SOINTULA BACK WHEN This is a picture of Sointula as it appeared in 1926. The plant at right is Francis Millerd's old Summerville Cannery. At left is the old Anderson boatyard, which burned down in 193). The picture is one of
sveral passed on to The Fisherman by Ted Anderson, packer skipper, and Ole Anderson, boat builder, sons of the late John Anderson, a pioneer of the Malcolm Island community.
Company Haggles Over Village Site
The people of Hot Springs Cove on the west coast of Vancouver Island are looking for a new village site. The Indian Affairs repartment wants them to move. And the irony is that in all the length of a coast the Noot-kan people once called their own, the only suitable site they can find is held by the Tahsis Company.
In the meantime, the people left at Hot Springs Cove are working to repair the worst of the damage done by the tidal wave that struck the village after the Alaskan earthquake last Easter.
Five of the 18 houses in the village were swept away by the three waves that surged up Refuge Cove on the night of March 27-28. Of the rest, all except two were lifted off their foundations and carried into the bush at the edge of the village.
Early in May, UFAWU organisers Wally Paulik and Hideo Onotera took the Chiquita 3 into Hot Springs Cove to find out what was being done to rehabilitate the village and offer the Union's assistance. NICHOL URGES FULL AID
Acting on their report, Union business agent Jack Nichol wrote to Robert Battle, director of the Indian affairs branch at Ottawa, on May 22, urging full aid and compensation be given to the people of Hot Springs Cove.
"Damage to village residences was extensive, rendering some of the homes uninhabitable," he pointed out.
"The housing shortage will be further aggravated by the return of about 80 children from residential schools within the next few weeks.
"It is absolutely essential that immediate attention be given to the people of this village."
Battle replied on June 5 that the Indian affairs branch had allocated $7,500 for repairs to houses and village facilities damaged by the tidal wave.
He reported that BC Indian Commissioner J. V. Boys and other officials had visited Hot Springs Cove on April 1 and authorised emergency welfare assistance and repairs to homes. BOYS REPORTS
On the same day, Boys wrote Nichol:
"Immediately following the tidal wave last Easter weekend, I personally flew to Hot Springs Cove with an engineer of my department and there met with the council of the Hesquiat band.
"They stated that all members of the band had unanimously agreed that they did not wish to return to Hot Springs Cove permanently, but would seek another village site on higher ground somewhere along the west coast of Vancouver Island.
"Meanwhile, they asked to have the remaining houses shored up and made fit for habitation
just for the summer months while the menfolk were away fishing.
"A work party was sent in and these emergency repairs were effected to the satisfaction of the local Indians. Also they received food, clothing, blankets and other essentials, in addition to sundry contributions received from generous people up and down the west coast.
"Meanwhile, the band council has been seeking an alternative site and last week they, together with a senior engineer from my staff and the superintendent from Port Alberni, visited a site on Muchalat Arm.
"We are presently negotiating with the Tahsis Company to acquire this site for the Indians, if possible."
NEW SITE SOUGHT
The problem of finding a new village site, however, is more complicated than the correspondence would indicate.
Everyone is agreed on the need for a new site. The villagers only moved to Hot Springs Cove some eight years ago because their old site at Hesquiat, once a thriving community, offered their fishing boats no shelter from winter storms. But Hot Springs Cove is too low and wet, and now the people have reason to fear the location.
Battle proposes a site "strategically located within commuting distance of a good employment centre," but there are few such sites on the west coast.
As Chief Benedict Andrews explained to Paulik last month, discussing a possible site at Gold River, "The people here are all fishermen. This is a fishing village. If we move to Gold River, we will still fish." COMPANY BARGAINS
The site the people want is at Jacklah River on Muchalat Inlet. It is well protected and offers good shelter to boats. But the land, once the site of a logging camp, is owned by the Tahsis Company.
The Company might lease the land to the Hesquiat Band, which would then be denied the substantial government assistance it needs in reestablishing itself. The Indian affairs branch is not allowed to develop leased land.
The Company is prepared to sell the land to the Hesquiat band—but only if it can acquire a site at Gold River it wants for a pulp mill. It will sell the Jacklah River site if it can buy the Gold River site, or it will trade one site for the other.
The snag that is holding up negotiations is that the Gold River site is owned by the Noot-ka band, which is placed in the unhappy position of having to part with valuable land or deny fellow Natives.
In the meantime, the Hot Springs Cove people are still seeking a new home in their own land.
NEW US LAW WATCHED
Japan Sees Need To Revise Traditional Fishing Policy
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Fear that Japan may become isolated in international fisheries in inclining some government circles to the view that Japan should revise its traditional insistence upon freedom of fishing on the high seas and participate actively in international treaties.
This is reported by Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japanese trade journal, on May 21 and 22.
Japan's present policy, the journal points out, has been brought sharply into question by a new US law.
Bill S 1988, introduced in the US Senate by Senator E. L. Bart-lett of Alaska and approved in amended form by the House on May 4, prohibits any foreign vessel from fishing in the territorial waters of the US and its possessions "or from taking any natural resources of the continental shelf which pertains to the US unless permitted by international agreement."
The law conforms to the continental shelf convention, endorsed by 63 of the 85 countries represented at the 1958 Law of the Sea Conference at Geneva and since ratified by the US, Britain and 20 other countries. It was to come into effect on June 10 this year. SECOND OF FOUR
Speaking in the US Senate on May 12, Senator Bartlett said:
"The International Convention on the Continental Shelf was one of four conventions adopted in 1958 at the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.
"The Convention on the High Seas has been ratified by the required number of nations, including the United States, and became effective last summer.
"The Convention on the Continental Shelf will be the second of the four conventions to come into force.
"This will leave the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas to be favorably acted upon later . . .
"In essence, the continental shelf convention provides that each coastal nation has exclusive
rights to the resources of the continental shelf extending beyond the limits of its territorial waters. APPROVED BY 63 NATIONS
"The continental shelf convention was endorsed by 63 of the 85 nations present and voting at the 1958 conference. This number is well in excess of the two thirds vote required for the convention's acceptance. - "The overwhelmingly favorable vote demonstrated the consensus among nations that tHe convention's terms are acknowledged international law.
"The 22 countries that have ratified the convention are: United States, Byelorussia, Colombia, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Haiti, Israel, Poland, Portugal, Ukraine, Soviet Union, Venezuela, Denmark, Australia, South Africa, Cambodia, Malaysia, Senegal, Rumania, Malagasy Republic, Bulgaria and United Kingdom.
"The convention, in part, confirms unilateral action taken by our country under the Truman proclamation on the continental .shelf in 1946 and the Submerged Lands Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1954. CONVENTION PROVISIONS
"These acts give to the federal government, with certain exceptions, all rights over the mineral resources on the continental shelf.
"These acts, at the same time, confirm state jurisdiction over the regulation of fishing resources.
"The continental shelf convention provides as follows:
" 'The coastal state exercises over the continental shelf sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring it and exploiting its natural resources . . .
" 'The natural resources referred to in these articles consist of the mineral and other non-living resources of the seabed and subsoil, together with living organisms belonging to sedentary species, that is to say, organisms which at the harvestable stage either are immobile on or under the seabed or are unable to move except in constant physical contact with the seabed or subsoil
JAPANESE FEARS
The Japanese government and fishing interests have been watching Bill S 1988 closely, fearing that its passage might lead to Japanese king crab fishermen being shut out of Bering Sea.
These fears were allayed by President Lyndon Johnson's statement, in signing the bill into law, that full consideration would be given to Japan's long established king crab fishery in Bristol Bay.
One effect of the new law, says Nihon Keizai Shimbun, has been to strengthen opinion within the Japanese government "that Japan should revise her basic policy on fishing on the high seas and should actively participate in international treaties, and thereby seek greater recognition of her vested fishing rights."
AMILOCK
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THE FISHERMAN - June 19, 1964