Photo by Brady Rogers on Unsplash
Over several months in 2023, I worked with Spring Creative Marketing in Nelson, British Columbia to creatively communicate a local conservation tactic that is being used to bring a thriving population of kokanee salmon back to Kootenay Lake.
The program encourages visiting and resident anglers to get on the water and participate in a fisheries conservation program aimed at re-establishing the predator-prey balance in the main body of Kootenay Lake.
Kokanee salmon have been a key part of the Kootenay Lake food chain for roughly 9500 years, when Bonnington Falls formed and created a migration barrier, cutting their sockeye ancestors off from the Columbia River and, ultimately, the Pacific Ocean.
These salmon were once a strong staple for local Sinixt Peoples, and after catching them using river weirs, wicker baskets, spears or twisted-bark fish lines, they would cook the fish up fresh and smoke or dry them for the long and brutal winters ahead.
For decades, a prolific kokanee population fed large and record-setting Gerrard Rainbow Trout and Bull Trout, allowing the region to support a world-renowned sport fishery.
But for a host of reasons, some known, some not, kokanee numbers have dropped dramatically and recent studies show that about 95 percent of kokanee fry don’t survive a year, largely thanks to their voracious lake predators.
By targeting and decreasing the abundance of these two trout species, the hope is that this program, kokanee fishing closures, and other recovery actions will restore the kokanee to historic levels and may once again become a significant food source for eagles, ospreys, and grizzly bears, and a kokanee sport fishery could reopen.
Over a span of 9 months, I wrote a series of 3 stories to be released periodically throughout the length of the program: at the launch, in the middle and after the program wrapped up.
The articles were published on the program’s webpage, social media accounts, and in regional print and online publications.
Working with Fern Sabo at Spring Creative was an easy and collaborative process that involved communicating initially over video, then over email and on a chat platform.
Fern worked with the program contacts directly (Angler’s Atlas and the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resources) and would rely any updates, event dates, or fisheries science intel to me and I had creative license to go from there.
I would usually spend a full day researching and writing each article, then send it to her which she would make minor edits to and pass onto her clients for review.
Within a few weeks the article would be approved and Fern and I would work together to send it to regional publications.
I learned a lot about the history of Kokanee Salmon while writing these articles and felt grateful that I could bring a storytelling and historical lens to this work.
If the Kootenay Lake Angler Incentive Events happen again, I look forward to creating new and interesting content for it.
