Page Four
THE FISHERMAN
May 15, 1945
(Mistral
By
| FREQ | OLSEN
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rpHE week of May 2 to May 10 ■*■ was spent between the Gulf Islands and Nanaimo. No meeting was held during my stay at the Gulf Islands since one is scheduled for May 15 at which the various candidates of this riding for the Federal elections are invited to speak.
However, I contacted a number of the members and local problems were discussed. It was stimulating to find that the boys in this area are active and enthusiastic union boosters. They expressed concern over the prospects of the fishing industry in the past war period and were unanimous in the feeling that whatever problems arise will be best dealt with by strong union organization.
Nanaimo Meet
It is significant that from each local contacted to date comes the same report—serious and unprecedented depletion of the Gulf fisheries.
At a lively meeting in Nanaimo held on May 8 (one is always assured of a lively time when the Nanaimo boys get together), the members expressed their indignation over the situation in a resolution which suggested that the biological station be closed down, on the grounds that it is a useless and expensive appendage.
While the resolution became the subject of numerous, mirthful wisecracks, it was an expression of the feeling that while scientific investigation of the morals of the fish family iright be an entertaining pastine, it serves no useful -purpose if action is not forthcoming when emergencies develop.
The annual election of officers was also held at this meeting. Ted Plensky was chosen for the office of president while Chick Ward, who expressed his intention of resigning, will carry on -with the duties of secretary until a successor is chosen.
Rival Organizer
May 8 proved a gala day for fishermen's meetings in Nanaimo. Beside the union meeting, a Co-op rally was held in the afternoon and in the evening we found a rival organizer in the field in the person of Lin Brown, from the UBC Extension Department. At her meeting, which included the showing of a moving picture on credit unions, we union devotees received an object lesson in the art of organizing. Before the meeting closed, the initial step for a fishermen's credit union was established and off to a flying start with a thousand dollars in sight for the people's bank. The U.F.A.' W.U. would be well advised to make a bid for Lin's services for the season and our 1945 organizational problem would be solved.
Dogfish: A Changed Fish
THE DOGFISH (or Grayfish). Scientific family, "Squalidae."
TpORMERLY regarded by the fishermen of both Canadian coasts as nothing better than a nuisance, dogfish have taken on substantial value in British Columbia in comparatively recent years, first as raw material for some of the plants manufacturing fish meal and industrial fish oil and, more lately, because their liver was found to have high Vitamin A potency.
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In 1943, for instance, the marketed value of British Columbia's dogfish products was over $2,100,-000, with vitamin liver oil accounting for more than $2,000,000 of the total amount. It happens, however, that through one of nature's quirks the liver of the Atlantic dogfish has much lower vitamin content than the Pacific liver and there has been little profit incentive to use it as a source of vitamin oil.
For that matter, though in this case not because of any differences in the make-up of the dogfish of the two coasts but because of other conditions, the production of dogfish meal and industrial oil on the Atlantic coast is also small-scale, as compared with British Columbia operations.
T>OTH the Pacific and Atlantic dogfish belong to the shark group, their scientific family name Squalidae, and both produce their young alive, but the two are different species. The common Atlantic species, or Picked Dogfish, is known by scientific people as Squalus Acanthias its Pacific cousin as Squalus sucklii. Popularly, the western fish is sometimes called the California Dogfish. In addition to S. acanthias two other species of dogfish are sometimes found on Canada's Atlantic fishing banks but not much is heard of either of them.
Neither the Pacific nor Atlantic dogfish grow to large size. Save perhaps in exceptional cases the maximum length is, say, three feet or three and a half but, on the average, the fish run between two and three feet. Individuals weighing as much, as 15 pounds may occasionally be taken, but half that weight would be much nearer the average, probably somewhat above the average. Picked Dogfish are slender in form, with two dorsal or back fins, each of these fins carrying a sharp spine in front; there is no anal fin. The fish are slate-colored above, or perhaps brownish, and on the under side the coloring is white or grayish. When young the fish are marked along the sides with small white spots, which usually disappear or fade with time. The Pacific dogfish are similar to the eastern species in structure, though their fin spires are placed lower. The body coloring is gray, with the fins edged in black. White spots are present
on the back of the young fish.
WHERE FOUND:
■plCKED Dogfish occur along practically all parts of the Dominion's Atlantic coast. For that matter, one authority spoke of them as "found everywhere on the coast of North America, from the Delaware to Davis Strait. Across the ocean they are common off the British Isles and in other European areas. The California Dogfish range from the Aleutian Islands to California.
METHODS OF FISHING:
Such Atlantic dogfish as are landed by Canadian fishermen are taken only incidentally in other fishing operations. Indeed, on the Dominion's Atlantic coast the dogfish are still considered by the fishermen chiefly as pests since they
Heavy Fines For Black Marketina
From Pouce Coupe in the Peace River Block to Sydney, Australia, is about 7,000 miles.
Pouce Coupe has a peacetime population of about 600, while Sydney is a metropolis of 1,300,000.
By a coincidence, judges at these widely separated points had almost identical comments to make on black market operations or people who violate wartime regulations.
In the Australian city Mr. Justice Markell, in confirming, on appeal, some stiff fines on violations of price ceilings, made this comment:
"Penalties have to be severe for people who traffic in this way and make profits. The only way to check such a practice is to make it unprofitable for them."
In Pouce Coupe, Judge Eric D. Woodburn of the County Court, fined a trucking firm $1,000 and $75.00 costs for constructing two buildings without a permit. Judge Woodburn's comment was this:
"Some of this Dominion's lower courts do not realize the seriousness of the situation and treat these offences absurdly lightly. As a consequence black markets flourish, rentals and ration regulations are beaten and ignored and the laws flouted."
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are destructive of gear set for other fish and because, travelling in large schools, they prey greedily upon these others and interfere with fishing. In British Columbia, on the other hand, there is an important established fishery based on the dogfish resources and its annual catch may run to as much as 10 million pounds or more. Part of the catch is taken by hook-and-line fishing—using a long line, with many hooks, similar to that used in the Pacific halibut fishery —and part by means of sunken gill-nets. The dollar return from the catch compensates for the trouble the dogfish cause in some other British Columbia fisheries.
PROCESSING METHODS:
OGFISH are edible fish—indeed, in Britain they are much used in shops selling fish-and-chips, though they are then usually spoken of as "flakefish"—but in North America they are not marketed for human food. Until the liver secret of the Pacific species was discovered, the only two uses made of dogfish in Canada were in the manufacture of fish meal and industrial oil, and production of this kind still goes on, mainly in British Columbia. Broadly, the manufacturing process consists in cooking the flesh, squeezing out the oil from the cooked mass by means of a pressure apparatus of one kind or another, and drying and grinding the solid residue as meal. The big dogfish business nowadays, however, is in the, Pacific livers and the extraction from them of the oil rich in Vitamin A. In 1943, for example, British Columbia's fishermen landed nearly 4,570,000 pounds of dogfish livers and were paid for them close to $1,108,000. Vitamin oil produced in the province from dogfish livers totalled almost 3,-510,000 pounds. MARKETS:
Part of the dogfish meal output goes' into use in Canada, part to the United States. Similarly, the industrial oil is marketed on this continent but a good deal of the wartime output of the vitamin oil has been supplied to the United Kingdom.—Fisheries Bulletin.
LISTEN to...
NIGEL MORGAN
INDEPENDENT LABOR CANDIDATE
FOR COMOX-ALBERNI
ELECTION TALKS
CJOR 6:45 p.m.
600 On Your Dial
Wednesday, May 16th MRS. EDNA BROWN, President, B.C. District of Ladies Auxiliaries (IWA-CIO). "WOMEN AND THE POSTWAR."
Wednesday, May 23rd GEORGE MILLER, President, United Fishermen & Allied Workers Union of B.C. (AFL). "LABOR'S CANDIDATE — NIGEL MORGAN"
Wednesday, May 30th MARK SWAN, Pioneer Vancouver Island Farmer. "LABOR AND THE FARMER."
Wednesday, June-6th NIGEL MORGAN, Independent Labor Candidate. "LABOR IN GOVERNMENT."
VOTE FOR PEACE, PROSPERITY, SECURITY
Elect NIGEL MORGAN On June 11th
Inserted by: Independent Labor Election Committee
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The Airplane Manoeuvres Incident
When officials arrived at a Pacific Coast airfield to witness private demonstration flights of new planes, they found the roads blocked with the cars of civilian sightseers. There had been no public announcement of the eoent.
How did they know?
Someone had talked out of turn. He may have been a loyal and patriotic citizen with no harmful intentions whatsoever. The majority of those who saw the "secret" manoeuvres may have been conscientious war workers. But enemy agents may have been there also. They are everywhere.
WATCH EVERY WORD YOU SAY I The war in the Pacific is far from won. Movements of men and materials, planes and ships must be withheld from the enemy. If you know anything, keep it to yourself I
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