Page 4
THE FISHERMAN
September 2, 1960
THE FISHERMAN
Published every Friday except the last Friday of each month by The Fisherman Publishing Society, 158 East Cordova Street, GEORGE NORTH, Editor Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone: MU. 3-9655 Authorised as Second-Class Mail by Post Office Department, Ottawa
Peace Overshadows All Election Issues
a MID all the clamor of this election campaign, the one issue ^» on which least is being said is the most decisive of all —peace.
A record number of candidates representing five political parties are offering themselves for election. Their plans, promises, charges and counter-charges fill the hustings. But how many of them have a clear policy on this dominant issue of our times? And how many of them are committed to US dictated cold war policies which fill the world with the threat of war?
We are concerned with growing unemployment. An estimated 100,000 people in this province have no jobs. More than 50,000 of them are on social assistance. The fishing industry, in particular, is hard hit. This economic blight is the direct consequence of cold war policies which restrict our trade with the socialist countries and prevent us from developing our great natural market in China. Our international trade is distorted to serve the cold war aims of US ruling circles and their counterparts in our own country. And the money which might otherwise be spent on developing trade with all countries and creating jobs at home is squandered on armaments.
All the plans and promises for health and education programs, for roads and schools, have real meaning only in an atmosphere of peace. The insatiable demands of the cold war for arms and still more arms reaches deeply into every government treasury, just as they reach into the pockets of every citizen. In one day, the federal government spends on war purposes more than the amount required to establish the coast guard on the Pacific Coast demanded by every fisherman.
In this election we are also concerned with the question of labor unity and the defeat of such anti-labor legislation as Bill 43. The hoped for development of a united movement embracing every section of labor which could have ensured election of a people's government at Victoria has not come about. Indeed, some of those who have bitterly opposed such unity of the labor movement are themselves candidates in this election. To the extent however, that they oppose unity, they weaken their own candidacy and prevent the united mobilisation of labor's forces to achieve the people's interests.
That is why we say peace is the overshadowing issue, the issue most profoundly touching the lives of all of us, the issue which decides all other issues. By their stand on it, or their failure to take a stand on it, candidates stand judged.
You Have the Floor
Licences of $200 Urged To Develop Salmon Runs
Senator Smoe
Ywe've got to
HELP THE.
farmer/
Editor, The Fisherman:
Once again the perennial problem of scarcity of salmon, aggravated by the ever increasing influx of holiday fishermen, is plaguing the salmon industry. As in the past, everyone is grumbling but, except for a few like my friends "Winjo" and George Collins in the northern area, very few are doing anything about it.
I recall resolutions as far back as 1950 that were sent to our senior government requesting action on these problems by conducting an inquiry into every aspect of the fishing industry on this coast. As have many and various other requests since then, they have fallen on deaf ears.
We can do one of the two things: just sit back and grumble and let George do it for us, or get up on our hind legs and work towards electing a government that will represent not only big business but will have a sympathetic ear towards what we have to propose. This will not be an easy job, judging by the money that is being poured into this election by our present Bennett turncoat government, aided by the BC Federation of Trade and Industry.
After having met every member of the present government during the past several years, I can truthfully say that not one member of the Bennett government impressed me as having any sympathy for the working man of this province! So what can we, the workers in the fishing industry, expect from an arrogant anti-labor group like that led by one W. A. C. Bennett who has been jumping like a Mexican bean from one party to another every time he saw an opportunity for his own personal benefit.
But regarless of Bennett's boast about the great wealth of this province, we workers know only too well that the real wealth of this province and Canada for that matter is the worker who produces it, and as George Collins says, "There's more of us."
We have the power of the vote to put Bennett and company out on their ear, but only if every one of us gets out and talks it up and make sure that our next door neighbors are acquainted with all the issues at stake in this election. So don't wait until September 12, get out and do your share now to elect the only party whose candidates are one of us and know our problems and that is the CCF.
Having done that, solving our other problems would be comparatively easy.
First of all, we should get thf salmon licence fee raised to $200. this money to be matched dollar for dollar by the federal government, and put into a special fund specifically earmarked for building up spawning grounds and clearing the approaches to them. And since it is money contributed by the fishermen, they should be given priority to register for off season work.
The $200 licence fee would certainly discourage many holiday
fishermen while at the same time it would give fishermen an opportunity to get off-season work which would also benefit the industry by increasing the salmon runs.
It is common knowledge, and substantiated by the department of fisheries field men, that there are enough potential spawning areas to make every year the size of Adams River run.
With the food committee of the United Nations exploring every means to increase food production to feed the one third of trie world's population who go to bed hungry, it seems like a very short-sighted view taken by our government when they refuse to develop our fisheries resources to its fullest. But it seems that our present government, like the R. B. Bennett government of 1935, prefers to give these people bullets rather than food. But that is another story whicn I will cover after they have abolished capital punishment.
In the meantime, let's work to elect a government whereby we would be able to work cooperatively on such programs as I have outlined above which would benefit not only our industry but the world as a whole.
N. A. SPILCHEN
Ladner, B.C.
Keep Out of Basin
Editor, The Fisherman:
We have noted recently that there is an increasing number of gillnetters using our ferry basin at Tsawwassen as an anchorage. With impending winter weather conditions, it may be necessary for us from time to time to turn our vessels in the basin and if small craft are within the confines of the basin, this could not only seriously endanger our ships but also theirs.
We are, therefore, requesting cooperation of all small craft in keeping entirely clear of the basin itself. We believe that these boats can find adequate shelter by anchoring to the lee side of the breakwaters, outside of the basin.
We are wondering if we could have your cooperation by having you make note of this matter in your regular publication.
M. F. ALDOUS, General Manager, British Columbia Toll Authority Ferry System
Ernest, Not Emil
Editor, The Fisherman:
I came across a slight error in the reprint of a speech made by Mr. Emil Mazey to the American Friends Service Committee which you published on page 2 of your August 12 issue.
You mention that he is now touring the Soviet Union as head of a trade union delegation. That is not the case. It is his brother, Ernest Mazey who was part of that delegation.
READER
Toronto, Ont
Report from Rupert
Far Fields Always Look Greener, But Are They?
THERE'S been quite a ruckus over the pamphlets extolling the Social Credit government's highway and bridge building program handed out by toll collectors on the new Second Narrows Bridge during the brief "cross now, pay later" period.
From a press release we received recently, on provincial government stationery in a provincial government envelope, this business of having the taxpayers foot the bill for Social Credit propaganda appears to be a general practice.
The release in question was a statement made by health minister Eric Martin at a Social Credit nominating convention at Lillooel on August 12. It contained no news beyond the fact that Martin had made a speech at a party rally declaring Social Credit support, as the party in office, for "the principle of a medical care program." It was purely and simply a Social Credit statement of policy.
Mimeographed and mailed at Social Credit expense it would have occasioned no comment. But it cost the provincial treasury, through the department of health services and hospital insurance, five cents for every release sent to an extensive mailing list.
One reason for the federal government's reluctance to do anything about unemployment, it would appear, is that to accept the right of every citizen to a job would be a Communist policy.
We culled this gem from the debate on the Bill of Rights as recorded in Hansard of August 2, 1960 (page 7428):
Hazen Argue (CCF, Assiniboia): ... I can appreciate that this government, like the R. B. Bennett government, is in office during a period of widespread unemployment and is doing nothing about it. I do not expect that this government is going to do anything about the widespread unemployment in Canada, much less declare within a Bill of Rights that people should have such an opportunity (the right to employment) —
J. F. Browne IPC, Vancouver-Kingsway): Those are the kind of rights they have under Communist governments.
A subscription to Hansard is a political education in itself.
★ ★ ★
One fisherman who feels that the rules of the road should be enforced against pleasure craft for their own safety is Ole Vea of the troller Karmsund.
As he related it to us this week, he had cleared the Yuculta Rapids and was heading up to Shoal Bay in the early morning hours of August 11. With the Karmsund on the iron mike, he was sitting in the cabin reading the report of the Unimak tragedy in The Fisherman when he heard an engine. At first he thought it was a plane. Then he looked out and saw two girls in an outboard coming up from behind at a good clip. Just as they drew abreast they swerved the boat and cut sharply across his bow. "It's a miracle they weren't drowned," he 'told us.
* ★ *
We've been talking to a number of trollers this week and they claim they are now scratching to get four or five fish a day. So several of the larger trollers arc going out on tuna.
★ * ★
The new ice plant at Campbell Avenue fish wharf, replacing the old plant torn down last year, is now in operation. It has a capacity of 100 tons a day, with service available 24 hours a day and seven days a week, which should be adequate for a good sized fleet.
* ★ ★
Art Senft gave us a call the other day to tell us about his workshop at 2250 Springer Avenue, Burnaby, where he turns out crab traps to order for any size boat.
An experienced crab fisherman himself, Art is a skilled trap maker, He fished four seasons around the Queen Charlottes on the Miss Babs and Tow Hill and contracted for crab trap produc-
tion in the area and at Port Edward. The Amber 3, he told us with justifiable pride, carries over 400 traps he made.
★ ★ ★
Nolan Lowe of Kanata Marine Ways, we're glad to report, is around and about again after suffering a slight stroke and being confined for a few days in Pender Harbor Hospital. However, he has been advised by his doctor to take it easy for a spell.
★ ★ ★
We've got a number of pictures and items of interest as a result of our trip upcoast but since we returned just at presstime, we'll hold them over to next issue and afterward. There are a few, however, we will report on now. Paddy Henry of Kingcome Inlet, whose death we reported last month, drowned while fishing in Rivers Inlet on July 28, according to the best information we can get. The story we have is that he slipped overboard during the night and the boat was found drifting in the morning by Ted (Lighthouse) Anderson, ABC collector. Henry leaves his wife and nine children.
★ * *
We realise this is late and that it has been reported in part elsewhere already but possibly some readers missed the story of the tragic death of the two oldest sons of Pat and Hattie Squash of Bella Bella. The two young children suffocated in the family fridge which had been moved to Namu but wasn't hooked up. A baby sitter who was also caring for the children of two other families did not miss the children nor did their mother when s'ie came home for supper. Mrs. Squash went back on shift without noticing anything was wrong. It was not until later in the evening that she made her shocking discovery. Efforts to revive the youngsters failed. Hattie Squash works at Namu and husband Pat, 33, is seining on the Jessie Island 6. They live at Bella Bella and have two other children.
Cecil and Myer Barton of
Humpback Bay, Porcher Island, lost their possessions in a fire that destroyed their home this week. Neighboring families were not affected by the blaze other than through smoke damage to their homes and belongings. None of the Barton family, fortunately, was injured. The Prince Rupert section of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union is planning assistance to the fire victims and Canadian Fishing Company, which owns the property, is checking the insurance coverage.
Pete Jensen, skipper and owner of the halibut vessel White Hope, is seriously ill in St. Paul's Hospital following a heart attack two weeks ago. The North Vancouver fisherman, widely known in the BC fishing industry, is not permitted to have visitors.
Roy Van Dusen is getting around the waterfront again and has a number of items for this week's column. He met Leo Carter who arrived in town this week with his new troller Escapade. Leo had 3,500 pounds of coho which fetched 55 cents per pound.
Oliver Peterson, troller Lor-Dell 2, was in from Sointula with a small salmon trip.
Jackie Bland of Winter Harbor, troller Loretta B, was in with 1,200 pounds if mixed troll cohos and springs. Jackie says this will be his last troll trip before switching over to trawling.
Among trollers arriving in Vancouver this week, averaging some 2,000 pounds, were the Runo, Northern Ocean, Tula Girl, Tequilla, Fisher Boy. Ocean Troller, Ocean Sunrise, Cascade, Hungry One, Pacific King, Lana, Shar-Bon, Atomic 2, Arbutus 1, Aleutian, Linda Ann, Industro. * * *
Van also reports meeting Chris Moan, troller Manhattan I, who
was in with a small salmon trip. Chris tells us he is switching over to seining.
By GEORGE COLLINS
THIS correspondent may be absent from his usual home fort for a spell being a fisherman who is unable to do much harm to the fish this year and hoping that "green pastures" may be following the "blue goose."
I've travelled the coast many times, starting with a "one-lunger" in the forties and later with speedier motors to make a faster trip. This time though, I have no motor on my craft. I've de cided to test the hospitality o f boat men working the coast and see if hitchhiking with a tow-line is possible —destination to mean that the Fraser will have one more mouth to feed.
My boat this year, because of force of circumstances, is something not too expensive to handle being merely a seine skiff with an old "rag" for a net. I had hopes that this was merely a pool year and that this outfit of mine would nevertheless help me make a fast buck. But it turned out that the run was almost nothing so I find myself once more doomed to disappointment.
★ ★ *
I decided during the week's closure on the Skeena that I have nothing to lose by going elsewhere as I had nothing anyway So now I'm racing away with this pen to get this attempt of mine ready for the mail box located at Butedale.
I wish to carry on this column (till readers decide otherwise), so I am completing this in good time because of a rumor that mail service is somewhat wanting for promptness.
Another good reason for the trip is that without this craft of mine I'd be on the list of unemployed which appears to be increasing these days in numbers. In that case, time with me as well as with others in like plight is something I have plenty of. It's becoming quite problematic about scaring up a job in my home fort
on the Skeena, the place of my birth, so why not hitch-hike on the tow-line, thereby staying with the times?
Along with me is my son of 10 years who lost a mother eight and a half years gone by. Somewhere on the way perhaps a school awaits. The eighth so far for him. now going on to his fifth grade in school—so many schools because of a father like a rolling stone hoping to find moss and seeing others staying in one place but strange to say no mos-s on those stones.
Which brings to us the lesson that our rewards will only come when all together we decide to pool our strength to secure for ourselves a decent living rather than a mere existence and help to develop this vast country of ours with all its potentialities. ★ ★ Ik-All along this coast can be seen ghost sites of canneries once there, remnants of the days when the industry was in the advancement stage. But the cannery operators have since combined their forces to the detriment of the workers and they actually are the only ones guilty under the Combines Act.
I hear of a cannery on the Alaska Panhandle run by people on my mother's side and still in existence—something like half a century, which gives some indication that owners from the "grass - roots" would not deny themselves a job merely for the sake of increasing profits.
The coast in itself is usually pleasant to cruise along during the season when the salmon do make their appearance. And the people you meet here and there are as ready with their hospitality as I have been pleased to experience it on a number of trips. Most of them work hard for their needs and therefore appreciate the difficulties of others. So they will lend a hand if need be, even though this is not considered as "good business ethics" in some circles.
Although I may not be at the usual place, the people all appear to be alike, having to undergo much the same treatment and having similar opponents to contend with.
Winjo Writes
Two Needles Weeks-Top
WHILE traveling around the coast a fisherman does not find the time to get a haircut. When he finds the time, the chances are there is no barber, so there are two things he can do—either get a fiddle or buy a dog licence. This is the situation I found myself in when I reached Rivers Inlet.
I did manage to find a man willing to shear my unruly locks. The next thing was to find a pair of clippers, and this I did. Pete Demosten of the Highway 99 lent me the clippers and the big job was done.
Well, sir, I made the mistake of taking off my hat and showing off my haircut to the gang at the net racks without first sizing up the haircut in a mirror. For the rest of the week I got needled but good.
A lot of uncomplimentary remarks were made about the method used to cut my hair. One fellow said that I must have kept my cap on. Another asked me what kind of a pot did I use.
When it got so that I refused to show my haircut to someone who had not seen it, the fellows would surround me and very nicely ask me to take my cap off. This I would do—I had no choice because some of those fellows were pretty big—and then I had to put up with their barbs and their needling until it was time to go fishing.
★ * ★
While fishing out at Table Island, I had the misfortune of being bitten by a turbot. This happened on a Tuesday night and by Thursday morning I was in the hospital at Alert Bay.
By then another kind of needling started, administered by a nurse by the name of Ann. There again I had no choice. When Ann came around and told me to turn
in Two and Bottom
over, well I turned over. So all in two weeks I got two types of needling, the verbal needle and the medical needle.
One thing I will say, the treatment I received at the hospital was very good, and I for one am thankful there is a hospital at Alert Bay. No doubt a lot of people have expressed these same sentiments, and well they should for the doctors and nurses are very efficient.
My sincere thanks to Dr. Pickup and all the nurses who took such good care of me while I was gettinp over a bad case of fish poisoning.
★ ★ ★
This story was told to me. It happened in Johnstone Strait. A fisherman had his net out for salmon and a black fish got tangled up in it. Not wanting to damage his net too much, he decided to pick the net up to the black fish and tow net, fish and all to Growler Cove.
A.S he was towing slowly to the cove he happened to look back and saw a whole school of black fish following him and his tow to Growler Cove. When he got inside the cove the school of black fish were right behind him.
They hung around all night. It might have been that the black fish stayed to make sure that one of their family was going to follow the old school when he was untangled from the net.
But such was not the case, the black fish in the net was dead. Around four in the morning the school moved out of the cove.
What amazed me about this episode was that the black fish did not create any trouble, because they are known to be dangerous (besides being called blackfish they are also known as the killer whale).
FIRST PELICAN: "THAT'S A
fine looking fish you have there."
Second pelican: "Yes, it sure
fills the bill."
* * *
THE BEST THING .FOR A cold shoulder is still mink.
'You Can Always Sue'
When Premier W. A. C. Bennett spoke at Vincent Massey High School in New Westminster this week he was asked this question through the chairman by UFAWU organiser Mike Canic:
"We have heard Premier Bennett state how quickly he would act to stop illegal strikes or lockouts. His government has made it perfectly clear how it would act if any Union went on strike in the middle of a contract. Why have he and his government failed to take action in the illegal lockout by the herring fishing companies since December 16, 1959?"
Premier Bennett's answer was that if it was an illegal lockout, "you can always sue the companies for damages."
Labor minister Lyle Wicks refused to answer Canic's second question: "Why has the minister of labor refused even to attend a meeting to hear the problems of the 1,500 unemployed fishermen locked out by their employers?"