Iceland’s fishing methods for Nunavut?

The controversy continues about Nunavut’s fish quotas – who should have access to them and how can the Inuit of Nunavut become the main beneficiaries and how should the fishery be conducted.

We understand that the Baffin Fisheries Coalition (BFC) is now considering purchasing a large factory-freezer trawler to catch Nunavut quotas of turbot. I would like to humbly put forward for consideration an alternative to a factory-freezer trawler.

Perhaps the investment in a factory-freezer trawler is just not worth the gamble for the return on the investment and the few (20-30) low paying jobs it will create. The cost of the vessel, as we understand BFC is considering purchasing, is about $12 million. Such a vessel would have to fish successfully year-round to be profitable. Where are the year-round quotas in Nunavut waters (areas 0A and 0B)?

There is an alternative approach to the Nunavut fishery, which might be worth considering, which would reduce the financial risk; give a much better return on investment; create many more jobs; and be respectful of the Inuit way of life.

I refer to a small-boat fishery. When you think about it, we are only talking about 4,000 metric tonnes of turbot available in area 0A. It is interesting to note that the fast-speed small-boat fishery in Iceland catches over 35,000 metric tonnes of cod each year. More and more small boats are being added to the fleet each year, because it is the most cost-efficient way of catching fish. So this small boat fishery is a very successfully proven method of fishing in the North and might be worth considering for Nunavut.

Small high speed boats of 28 to 36 feet, with automatic baiting systems, would cost in the range of $600,000 each and employ five people on each boat. Thus the amount of money spent to purchase one factory freezer trawler might be better directed to purchase 20 fast-speed small boats, which would create 100 independent jobs in the harvesting side of the fishing industry in Nunavut.

If four communities had five such vessels each, then each community would have a minimum of 25 fishing jobs.

For the same investment, 20 small boats would catch 3,000 metric tonnes of turbot per year, while one freezer trawler would catch less half as much fish (1,200 metric tonnes maximum.)

Along with the small boat operation, small processing plants, such as the plant in Pangnirtung, would be needed to process the landed fish and this would create another 15-18 jobs in each community. Thus for the same investment, the small-boat fishery would create 160-170 seasonal jobs instead of the 20-30 jobs which would be created on board a factory-freezer trawler.

Most important of all is the fact that this freezer-trawler direction seems to totally ignore the Inuit way of life, as I understand it. Working for someone else for wages (or shares) aboard a factory-freezer trawler is, as I understand it, foreign to the Inuit way of life.

Being away from one’s family for two month periods in the summer time is not something that, I understand, is considered normal to the Inuit way of life. The small boat operation would be a day-fishing operation and boats would go fishing each morning and return home each night.

The small boat operations would be more flexible, in that the boats could be used, from time to time for other activities such as hunting. From my respectful understanding of the Inuit way of life, being “free and independent and masters of one’s own domain,” would be much more in line with the Inuit way of life than working for wages aboard a freezer-trawler.

Of course these are decisions that only the Inuit fishing interests of Nunavut will make and my thoughts here are meant only as humble suggestions which might not have otherwise been considered.

John Andrews
Arctic Harvesters Inc.
St. John’s, Nfld.