Fishing Area

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The West Coast of Vancouver Island, known as “Area G” by fisheries managers, is one of the most western points in Canada. Indeed, the motto of Ucluelet, the largest village on the outer coast, is “life on the edge.”

It is a fecund region of rainforests fjords, snow-capped mountains, crystal clear lakes and salmon-bearing rivers that flow into some of the richest marine zones on the planet. The West Coast largely consists of five majestic sounds—Barkley, Clayoquot, Nootka, Kyuquot and Quatsino—that are dotted with thousands of islands, winding inlets and soaring mountains. Visitors are invariably awed by its pristine splendor.

For thousands of years, the Nuu-chuh-nulth, the local aboriginal people, have called this place home and they still make up about half of the region’s population. This coastal rainforest region is sparsely populated with villages, hamlets and Indian reserves dotting peninsulas, inlets and islands. These tiny ports support the troll fishery with a variety of services and are the landing locations for catch.

The troll fishery occurs largely offshore, although some fisheries take place in sounds and inlets. That means life for a troll fisherman is solitary: one boat, a small crew, a remote rugged coast and the vast Pacific Ocean. The troll fisherman represent the last vestiges of the region’s ancient hunter-gatherer society—a fishery steeped in tradition, romance and lore.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 9th, 2011 at 9:37 pm and is filed under TROLLING and tagged with map, trolling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.