North America - Northwest Coast. Fishing Industry

The fishing industry of the Northwest Coast has followed many of the patterns of growth and decline of the timber industry, but these two resource industries have come into conflict with each other in recent years as logging in the interior degrades spawning habitat for a decreasing supply of salmon.

From the barrels of salted salmon shipped out by the Hudson's Bay Company, the fishing industry turned to canning operations, beginning on the lower Columbia River in 1866. By 1883 more than fifty canneries operated in the lower Columbia River system, and many more operated in the Puget Sound area. The industry expanded to the lower Fraser River by 1870 and farther north to the Skeena River delta by 1877. Native American and Chinese immigrants provided the labor for many of the canneries, but beginning in 1903 mechanization began to reduce the need for labor.

Like the timber industry, the salmon canning industry suffered from cutthroat competition and unsustainable harvests. High profits by the original operators created a series of new canneries, leading to periods of overproduction for the industry. Fishing operations often laid nets across the mouths of rivers to harvest all the fish swimming upstream, allowing few to spawn. Fish wheels on the Columbia River scooped salmon directly out of the river to canneries. State conservation measures as early as 1877 in Washington reflected growing concerns for the survival of salmon stocks, but the measures were not fully enforced.

The salmon population in the region declined steeply during the twentieth century. Improved technology in harvesting, including open ocean trawlers in the North Pacific, took their toll, along with hydroelectric projects in the interior, which cut off much of the salmon spawning habitat. The heavily dammed Columbia River system was once the most productive salmon river in the world, but that distinction went to the undammed Fraser River after dams took their toll on the Columbia's fish runs beginning in the 1930s.

In the 1990s salmon stocks on the Fraser began to decline as well. As salmon numbers declined, tensions arose between interest groups involved in the industry. Many of the strongest tensions have arisen between U.S. and Canadian fishers. Canadian fishers claim that foreign vessels in the Gulf of Alaska intercept much of the salmon returning to British Columbia streams. Spawning habitat for salmon remains far more healthy and productive in British Columbia than it does in the United States.

A 1937 treaty between the United States and Canada failed to resolve these tensions. In response to both lingering cross-border resentments and diminishing supplies of salmon, the two nations agreed to the Pacific Salmon Treaty in 1985, which sought to promote conservation and well as production. Implementation of the treaty continues to be a difficult process as all sides compete for a valuable and limited resource.

Disagreements also arose in both countries over the rights of Native American and First Nations fishers to harvest salmon and other fish species. Canadian and U.S. regulatory agencies have restricted or occasionally eliminated fishing seasons to promote conservation. The Canadian government has employed a program to buy out some of the salmon fishing fleet as a way to reduce pressure on the salmon runs.

As native stocks decline, hatcheries have failed to fully replicate the genetic strengths of native fish. Aquaculture systems along the British Columbia coast raise Atlantic salmon in pens for sale, but escaped schools of these normative fish raise grave fears of an additional threat to native fisheries. Both timber and fishing are heavily consolidated fractions of their once- dominant roles in the region's economy. High technology, aerospace, and tourism have all far surpassed resource extraction industries in regional economic importance.

The Northwest Coast of North America continues to take its identity from the lush resources of the region, but for the sake of biodiversity and recreation, the local public increasingly favors preservation rather than extraction of those resources. Efforts at conservation and preservation grew correspondingly with the increasing impact of resource extraction. An increasing demand for recreational opportunities arose from the growing urban populations of the region beginning in the late nineteenth century.

National parks were created at Crater Lake in Oregon in 1897 and Mount Rainier in Washington in 1899. Most of these preserved areas represented high elevation regions, where valuable economic resources were less abundant; their existence usually did not challenge the dominance of natural resource industries such as timber harvesting. Washington’s Olympic National Park, established in 1947, did raise strong opposition from the regional timber industry, because it contained valuable temperate rain forests within its protective borders.

As the industry moved into higher elevations in search of further supplies of raw materials, conflicts with recreational and preservation interests increased after World War II. In Oregon and Washington states, this conflict corresponded with a dramatic rise in logging on public forest lands from the 1940s to the 1980s. A regional wilderness preservation movement arose beginning in the 1950s as a way to protect some old growth forests of the Northwest Coast from industrial logging.

In British Columbia, these debates centered on the forests of the coastal islands, such as the Queen Charlotte Islands in the 1970s, and they often were led by First Nations groups. Other environmental concerns focused on limiting the damage of dams on river systems throughout the region. Salmon and forests, the two dominant symbols of the Northwest Coast, have both been a source of tremendous wealth for resource industries and a rallying cry for environmental protection.

The result of these movements has been to heighten awareness and appreciation in the region of natural resources and biodiversity. They have also protected significant portions of the landscape. Roughly 9 percent of the state of Washington is protected as wilderness under United States law, as of 2003, and the provincial government of British Columbia set a goal in 1992 to preserve 12 percent of the province under the Protected Areas Strategy.

Although the region is often celebrated for its scenery and wild landscapes, enormous environmental challenges continue to face the Northwest Coast. Continued logging and mining, dwindling salmon runs, and urban sprawl make this a battleground for high profile environmental debates well into the future.