From Fish Wars to Broken Bones, Broken Boats and Salvation

Marike and Elisabeth on Quoddy's Run by the North Sawyer Glacier, Tracy Arm, Alaska

Dear Friends and family,

Fasten your seatbelt.  We've taken some wild rides this year--everything from rough political fights to legal threats and broken bones, our first experiences taking our own boat into icy waters alongside glaciers in Alaska, and then, this autumn, some painful falls.  All's well that has ended well, however--we hope, as we slide on snow covered roads in Quebec into the last days of the year.

We began 2013 in the midst of the "salmon wars." We'd learned in February 2012 that Snow Island Salmon, then a subsidiary of Scottish multinational fish farmer, Loch Duart, had applied for three 18-hectare open pen salmon farms on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, one in the bay adjacent to ours.  Virtually overnight, we were engaged in a mass citizen uprising on the shore, a battle that became more acute as both federal and provincial governments strongly backed this polluting form of aquaculture and heavily subsidized its operations, very much against the wishes of the citizens on the shore, and to the detriment of other local industries like our wild catch fisheries and tourism. Marike served as Vice-President and then President of APES (Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore), the local organization formed to combat the fish farms, and Karin served as a press liaison; we never dreamed we'd ever know or talk so much about salmon life cycles and diseases or sea lice, the differences between and effects of farmed Atlantic salmon on the five varieties of wild Pacific salmon, what goes into fish feed, the effects of fish feces on lobster larvae and the ocean floor, how ocean currents carry and distribute sediments along the Eastern Shore, the effects of storms, cold water and ice on open pen finfish aquaculture, and other unsavory details. The battle escalated in 2013, culminating with petitions in which +93% of the citizens in the affected bays banned open pen farms in their waters, and, when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency approved the sale of farmed fish infected with infectious salmon anemia in grocery stores, APES began a campaign in metro Halifax targeted at consumers.

APES billboard, Halifax (photo by Kristy Depper)

Finally, all of those petitions, signs, bus boards and billboards, contacts with government agencies and meetings with politicians, media interviews, marches, fund raisers and art projects, video documentaries, postcard campaigns, discussions at the fish counters of every grocery store anyone could find, letters to the editor, scientific information sessions--and the freezing temperatures we endured last winter that seem to have frozen to death nearly all of the fish in the only operational open pen fish farm on the shore--paid off: the provincial government decided not to authorize installation of pens in Shoal Bay. In other words, we'd won--one of the very few (the only?) jurisdiction(s) in the country to do so.

Spry Bay Bans Open Pen Fish Farms

Meanwhile, battles at Karin's university, Canada's oldest dedicated arts school, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) raged on, with Karin in the thick of it as a spokesperson for the Friends of NSCAD and one of two faculty representatives on the committee to find a new president for the university--pretty much a hopeless task so long as the sitting government of the day, Darrell Dexter's NDP, seemed in love with the latest bureaucratic fad, MOOCs (massive open online courses--not sure how you teach studio courses that way or mentor anyone), and determined to force draconian cuts and merge the art school into another university (who needs art anyway, right? Hold on a minute, isn't that one of the few sustainable industries in Nova Scotia, alongside lobster fishing?) Some days she was giving media interviews on NSCAD in the morning, and salmon wars in the afternoon, a feat of hat-switching that caused some confusion among her interviewers and no little laughter.

By spring, both our bays and NSCAD seemed in better shape, Karin was back to writing poetry, and the provincial NDP was busy doing some pre-election backpedaling.  Relieved, we were glad to quit Nova Scotia politics and head west, to the warmth and spring flowers of Vancouver Island, where we launched our boat, Quoddy's Run. As always, it was hard to say goodbye to our sweet aging black lab, Bathsheba, and our faithful Dante cat, but we knew they would be in the excellent care of our neighbours, Paulette Gammon and John Zervoudis.

Elisabeth consulting a chart of Alaskan waters

The plan was to meet up with our Oregon-based boating buddies on Blue Pteron, Paul Seamons and Dee Vadnais, in Desolation Sound in early June. Until then, Marike and Karin would do repairs, provision, buy the necessary charts and guidebooks, visit with friends in the Gulf Islands and Vancouver, and wait for Elisabeth to arrive.  All was going swimmingly--the launch went without a hitch; we'd seen many old friends and made a few new friends, survived the last dregs of the sputtering NSCAD presidential search and spring colds and were getting back to writing and painting and photographing and voyage planning, when thump, a legal notice landed in Marike's inbox. Snow Island Salmon claimed that Marike had made nearly a dozen defamatory, injurious or libelous comments about them and their operations, and if she did not apologize immediately, she and hers were going to be very sorry. Panic! Welcome to the world of the SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation); we knew this was an effort to target and intimidate Marike as the key spokesperson for APES, and, since the reporting of fish deaths on fish farms is not required by provincial or federal law, to make certain citizen presentations of the facts disappear.

After many consultations--and the brilliant good advice of our friend John Roston in Vancouver--we developed a strategy for handling the legal threat that involved (thank you John!) a mix of humour, an insistence upon strict facts, and a refusal of the language of harm. Best of all? We didn't have to hire a lawyer! (but we did take John and Karin Biggs for splendid sushi dinner at the end of the summer--much more fun for all.) It took a few weeks for the matter to be settled, however, during which time we nearly lost our minds.

Rebecca Spit, Quadra Island

Minds half gone then, we picked up Elisabeth and headed north to Quadra Island, where we were to meet up with Paul and Dee.  We anchored off of Rebecca Spit and set out for a walk--whereupon Elisabeth, just getting used to new glasses with progressive lenses, tripped on a flat path, fell, and broke her right wrist. No xray machine on Quadra, so she and Karin raced to the ferry and crossed to Campbell River, where she was fixed up in the emergency room. Six weeks in a cast: we would be in Alaska when it was supposed to come off...But it was safer for Elisabeth to be on the boat than at home, where she couldn't drive or cook or fend for herself for a time.

Elisabeth helming in her cast

By the time we got to Sointula, where we met with our west coast friends, the original salmon warriors, Alex Morton and co., Snow Island and its lawyer had agreed to drop the suit in exchange for a simple apology for any discomfort caused by our claim in the press that all, as opposed to the vast majority, of their fish had died. Whew! Time for a big celebration, and then we pressed on, northward, arriving in Alaska on July 1, Canada Day.

Karin and Marike in the shadow of the Punchbowl, Rudyerd Bay, Misty Fiords National Monument, Alaska

The trip was hard, gorgeous, wild--and once we got to Alaska, crowded with cruise ships--and intensive salmon fishing. Unlike BC, Alaska has outlawed fish farms, and its wild salmon are everywhere! We saw glaciers, grizzlies, whales, bald eagles, golden eagles and sea lions, Dahl's porpoises, herring, halibut and salmon salmon salmon. Elisabeth's arm healed, and Marike cut off the cast with wire cutters while we were anchored off of Meyers Chuck, Alaska.  Things were looking up--and then, on our way home, back down through the rapids north of Desolation Sound, we heard from Paulette: our dog, Bathsheba had died. A bloody tumour had ruptured in her lungs overnight, and she'd had to be put down. We hadn't been there for her; we hadn't made it home in time. Poor Shebie! Poor Paulette! We felt just terrible, and we still had to bring the boat back to port safely on Vancouver Island, which we did. Then Elisabeth headed home, Karin and Marike put the boat to bed, and flew home--in time for Karin to start teaching her fall term...and prepare her tenure dossier. She'll hear in March how all of the reviews have gone.

Bathsheba

When we returned home, the house had never seemed to so empty...Our lone cat, Dante worked hard at keeping watch, even took up begging, in a vain effort to fill the giant hole left by the dogs and cats who have gone before her...(Just what is in those Whiskas anyway? Crack?)

Dante

The autumn was full, as autumns are, of renovations, house painting, yard work, wood stacking, and elections....The NDP, which had been our unexpected nemesis, was out; the Liberals in. We'll see how that goes--we're feeling a bit jaded about the whole political process, think painting and poetry might be a smarter use of our time...Marike has resigned as President of APES, and Karin swears she'll have a poetry manuscript together by spring. But by far the thing that has occupied us the most has been the unexpected disaster with the boat: a jack stand crumpled beneath her during a wind storm at the end of September, and all 40,000 pounds of Quoddy came crashing down on the ground. The mast broke in three places, the hull was a bit dinged up, and some of the bulkheads "came adrift," as they say.

The fallen vessel

Karin even wrote a eulogy for the boat on her blog, which inspired Blair Fraser and his wife Sharon, graduates of NSCAD and owners of another PK 44', to assess the damage and decide they could repair the boat. So, in fact, Quoddy's Run will live again, and stronger than ever before. Thanks be to artists, and beauty and poetry and a profound dedication to keeping what is good working in the world.

Quoddy's Run under sail in Jervis Inlet, BC (2012)

Peace and blessings to all this holiday season, and wishes for a very happy (and different!) New Year!

Yours,

Karin, Marike, and Elisabeth

PS. Stay tuned to our sailing blog, West by East, for postings about our Alaska adventures and updates about Quoddy's repairs.