La Sonrisa to join Alexandra Morton

drying firewood

La Sonrisa spent the winter keeping warm, visiting family and friends, foraging and eating from winter gardens.
Now it's time to take the sail covers off and start sailing north.
But the first thing we're going to do as we head north is join Alexandra Morton's walk for the wild salmon. PLEASE take a look at the website for the "Get Out" Migration and Alex's walk from Sointula (April 22) to Victoria (May 8/9). And see what you might do be of support.

http://www.salmonaresacred.org

We plan to join Alex's walk for the wild salmon on April 27. We will meet the flotilla coming through the "Wild Salmon Narrows" arriving at Heriot Bay, and then walk to the Quadra Community Centre at 7 pm. We hope to pick up people at the Whaletown dock on Cortes Island around midday and head up to Surge Narrows to accompany the flotilla down to to Heriot Bay. If anyone is interested in coming aboard call us on the boat at 604 341-1586.

Elizabeth hopes to join Alex on Gabriola Island on May 4. We'll meet the 5:55 ferry and continue to Agi Hall for a presentation at 7pm. The next morning Alex will meet with students at the elementary school, and at 9:45am begin a walk in the village area. The walk continues at Silva Bay at 11:00am and launches a flotilla of boats on to Ladysmith between 12 and 1pm.

This walk is part of an ongoing journey for us. We have been learning from Alexandra Morton for years. We met her through Billy Proctor, a fisherman we've come to see as coastal elder.
Alex wrote the first book we read about Billy, and was his neighbour in Echo Bay. We cherish our life on the BC coast. And so much of our knowledge and respect has come from fishers.

Son Cosmo working on salmon seiner "Tzoonie River" with skipper Billy Griffith

Billy Proctor's troller, Ocean Dawn

Salmon are the lifeblood of the coast, food for so many of us coastal neighbours.

Black bear fishing, salmon jumping in Verny Falls

Salmon on the fire. The cedars, too, are nourished by salmon.

Sailboat trolling takes part in the abundance of this coast.

Salmon are sacred.

The "Get Out" Migration arrives in Victoria on May 8. Let's hope there are so many people gathered that the message can't be missed! A good friend of La Sonrisa, singer-songwriter Linnea Good will be part of the celebration in Sidney, Friday May 7, and walk with Alex to Victoria on Saturday, May 8.

Linnea Good and David Jonssen on La Sonrisa

Linnea and son Isaac - a sailboat picnic without salmon

Linnea will join the people walking to Victoria for the Sidney celebration on Friday, May 7, 7:30 pm at the Bodine Hall in the Mary Winspear Centre. For info contact Wally du Temple, email: esperanto@shaw.ca tel:250 812-0925

Then, Saturday morning, join Linnea, Alex and those who believe in the future of wild salmon for the final leg of the walk to Victoria, May 8!

For more information, here is one of Alex's updates:

Alexandra Morton

Weekly update March 28

Our migration down the length of Vancouver Island from April 23 – May 9 to give people the opportunity to tell Ottawa wild salmon are essential is building. People have contacted me to plan events in communities far beyond those that we are passing through. Hundreds have said they will walk portion of the trip with us and have signed the new petition at www.salmonaresacred.org

Unless every person who cares about wild salmon stands up and becomes visible to Ottawa this will not succeed in bringing reason to this situation. You can download posters on the website. This is not about getting rid of aquaculture, this is about bringing three runaway Norwegian companies into compliance with the laws every other fishery in Canada respects.

Salmon farms were exempted from the fishing regulations of Canada in 1993 and these Norwegian companies are lobbying our Members of Parliament to continue these exemptions when they become federally regulated in December. If they succeed we can give up, they will once again be outside the law.

We cannot possibly manage Canada’s wild fish sustainably, if one group is allowed unlimited by-catch of wild herring, wild salmon, rock cod, black cod and other species in their nets. We cannot have one set of rules that says no fishing with bright lights and then allow fish farms on every major migration route to use these lights, attracting millions of wild fish to their farms. Scientists studying sockeye don’t know what is causing our Fraser sockeye to inexplicably crash, even when cutting back fishing to near zero has not helped. Only the south coast sockeye that migrate past 60 salmon farm sites vanished. These Norwegian fish farmers cannot be allowed to keep their disease outbreaks on the Fraser migration route secret any longer. Highly mechanized fish farms will never replace the wild salmon jobs in fishing and tourism, nor can they feed us as wild salmon do.

The tide is turning because of all of you. We will support the small communities we live in to build land-based aquaculture. Small independent businesses are much more stable than large foreign operators that come and go based on world markets. – please read the good news below and thank you. http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

And here is info from article in the Times Colonist

Fish-Farm Foe To Walk The Talk

Biologist Alexandra Morton aims to raise opposition to open-net pens

Article by Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist, March 19, 2010

One of the most ferocious opponents of salmon farms in areas used by migrating wild fish is hoping to mobilize support by walking from Sointula to Victoria.

Biologist Alexandra Morton, who has fought for years against open-net salmon pens in the Broughton Archipelago, is planning to start the walk on Earth Day, April 22, and

finish on Mother's Day, May 9. Along the route, Morton plans to speak to interested groups and collect signatures on a petition asking the federal government to use the Fisheries Act to protect wild fish.

"We cannot match the corporate fish-farm PR machine, nor their lobbying power. So I am simply inviting people to make themselves visible by joining us on foot, electronically and by mail," she said.

Morton, who was told yesterday she will receive an honorary degree from Simon Fraser University for her work linking sea-lice infestation in wild salmon to fish farming, says she has evidence sea lice at fish farms are becoming drug-resistant.

Morton is also increasingly worried that viruses, which have wiped out salmon farms in other countries, will be imported to Canada and spread to wild fish.

http://www.salmonaresacred.org