Giving thanks for wild salmon: Alexandra Morton’s tour of the Fraser watershed heads South

Oct 12th, 2010 6:11 AM

Media Release Giving thanks for wild salmon: Alexandra Morton’s tour of the Fraser watershed heads South (Horsefly River, B.C., October 12, 2010) To celebrate Thanksgiving, Salmon Are Sacred is touring the Fraser watersheds for a blessing to the salmon. The Salmon Are Sacred tour reached the Horsefly River on Saturday, October 10th, following a visit to Takla Landing hosted by Takla Lake First Nation on Friday, the most northern spawning ground headwaters. Yesterday (11th), Salmon Are Sacred visited Quesnel Lake and the Mitchell River with Ecotours-BC to view the salmon bears of B.C.’s interior rainforest. Today (12th), the Mission for Wild Salmon visits the UNBC Quesnel River Research Centre and then travels to Vernon for an evening event hosted by the Kalamalka Fly Fishers. The tour rounds off with events in Lumby (13th), Enderby (14th), Shuswap Lake (15th), Lillooet (18th) and Hope (19th) before embarking from Hope on a five-day paddle down the Fraser River to Vancouver (20th to 25th October). Dr. Alexandra Morton, who recently launched the Wild Salmon People to create a voting block, observed, “B.C. is blessed this year with a miraculous run of wild salmon and I hope all will acknowledge this 2010 legendary sockeye run. Not all the Fraser sockeye runs were as big as the Adams and we must not forget the upper reaches of the Fraser watershed where wild salmon remain endangered and many streams are extinct of salmon. Without people like Sharolise Baker, Clara Jack, Kirby Johnnie, Margo French and the legion of other champions standing guard for Fraser Lake, Stuart Lake and Takla Lake we would not be so blessed. We have the Cohen Commission investigating our Fraser sockeye, but unless the Wild Salmon People support Justice Cohen as much as possible we will never learn how much disease Fraser sockeye are exposed to after they leave the river and run the gauntlet of Norwegian salmon feedlots.” Anissa Reed of Ocean Aura, who is travelling with her 9-year daughter Freyja, said, “Travelling the Fraser watershed and meeting the people who protect wild salmon - people who are really standing guard over these areas where the salmon come to die – opens our eyes to how First Nations treat these spawning grounds as sacred for the next ones to begin life. The Wild Salmon People have honoured us and our journey to share this message with you, with feasts and song, with moosehide moccasins, with hugs and thanks, places to sleep and gifts of money to carry on. For that I give thanks. I give thanks to the salmon and to everyone who is taking action to protect our sacred headwaters.” Earlier this week, Alexandra Morton visited Fraser Lake and Stuart Lake where she met with representatives of the Stellat’en, Nadleh Whut’en, Nakazdli and Tl’azt’en First Nations. The Fraser River tour includes meetings with First Nations and other communities, visits to sockeye spawning grounds, walks and paddles. The Fraser River tour is a prelude to the Paddle for Wild Salmon which leaves Hope on October 20th. In May, thousands massed on the lawn of the Legislature in Victoria for a rally at the end of a 500 km ‘Get Out Migration’ down Vancouver Island. Following the Paddle for Wild Salmon the Wild Salmon People will gather in Vancouver for a flotilla, march and rally on 25th October – bringing the message that we want ‘Justice for Wild Salmon’ to the opening of the Cohen Commission. Follow the journey at Alexandra’s blog: http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/ For more details of ‘The Paddle for Wild Salmon’ please visit: http://www.salmonaresacred.org/paddle-wild-salmon For more details on the Wild Salmon People please visit: www.wildsalmonpeople.ca For more information, contact: Alexandra Morton: 250 974 7086 Don Staniford: 250 230 1172 Anissa Reed: 250 228 2872