Town nets fish- processing business Lax Kw'alaams has invested $13 million in plant in hopes of awakening slumbering industry
BY JENNY LEE, VANCOUVER SUNOCTOBER 12, 2013 http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Town+nets+fish+processing+business/9030629/story.html One year ago, the tiny coastal B.C. village of Lax Kw'alaams - population 900 - opened the doors to their shiny, new, state-of-the-art fishprocessing plant. It was as bold a move as any could remember. Mayor Garry Reece was risking $13 million in the hopes of reviving an industry that had vanished decades earlier. The hopes of the Lax Kw'alaams band would now rest not only on the Great Creator and the volume of fish in the rivers, but also on the goodwill of the fishermen. Trollers, who bring in the valuable hook and line fish, are particular folk who won't sell their fish to just anyone, so when Norman Black, general manager of the new plant, was offered five times more than his estimate, he was feeling pretty good. "We've just bought 100,000 pounds of troll salmon," he crooned. "I guess we're in the fish business." It wasn't the dollar value that mattered so much as the acceptance. It had, after all, been quite the roller-coaster year. Sustainable employment The people of Lax Kw'alaams, formerly Port Simpson, wanted to transform a seasonal salmon business and an old, rundown plant into a year-round, major industrial effort. They would build the largest and most modern fish-freezing plant on the west coast of Canada, and create sustainable employment. "We've never had more than perhaps 100 people here working in the village or plant in the last 30 years," Black said. "Basically this place has been slumbering since the beginning of the commercial fishing industry perhaps 50 years ago." In the new plan, the village would buy salmon from nearby Alaskan fishermen, then process and sell it by taking advantage of neighbouring Prince Rupert's road link south and container shipping to China. Bringing in modern freezing technology meant low-value groundfish such as hake and pollock, which were being left in the water, could now be frozen and exported. "We're taking that fish literally out of the water, hours from death, and freezing it at -30 C," Black said. Combining the short 50-to 65-day annual salmon seasons with a steady hake, pollock and turbot business could, theoretically, keep the plant running virtually year round. Did it work out? "Of course it didn't," said Black, a former salmon broker and trader that Lax Kw'alaams' band council coaxed out of retirement - at least not for the better part of the plant's first year. Our biggest pain this year was being reminded by Mother Nature or the Great Creator that greater forces are in charge of what comes from the ocean and it's not up to us. "This is the first year in decades that chum salmon in Alaska didn't come back," Black said. "The darn Skeena sockeye also failed to materialize for the first time in like 35 years. So here we are with this monstrous plant that can defeat any wall of salmon and turn it into bottom line, and the fish don't show up." Then, suddenly, the village got the largest pink salmon run in the history of B.C. and Alaska. "There was one week there near the end of August, we received over a million pounds over a five-day period," Black said. "It saved the year. No doubt." And that meant, for some weeks this summer, the plant was employing more than 200 people. The plant now appears able to provide up to 10 months of work each year for the community, Reece said. "We got a reprieve," Black said. Bills will be paid. "Now we are hunkered down to the groundfish. We're just tightening up our contracts for a couple million pounds of pollock and hake for export, which will keep us busy till Christmas." Shrewd leadership One key to the processing plant's viability was buying its own groundfish trawler. It meant a certain measure of control over the mix and volume of the haul, plus the ability to train band members for senior, ticketed positions in industrial fishing. The challenge wasn't raising funds for the trawler itself, but access to commercial fishing licences. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Pacific Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative (PICFI) program helped by providing a licence, quotas, and cash. Another key is the band's shrewd leadership. The fish-processing plant echoes an earlier economic move by the tiny village. In 2004, Lax Kw'alaams bought the timber holdings of the old Skeena Cellulose pulp mill in a court-ordered sale. Mayor Reece knew it was a huge risk, but counted on the Skeena pulp mill reopening and the Terrace sawmill staying open. Neither came through. Sound familiar? The band's Coast Tsimshian Resources found a market for lowgrade hemlock and balsam that no one else wanted. Then it boldly entered the global market by opening a trade office in Beijing. Casting aside the traditional logging model of providing wood for one large mill, the band based their business concept on establishing a cluster of manufacturers that can use a wide range of wood products. It's a tough business that's getting tougher, but in 2010, Coast Tsimshian Resources received a B.C. government award as the province's top community-owned aboriginal business. Homegrown solutions Today, at the fish-processing plant, Reece, Black and their team have cast aside traditional salmon canning and are looking to serve China and the Caucasus region between Europe and Asia with lower-end groundfish and pink salmon, while selling their caviar, frozen fillets and smoked salmon to Europe and North America. Lax Kw'alaams is preparing to launch a campaign to promote their sustainable, ethical fisheries with their own brand, Coast Tsimshian Seafoods, and they hope to develop a small, local market of restaurants, retailers and maybe co-op food trucks. "We're looking for more homegrown solutions," Black said. And so the Lax Kw'alaams fish plant continues on its roller-coaster ride. "In one salmon season, you can be up two to three million dollars," Black said. "But that wasn't this one." But that's OK. The Great Creator's unpredictability comes as no great surprise to the people of Lax Kw'alaams. jenny...@vancouversun.com With a file from Gordon Hamilton
