Standing Room Only at the Whitehorse Fish Ladder Appreciation Night

August 15, 2007 at 11:48 am

Not good at all. The red line is where stocks are this year, the black line is where they were at last year.

I wish there were as many fish as their were people at the Whitehorse Fish Ladder last night. As we know, the Yukon River Salmon stocks are way, way down. The good news is that Yukoners love their salmon and the Fish Ladder. It was a packed house, with balloons, cake, door prizes, Lawrence’s great talks, and of course those beat-up beauties…the salmon.

It was standing room only at the Fish Ladder

It does feel like we are all part of a big salmon family as Yukoners. We know that First Nations, commercial fisherman and rural communities like Carmacks and Pelly all depend and care for the salmon, but I am proud to say that there are a whole bunch of urban yuppies (like me) from Whitehorse that love these fish as well. I would not say that I depend on them, like many others in Yukon, but I certainly respect and should do my part to protect them as well. My part also includes fishing them when I can. I think you show a resource respect when you value it and harvest it when appropriate. It is clearly not appropriate for me to do so now as the numbers are crazy low and DFO is keeping a good eye on them. I did stop off at Tatchun Creek on a work trip to Mayo last week (not to fish), a tear almost came to my eye when a couple of Chinook rose right in front of me.

I also enjoy all the kids arts at the Fish Ladder as well. If you poke around enough, you can see how much time and energy kids, staff, the YFGA and Yukon Energy have put into that place. Its been stated that it is our most popular tourist attraction.

The star of the show!!!

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