Browsing “Fishing”

“Did anyone see the flying fish floating over False Creek today? Can’t tell where they were coming from. The insides were painted red. From a distance they looked like fish swimming in the air. Closer they looked like soap bubbles. I caught one and as soon as I touched it it dissipated. The red colouring was then all over my hands. They were amazing. No idea how they were molded and from where they were launched.”

That was a status update I saw on a friend’s Facebook wall on the day of the Pacific Salmon Foundation‘s biennial Pink Salmon Festival a few days back. HERE‘s a leadup post I did about the festival and the importance of the pink salmon as a sustainable food source, and HERE‘s a video of what the heck’s going on with those floating pieces of fish-shaped foam you might have spotted (or caught) all the way on the East Side. I heard some of them made it past Main Street that day and if you don’t want to watch the video on how they’re made I’ll break it down real simple: eco-friendly, helium-filled, coloured bubble shapes made by some crazy patented machine called a Flogo maker. It was so rad to see pink salmon love spread far and wide over the city that day, beyond all of the booths and free food and fun contained at the festival in Hadden Park.

Pink salmon Flogo

I headed down to check out the festival with V.I.A.’s youngest blogger, Arlo, who quickly made his way to the Stream Of Dreams booth to colour himself a magnet to put on the fridge.

Stream Of Dreams is the organization that’s responsible for all of those fish that you see swimming in schools on the fences of schools around the city. They go in and do …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

This Sunday, August 28th, the Pacific Salmon Foundation will be holding it’s second annual Pink Salmon Festival, serving up free salmon for everyone who visits Hadden Park from noon until 5PM. Not only will the salmon be free (donated by Canfisco), but it’ll be prepared by renowned Vancouver chef, Robert Clark, of C Restaurant. HERE is the piece that I shared a month ago about the glorious Pink Salmon, celebrating the return of this sustainable fish stock that was there all along!

What does this have to do with the Vancouver Is Awesome Inc office and artwork, you ask? Well, while I was working on that piece I linked to above I inquired to our new friends at the PSF about their gift shop that I used to frequent on my visits to the Capilano River Hatchery (1, 2, 3, 4 blog posts as proof!). The gift shop closed down a few months back and the only things that remain are these cardboard cutouts of salmon, hanging in the window of the potentially-forever-closed store, taunting me. When it was open they hung from the ceiling and behind the cash register, and on more than one occasion I had asked the people working there if they’d be able to sell me one. Of course, as they were essentially pieces of the store itself and not products for sale, the answer was always no.

Cut to the chase, I asked the Pacific Salmon Foundation folks what the chances were that I could have one of these cutouts to hang in the room at the V.I.A. office that I lovingly refer to as The Library but in reality is more like our small meeting room where we keep our book collection. They replied with …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

If you were anywhere near the Fraser River this past Saturday or Sunday then you’ll likely have noticed hordes of fishermen throwing lines in the water from the banks or racing to get their boats off of the back of their trailers. Why? Because a surprise three day opportunity came up for BC fishermen and many scrambled their way down to participate. I only stumbled upon it myself because I was camping out on Harrison Lake and when I crossed back over the river on my way back to the city I had to stop to see what the heck was going on with all of these people fishing the river. On the way out on Friday the banks were free of humans, but on Sunday it was practically shoulder-to-shoulder.

Fishermen flock to the Fraser River near Agassiz, BC on Sunday August 14, 2011

Last year we brought you the ongoing STORY of the record breaking 2010 sockeye salmon run, the biggest one to happen in 100 years with a jaw-dropping almost 35 million of these fish making their way up the Fraser River! We even travelled all the way up the Adams River to share with you THIS FEATURE about their final destination.

This year the numbers of returning salmon are expectedly lower, somewhere between 1 and 7 million sockeye are expected to make their way up the Fraser to spawn, meaning that sportfishermen will likely only be given one small window by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to catch some. They’ve given 3 days to fish the Fraser, and the first day was Saturday, meaning if you’re a fisherman and you didn’t hear about it until right now then I imagine you’ll be taking the afternoon off to try and find a spot on the Mighty Fraser to reel one in!

Fishermen on the Fraser River near …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Remember last year when we brought you THIS story about the record number of sockeye salmon that had returned to the Fraser river and what a huge deal that was considering not long before records had been broken for the low numbers returning? While the mystery of the salmon may never be completely unraveled there is one organization in BC that has been putting together the pieces of the conservation puzzle for this species with passion for the past 22 years. The Pacific Salmon Foundation (whose logo was FEATURED today on the Canadian Design Resource) does important work in achieving healthy, sustainable and naturally diverse Pacific salmon stocks, and a part of their work involves raising awareness.

Exactly one month from today on Sunday, August 28th, 2011, the Foundation is putting on their second annual Pink Salmon Festival, serving up free salmon for everyone who visits from noon until 5PM. It happens at Hadden Park, 1905 Ogden Avenue (at Cypress) the home of the Vancouver Maritime Museum (you know, beside the MOV!). And not only will the salmon be free (donated by Canfisco), but it’ll be prepared by renowned Vancouver chef, Robert Clark, of C Restaurant.

Why all the hullabaloo about pink salmon, you ask? Well, as you’ll remember from last year, the sockeye salmon get a lot of attention. Along with spring salmon they’re widely regarded as superior in terms of quality, but that common conception might all be about to change. Folks like Garret Schack, Executive Chef at the Chateux Victoria Hotel, are adding pink salmon to their menu, being quoted saying things like “Their flavour profile ranks right up there with sockeye or spring salmon”.

Basic description of the pink salmon, courtesy PSF

Of course this is great news for human and salmon-kind alike as in terms of sustainability the pink salmon are the most abundant and the most sustainable. They themselves will be returning in record numbers to the Fraser river this year (17.5 million strong! Take that, sockeye!) and their species has been long undervalued as a food source in BC.

When asked about the pink salmon and why they’re undervalued, Dr. Brian Riddell, president & CEO of the Foundation, says that “Pink salmon have historically been considered a ‘commercial’ fish and usually a canned product of lower grade than sockeye salmon. Commercially, pink salmon have only been the least valuable per pound, but they are much more important than implied by historical use. Pink salmon are the most important Pacific salmon to BC’s coastal ecosystems, they are highly abundant, and have excellent food value for people. Pink salmon have a lower oil content than other salmon due to their smaller size but nutritionally the content is still excellent and they have very low contaminants due to their feeding lower in the marine food chain and maturing at only two years of age.”

Still not convinced? Dr. Riddell goes on to say that “Pink salmon are also likely to be more resilient to climate change than other Pacific salmon. Pink salmon mostly use main channels of rivers for spawning and leave freshwater immediately after emergence from the gravel nests. Changes to temperatures and flows are likely to be damaging to pinks for this reason.”

I personally have never eaten fresh pink samon but you know where I’ll be on August 28th. I’ve also been told that Safeway, Save On Foods and IGA will all be carrying fresh pinks by early August, so give them a try on your own or come out to the Pink Salmon Festival to celebrate the return of this sustainable fish stock that was there all along!

Photo from the first biennial Pink Salmon Festival, courtesy PSF
…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

This past Sunday the nice folks at Sewell’s Marina hosted us for the afternoon. If you’re not familiar, it’s a family owned and operated institution of Vancouver that operates right next to the ferry terminal in Horseshoe Bay. Currently a fourth generation of Sewell’s are managing it and just last month the marina celebrated it’s 80th anniversary!

Sewell’s offers guided eco tours and fishing charters but one of their most popular services they offer is the rental of speedboats, for sightseeing or fishing adventures. We took one out for a few hours up Howe Sound and to say that it quickly got me hooked on exploring the coast by boat would be an understatement: I WANT MORE!

You don’t need a license to take out one of their boats (okay, you need a valid driver’s license but not a boater’s license) you basically just show up and after a quick orientation and safety check you’re out on the water, where you slowly make your way past the ferries and into the Sound.

You’re free to go wherever you want within a pretty broad area of the Sound and they provide you with a list (which you can view HERE) of a bunch of different landmarks and locations to check out. For me one of the best things about being out there was just seeing the area as a whole from a different angle. Also, the feeling of being out on the water is worlds apart from what you might be used to in the city, but it’s just right there. So accessible.

One of the things on the list that we checked out was an old Canadian Forces destroyer called the HMCS Annapolis which is parked just off of Gambier Island and is being prepared to be sunk by the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia. You can get right up to it, but I figured I’d give you this …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

A couple of years back we took home the Georgia Straight’s BEST OF award for “Best Navel Gazing Web Site“, and while our non-profit organization that supports our web site (Vancouver Is Awesome, Inc) is focused on celebrating all of the awesome things that make up our city one of those things is it’s proximity to other awesome places. In Super, Neighbours in British Columbia we take you on adventures to other B.C. locales that we think you should check out. ********** In this current series of posts we’re taking you on an adventure to Sonora Resort, a Relais & Châteaux property up in Desolation Sound. In the FIRST post I showed you what it’s like to fly there with their sister company, London Air Services, by helicopter. In the SECOND I showed you our room. In the THIRD, some of the activities outside our room. In my FOURTH post I took you to the trout pond and the fish hatchery, then in the FIFTH I took you on an ocean adventure where I ended up catching an 11.5 pound salmon and SIXTH an eco tour and some of the natural beauty of the area. Today I’m sharing something that is incredibly special that’s included in the price of your accommodations when you stay at Sonora Resort: some of the best gourmet food you will ever eat. Period.

The first night we decided that instead of ordering dinner from the regular menu we’d leave it in the hands of Chef Terry Pichor and go with his 5 course Chef’s Tasting Menu. If we wouldn’t have done this I think it might have been the single worst decision I would have made all year; the meal was absolutely incredible. The view from the dining room wasn’t too shabby either…

Chef Pichor is trained in classic French cuisine. Under him, the Sonora kitchen “continues its tradition of sourcing the finest local ingredients and transforming them into a culinary celebration of this spectacular region”. So of course our meal started with dungeness crab salad. I’m not going to say much about the individual courses and will let these photos do the talking.

Next up was Quebec foie gras.

Followed by braised Mt Lehman rabbit cannelloni. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

A couple of years back we took home the Georgia Straight’s BEST OF award for “Best Navel Gazing Web Site“, and while our non-profit organization that supports our web site (Vancouver Is Awesome, Inc) is focused on celebrating all of the awesome things that make up our city one of those things is it’s proximity to other awesome places. In Super, Neighbours in British Columbia we take you on adventures to other B.C. locales that we think you should check out. ********** In this current series of posts we’re taking you on an adventure to Sonora Resort, a Relais & Châteaux property up in Desolation Sound. In the FIRST post I showed you what it’s like to fly there with their sister company, London Air Services, by helicopter. In the SECOND I showed you our room. In the THIRD, some of the activities outside our room. In my FOURTH post I took you to the trout pond and the fish hatchery and in my FIFTH I took you on an ocean adventure where I ended up catching an 11.5 pound salmon! As promised, this post isn’t about killing anything to eat, it’s about an amazing eco tour we went on with Aaron Nagler, the author of the book, Natural Wonders of Sonora Resort, which you can read an excerpt from HERE.

This is the boat we were taken out on for a couple of hours (if you’ve been paying attention you’ll remember that this is actually the view of it from our room). Don’t be fooled by it’s puffy appearance, this thing seriously hauls. We covered so many kilometres of ocean and saw so much stuff it was incredible. The entire time, Aaron was talking to us through headsets that we wore, telling us about everything we were seeing.

Here’s some of the wildlife that we came across. It was super cool to be taken on a tour by the guy who quite literally wrote the book about the natural wonders of the area… but I will be honest and say that some of the stuff I liked the most wasn’t the wildlife!

And it wasn’t the waterfalls or the scenery either, although both were awe inspiring!

What I found the most interesting on our eco tour were the …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

As a part of the centennial celebrations for B.C. Parks, last month it was ANNOUNCED that parking is now free in all of our provincial parks. Always your faithful servant, I sacrificed most of my Sunday to go out and report on this for you. Which is to say, I went fishing at Alouette Lake yesterday in Golden Ears Park near Maple Ridge.

I went fishing with local musician, Rob Butterfield, whom you might remember from our MISADVENTURE at Brohm Lake last year, our LAST TRIP to Alouette Lake or the 5 part Jones Lake ADVENTURE I shared with you. He and I are fishing buddies and he’ll be making frequent appearances in blog posts over the next few months as the season ramps up.

So, the first thing we noticed when we got out of the car were the three ghosts of parking fees past: one sign post that used to have a sign on it telling us what the parking fees were flanked by two square metal poles that used to support machines that would gobble up loonies and toonies in exchange for parking passes. I’m not sure how long these are going to stay up but right now they serve as a reminder that parking is free. Let’s hope they’re not just keeping them there so it’ll be easy for the next incoming party/leader to re-implement the fees on us.

Aside from parking there are countless other things that are free in the park. Here are 3 of them that we took advantage of during our visit:

1. Views of float planes and trees and mountains and just generally some sweet nature.

2. Trails. Lots of them. And some of them are …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>