With help from friends and relatives, a Ladner family is one of the last people keeping an element of Ladner’s once thriving fishing industry alive.
John Stevens says he learned the art of smoking salmon from his father when he was a teenager. Since then, he has carried on the tradition for 55 years. Each year he and his brother Bruce take a trip to Johnstone Strait to fish for Chum salmon in the first opening of the fall. This year’s take for the Stevens’ was approximately 150 fish.
In an interview with the Optimist, Stevens described how his family have been smoking fish for the last half century. After being caught, the salmon are frozen until the fishing season is over. Each fish is then fillited, deboned, buried in dry salt overnight, and then hung up in the smokehouse. Over the next four to five days the sides of salmon are imbued with smoke from chunks of alder or maple.
The final product that comes out of his smokehouse on River Road is either given away or sold to family and friends via word of mouth.
Stevens described Ladner’s fishing heyday as a busy time, the waterfront from Ladner to Westham Island dotted with fisherman's floats, workshops and smokehouses.
“The fishing season opened a lot earlier and closed a lot later and there were more fishing days at one time when the runs were stronger,” Stevens said. “The fishermen were able to make a living from fishing too. It was a struggle over the years to organize and create a union so we could get fair fish prices.”
To Stevens’ knowledge, his is the last family to fish and smoke their own fish in Ladner – a fact he holds as a bittersweet sentiment.
“It's gratifying, but it's also sad to see that way of life disappearing,” Stevens said. “I love fishing and I get a lot of satisfaction out of producing something like smoked salmon that everybody really enjoys.”
Seeing the decline of the industry and the loss of its history prompted Stevens to create and become president of the Delta Fishing Heritage society.
