Mike was one character that still looms large in my memories of my early fisheries career. Mike was an enigma in many ways. Originally, he had studied business and began his career as a commercial loans banker, and he was good at it.

A life-long learner, who loved to explore and understand the world around him, Mike had a passion for all things wild. One day he simply walked out the bank door to a life of freedom and uncertainty. Their loss was our gain.

It was the summer of 1981, Mike was the captain of the jet boat, and I was the crew, as it powered up the Zymoetz River, heading up into the mouth of the lower canyon. Also known as the Copper River, it is a big, powerful, glacial- coloured tributary of the Skeena River, near the town of Terrace, in northern B.C. It was 32 degrees Celsius in Terrace that week. Mike was tall, bare- chested, wearing cut off shorts and sun-tanned as “brown as a berry” as my English mum used to say. 

Newly assigned as the SEP support biologist for Skeena River and northern B.C. Community projects, I was here to participate, observe and learn about the enhancement efforts in the watershed. I helped set the gill nets, jumped into the water to haul them to shore, and captured entangled Chinook to put into the holding pens. It was hard physical work but Mike made it look so easy, and I never saw the smile on his face waver for a minute that day. He was in his element.

Mike was a local resident of Terrace, a passionate angler obviously skilled at operating a jet boat. Bob Brown, the DFO senior technician responsible for implementing the Zymoetz River field program, had hired Mike on a short-term contract to help with the broodstock collection effort.

Bob knew how to run a field program and he knew how to measure up the crew he hired. He started his career with the military in the far north and talked about shooing polar bears away while heading for the privy and working on the DEW line in the Canadian high Arctic.

He migrated south to join DFO and was assigned to some of the remotest parts of the west where salmon live. Bob had been around and knew DFO operations inside and out; he picked Mike, and that said a lot.

The Zymoetz River program captured adult Chinook in the lower river, held them until maturity, collected the ripe salmon eggs and then fertilized, incubated and reared the resulting juveniles at a site in the upper Zymoetz River.

The tagged and marked Chinook salmon juveniles were then released into the river in late spring to begin their journey to the ocean. It was an effort to stop the decline of the Zymoetz River Chinook population and also opened an opportunity to fin mark and tag the hatchery juveniles. When marked adult Chinook are harvested in ocean and river fisheries, the heads are removed and this small wire tag recovered.

Each tag has a unique code etched on its surface that indicates where the salmon were released from, in this case the Zymoetz River, 1981. This provides critical information on when and where salmon are caught and marine survival and fishery exploitation rates, all important information for proper management of the species.

This was a big deal at the time. Not just because Chinook salmon runs in the northern BC had been declining over past decades. DFO managers also knew they had an even bigger problem coming down the pipe.

Canada and the U.S. had begun negotiations in the mid 1970’s on a then ground-breaking “Pacific Salmon Treaty” which would be ultimately signed by Prime Minister Mulroney and President Reagan in March 1985. Some of the key points of agreement between the two countries were: each country should strive to reduce interceptions of salmon not produced by that country; each country should be given credit for any salmon unavoidably intercepted in the other countries fisheries, and the final division of total catch should fairly represent the production coming from each of the respective jurisdictions.

The big problem was that Canada had very little data on where northern BC Chinook went in the ocean and suspected they went far north into Alaska fisheries. The U.S. wanted hard data; without it they would not give any credit for taking “their” not “our” Chinook in Alaskan waters.

The Chinook Mike caught all that summer for the Zymoetz River enhancement program, and salmon he caught in later years for the important enhancement and coded wire tagging program on the Kalum River, played a key role in Canada efforts to monitor, mark and track lower Skeena River Chinook to inform domestic and international fisheries management.

Mike continued to play his part over the next thirty years, helping Canada deliver a more sustainable management regime for Pacific salmon in the North Coast of B.C.  

When not working, Mike was fishing. When he was fishing, he was either float fishing for Chinook salmon in the Kalum River, throwing a spoon to coho salmon on the Gitnadoix River, rolling a fly with his double handed Spey rod for summer steelhead in the Copper River, or mooching a herring for winter Chinook in the tidal rips of the Work Channel in Prince Rupert. Mike did not stay indoors much.

When he wasn’t working or fishing, he was hunting bears. He was obsessed when armed - with his camera. White, black, or brown, Mike seemed to have an understanding with bears. The Black Bears, to him, were the neighbor, you always chatted with them as you both did your daily tasks. The North Coast Spirit (white) bears were acquaintances that appeared in your life, once in a while. But the coastal Grizzly (brown) bears were dear old friends that marked the passage of your life.

Each spring Mike would fuel up his jet boat and go down to the coast for an extended trip into some remote river estuary. There he would set up his camera and sit for days in the meadows. He would wait to meet the Grizzlies who also came down to the sea to eat the new sedges and grasses after their long winter sleep. Bears have poor eyesight so if they came too close he would start to talk to them in his low, gentle voice. 

Usually once they saw him they would put their head back down and keep feeding. If they still seemed uncomfortable, Mike would lean over and grab a handful of grass and place it in his mouth. He was just letting them know he was there for the same reason as they were. Everyone would be just fine; they understood.

For almost thirty years Mike was hired on a seasonal contract by DFO to provide technical support for SEP community salmon enhancement facilities in the lower Skeena River and the coastal areas from Portland Canal, at the Alaska border south down to Douglas Channel. One of the community hatcheries he provided technical support to was located at Hartley Bay (Txalgiu) part of the Gitga’at First Nation. Reached only by boat or air, the majority of visitors to this remote village arrive by float plane from Prince Rupert. Not Mike.

As part of his SEP job duties, Mike was required to make regular trips into Hartley Bay to provide support to the salmon programs at the village. He would often launch his jet boat at Kitimat and travel west out to Hartley Bay, at the mouth of the Douglas Channel. This was a 90 km trip one way. This meandering coastal fjord was known to be a windy place. Inflow winds and outflow winds and everywhere flow winds made travel along the channel challenging with rough seas pretty well expected. This was just the way Mike liked it, kept down the crowds.

When Mike’s work was done with his old friends at Hartley Bay, he would book off the clock, refuel and head back east up the Douglas Channel. It just so happened that one of Mike’s favorite watersheds to photograph bears was in the remote Kitlope River, deep into what is now the “Great Bear Rainforest”. On his way back to Kitimat, he would often hang a right at a familiar coastal fjord, and head south another 90 km’s towards the estuary of the Kitlope River. As was his habit, Mike was off to see what other “old friends” might be at home.