From the Archipelago: Mother's Day Blessing

June-July 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Alexandra Morton

Alex organized a blessing for wild salmon on Mother’s Day.

From the beaches of the Broughton Archipelago to the shores of California and beyond, many people laid their hands upon the ocean and streams wherever they were on Mother’s Day, May 8, at noon Pacific time, to offer the pink salmon a blessing and to pray for their safe migration to sea and home again.

Here, the morning of May 8th dawned in perfect shades of soft blues and calm water, the Broughton’s most beautiful face. People began to arrive in boats of all sizes and shapes from the nearby communities of Sointula, Alert Bay and Port McNeill. Children and dogs splashed gaily about waiting for the ceremony to begin. Then the elders arrived from Alert Bay via the Naiad Explorer.

“We call on the spirits to look after these salmon,” said Chief Henry Scow of Kwicksutaineuk Ah Kwa Mish. “Wild salmon are a part of our culture, our community and our diet. If they are gone, a part of us dies with them.”

After a greeting by chiefs Bill Cramner of the Namgis and Chief Henry Scow, over 100 people knelt on the white shell beach of the ancient midden and laid 200 hands lightly upon the water. Our silent blessing flowed forth. People also laid hands on the Skeena, Kispiox, Bulkley and Kootenay Rivers in BC, the Suwannee River in Florida, the Atlantic Ocean off Bermuda, the Pacific Ocean off California, Vancouver Island, Echo Bay and Malcolm Island.

200 hands laid lightly on the water.

Claudia Maas, who runs the local hatchery near Echo Bay, released 20 of the last surviving Viner River chum salmon, remnant of a once strong salmon run. The young fish schooled briefly beneath an eagle feather that had been laid on the water and then streamed out to sea. Songs and drumming began and tears flowed freely.

A recent study done on a salmon farm in the Broughton Archipelago found that lice produced by the fish farm was up to 30,000 times higher than natural sea lice production in the wild. Science from Europe shows that it takes only one lice to kill a juvenile fish. In 2002, pink salmon stocks experienced a 99% collapse, which has been attributed to the sea lice from the salmon farms.

The salmon farms are killing our wild salmon. We have asked government and the salmon farming industry to help us but they have abandoned the wild fish and done nothing. I have published this tragedy in scientific journals, but government inaction has shown that the science isn’t going to be enough.

We have been unable as yet to end the cycles of sea lice epidemics, but at the blessing we elevated the young salmon from abused to sacred, and we thanked them for their generosity to us.

These fish are a gift we will not be given again. We must do everything we can to save them. Scientific arguments haven’t done it, so we are resorting to prayer—a power not be underestimated.

Please do what you can to help us save the salmon. Thank you.

© Alexandra Morton, R.P.Bio., is a marine mammal researcher and author. www.raincoastresearch.org.