technique, bundle branches and break them off in a particular way and it is guaranteed to start a fire with one match. You pick the wood off the surrounding trees so it's not practical in alpine conditions."

In-class assignments included written tests, "For certification there was rigorous testing, especially in First Aid. The outdoor trips were tested by instructor observation with feedback sheets and group debriefing," and this composed part of the marks.

"My marks were pretty good," said Syme. "They talked to us individually to discuss the weaknesses. If we were doing our written assignments we were able to engage the instructors in the outdoors. And you had to have a certain percent on the tests like 80 percent on First Aid. A few students fell off in the marks in these areas," said Syme.

Numas Warrior a powerful ship-berthing tugboat for the Orca Quarry Marine Terminal

The Orca Quarry located on the east coast of northern Vancouver Island, 3.8 km west of Port McNeill, B.C., is permitted to produce 6.6 million tons of sand and gravel per year. Production began in Feb. 2007 including a dedicated ship-loading facility in Port McNeill for handling vessels up to 80,000 tons.

This harbour activity is now enhanced by the delivery of the Numas Warrior to Port McNeill, “a powerful and modern ship-berthing tugboat now in service assisting 80,000 ton capacity Panamax class freighters in and out of the Orca Quarry marine terminal,” said Mike Westerlund, Communications Manager, Polaris Minerals Corporation.

Polaris owns 88% of Orca Quarry, with the remaining 12% interest held by Namgis First Nation, said Westerlund, “The tugboat ownership group, consisting of Polaris Minerals Corporation of Vancouver, the Sea Legend Group of Port Hardy and Island Tug and Barge of Vancouver, were pleased to press the Numas Warrior into service in December.”

Since then the Warrior has been on hand to move each freighter loaded at the quarry and assists with the loading of barges dispatched for Vancouver. The tugboat operates powerful engines with rotating drives, “on a beamy, flat-bottomed hull design. The boat is about 60 feet long, 30 feet wide and has a relatively flat bottom,” said  Westerlund, “When combined with its twin 1,200 hp diesel engines and 360 degree rotating Z drives, this boat can move sideways almost as fast as it can move forwards.”

He said these attributes make it ideal for controlling the movements of large vessels, and “the new boat has won the admiration of all who have worked with her, including the BC Coast Pilots.” The twin MTU diesels meet Tier II emission standards, an advanced standard for clean burning diesel engines.

Talking Stick, Vancouver Island, Indigenous Art, by artist unknown

 

Canadian wood fuel is powering European cities

The time is now for things to change in forestry in B.C. and across Canada, said John Swaan, Wood Pellet Association of Canada's executive director. The industry faces many challenges, and among them an excess of deteriorating wood fibre that is growing in value, depending on the outcome of research and development in the use of bio-mass for energy.

"Access to sawmill residue is hard to find," said John. "The sawmill residue is being totally utilized. Meanwhile non-commercial grade fibre is abundant in the B.C. forests and elsewhere," due to existing forestry practices. The problem for wood pellet manufacture is that to harvest debris would cause a five-fold increase in the cost of fibre used in wood pellet manufacture because sawmill residue has been the cost-efficient commodity to make wood pellets to this date.

Nevertheless, "The forest floor holds the future of economic development," said John. In terms of bio-energy, untold mega-watts of electricity are being slashed and piled and burnt in North America's forests, a situation that becomes practically macabre when the deterioration of mountain pine beetle factors into the equation. In that disaster lies an opportunity, and the members of the association are poised to develop a new economic sector.

 People like John Swaan are impacted by the current state of B.C. forests because they are close witnesses to the situation. "I have made many trips through the B.C. Interior looking at forests that I was involved doing the replanting of lodgepole pine, and those trees of 30 years ago are dead." John doesn't mind saying the Ministry of Forests in B.C. remains bent on placating licensees and that is a perpetual reality in North American forestry, companies rule the forests. Things may be changing, however, and Swaan said First Nations are major partners in accessing volume of fibre required to the bio-mass/energy production equation, whatever form it ends up taking.

"We need to reclaim and remediate forests and First Nations are front-line advocates of the process. We have to deal with big changes in forests because of 50 years of fire suppression in forestry management." Fire is an ecological player that has played a reduced role, and it is a major part of the way forests have evolved. Meanwhile, the market for wood-generated energy is expanding, "Wood is displacing coal in Europe," said John. "In one Belgian city one of our members started shipping 120,000 tonnes of wood pellet annually to replace 80,000 tonnes of coal." Cities in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK are switching from coal fuel to wood. Canada is the source of their wood-energy.

The wood pellet industry runs on a shoe string, according to Len Fox, General Manager, Premium Pellet, in Vanderhoof, B.C., "It's difficult to make money. Our fibre costs are high and our profit margins are tight." Even so, Premium Pellet is filling orders as usual in Europe, and increasingly more often in North America. The area of operation for Premium Pellet is northern B.C., which puts Premium Pellet in close liaison with First Nations throughout the territory and they work exceptionally closely with Saikuz First Nation.

"Six of our 15 employees are First Nation and one of them is about to become certified as a millwright," said Len who grew up in Telkwa, B.C., a historical village of 1,400 located on the Bulkley and Telkwa Rivers. This is a completely integrated community of Babine First Nation people living with those of non-Native descent.

The business is export-driven and viability depends on watching costs, "We're the tail wagging the dog at this end of the industry. We are affected whenever CN Rail puts up their rates or truckers put up their rates. On the other hand we're pretty comfortable in our operations right now. We have an affordable supply of fibre and good relations all around."

 The Premium Pellet is a subsidiary of L&M Lumber Ltd. and Nechako Lumber Co Ltd. "L&M has agreements to employ Saik'uz First Nation (Stoney Creek) people in their harvest and other operations," said Len. Saik'uz is located 9km south-east of Vanderhoof on Kenney Dam road.

First Nation owned college feeling economy’s crunch

Haisla Nation in Kitimat, B.C., owns a Registered Private College in partnership with Alcan Aluminum and Roger Leclerc is the director of Kitimat Valley Institute (KVI). "We do several areas of programs," said Leclerc, "Aboriginal Education and Training, Technical and Industry programs, consulting work, special programs for management, pulp and paper technician program," and KVI has run a power engineering program in the past, "and still have the curriculum for that program." KVI has a conference centre for rent. (Story 2009)
 

At KVI, "Presently we are providing a 10 month employment training initiative that provides them with a Dogwood (high school diploma) certificate," said  Leclerc. "We are delivering academic and life skills programs, employment readiness, and work experience placements into jobs." The demands of a changing economy are creating new business opportunities in the region, and KVI runs a 12-day Aboriginal BEST Program, delivered on behalf of the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, as run by Bruce Lacroix, "We've run it for the last two years," said  Leclerc. "It provides information and the ability to start a business," teaching the students business plans and marketing skills.
 
"With all these different industries coming into the region a local small business community will benefit," said Leclerc. KVI is using various delivery modes to put the education on-stream, "We deliver on-line programs and offer computer labs." Trades and equipment operation are offered, "KVI, Kitimaat Village (Haisla Nation's central community), and North West Community College are delivering a carpentry and housing maintenance program to produce residential housing workers."
 

Leclerc noted, "We struggle on delivering an essential job readiness program at KVI because it's a social program," and the education funds are hard to find. "We'll have 20 people register and 15 to 17 will complete it. This year we started with 10 and it's tough because we get no public funding. We've had industry and shareholders KVI's partners) fund the program in the past." The job readiness program delivers wider community benefits by building the capacity of the community for employment, "It has a September start date and we want to keep it alive. ALCAN is 110 percent behind what KVI is doing. We have anywhere between 500 and 1000 students and we operate 12 months a year." Leclerc said the ALCAN modernization program is moving ahead at a reduced pace in this 'down' economy, "and we are anticipating major expansions for industry, which works 12 months a year."

Meanwhile the school programs, industry related and dependent, have been reduced in scale to match the shrunken economic activity of a recession, "We've gone to job sharing ourselves, no layoffs, but KVI staff has been put on a three-day work week."

Dialogue on Aquaculture in First Nations Drum April 2009

 

Canadians for Reconciliation continue to meet with success

The Elders from Sto:lo, Stat'myx, Salish, and Nisga'a nations needed to be housed out of the elements during the Chinese New Year's Day Parade in Vancouver, B.C., as it happened to be a cold one on Jan. 27, 2009, "A very cold and wet event this year," said Bill Chu, who organized an assembly of First Nations in the parade on Main Street.

Bill Chu's guests, the wait for the march of the dragons and that doesn't normally happen. Bill has organized similar multi-cultural events over the past few years in Vancouver.

"It always seems to be raining on the New Year's Parade," said Bill, "but this year it was bitterly cold." Bill Chu is a driving force behind Canadians for Reconciliation, "a peaceful non-partisan grassroots movement committed to developing a new relationship with aboriginal people, one that signifies a deep apology for past injustice, a willingness to honor truth now, and a resolve to embrace each other in the new millennium."

There is some missing pieces too, that they would like to embrace. "A professor at UBC informed Bill that the 1881 census in B.C. revealed 20 percent of the non-Aboriginal population in the province was Chinese. "There were more Chinese than any other single immigrant group. There is no history books that explain this, and it paints the Chinese of British Columbia in the completely different light."

Chinese were indeed a populous group, but not exactly a uniform one because the in-migration was practically entirely men. Furthermore because of the misinformation in the history books, "Today we are seen as recent immigrants. Our history has been suppressed to benefit of the white guys. Aboriginal people and our people were treated similar ways. We suffered similar discrimination and all of it was written right out of the history books.

"In the 1800s when the government of B.C. would give away free tracts of land only two groups of people were excluded from this privilege: Chinese and Aboriginal. We were useful to work on building the railroad and working in the mines, but we were never welcome and they used us out of necessity. It was a cheap way to finish the railroad." As a result the years 1881 to 1885 compose a memorable chapter of labour exploitation of Chinese men.

"It's not just about wages," said Bill, "and we didn't get those every day of the year either. We were only paid nine months of the year. During winter there was no work and they stopped paying us. It trapped the people in place with no health care, inadequate constructions to survive to winter, and no way to save any money." Everything they saved was spent on surviving three wintery months with no income.

The Chinese began turning to the only alliances open due to the draconian systemic racism that was blossoming in the North American continent, with B.C. distinguished by particular complications related to the location on the Pacific Rim, namely, Pacific-based people. 

Bill said, "The Aboriginal story I like to tell is from a Chinese restaurant owner who was passing away, and he gathered his children around him, and he told them, 'You have to treat the Aboriginal people well.'

"'Why must we do this?' asked the restaurateur's children, 'Way back when I was a railroad worker who got injured I was left by the tracks to die because that is what they did for us. Nothing. A few agonizing days a group of Aboriginal people walked by and picked me up and took me home where they nursed me back to health. And I became a restaurant owner.'"

Bill noted, "That's just one insight. The fact is that in 1885 the white guys decided, 'We don't want the Chinese here anymore.' They started the head tax in 1885, slapped on the infamous head tax $50 to enter the country. Only the Chinese, nobody else, had to pay the head tax. At that time for $50 you could buy a house. It was a lot of money"

The Chinese already in the country for many years may have once intended to return to China but their chances of that had always been slim and now they were none. He said the era of the head tax put the Canadian Chinese in a big dilemma. Here they were, many of them since 1858, and suddenly it is was stick around in Vancouver enduring this horrendous discrimination and scraping for a living. That was the moment when some of them intermarried with Aboriginal population."

Bill Chu is hopeful that a wider body of research begins to develop in the history of Chinese in British Columbia because it precedes Canada and the Chinese should be acknowledged for their place in the foundations of an important nation in the world.