Of all his worries about the state of wild salmon, provincially and nationally, my late father (2002), a B.C. commercial salmon fisherman for a good half-century, seemed to be worried most about fish farming and permanent damage to B.C.’s wild salmon.
Indeed, he’d be whirling in his urn if he could still observe what our governments are doing – and much more frightening, going to do – to seriously damage salmon habitat to a point way beyond what Dad thought would ever be done.
So many early mornings, I’d briefly get up for a washroom break and see the light breaking underneath his bedroom door and into the hallway’s darkness, with my father on the other side slowly typewriting missives to various politicians.
I must have proofread almost a couple hundred letters of his over the years, just on this topic alone.
Although I’d assure him that the politicians do not have the time to personally respond to each concerned writer, they almost certainly had hired staff to read the missives and use a “template” letter response system, with a specific template ready to respond to every potential issue.
All they’d likely do is type in the letter-writer’s name and address and print it out to mail back.
Nonetheless, my father typed on about what were to him the greatest fish-habitat concerns of the day.
Oh, the irony.
Frank G. Sterle, Jr., White Rock