The Herring School: Long-term Perspectives on Herring in the Salish Sea and Beyond

• Main Authors: McKechnie, Iain, Lepofsky, Dana
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Western CEDAR 2014
• Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology; Pacific; First Nations
• Online Access: https://cedar.wwu.edu/ssec/2014ssec/Day3/141

For many Indigenous peoples, the right and ability to fish is inseparably linked to their history, social relations, economy, and physical well-being. In the western North America, and in the Salish Sea, specifically, Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi) plays a foundational role in coastal food webs and is a cultural keystone species of First Nations. However, beginning in the late 19th cen, herring has severely declined throughout much of its North Pacific range, thus threatening both the cultural and ecological systems that rely on this once abundant fish. In this presentation, we describe the efforts of the "Herring School" a multi-disciplinary and multi-community effort that blends western scientific, local, and traditional knowledge to understand the cultural, social, ecological, legal, and economic contexts of herring in British Columbia. In particular, we focus on the oral historical and archaeological evidence of the Salish Sea, which indicates that for millennia herring have been central to economic and social systems of Salish communities.