Selective fishing in the Skeena region has a long turbulent history. Traditional harvesting conducted by First Nations used weirs and traps, beach seins, dip nets and in modern times, fish wheels to trap salmon for food and economic purposes . But most of these had largely disappeared over the decades.

At the beginning of the 20th century the government and fisheries agents seized and destroyed many of these selective methods, only to be replaced by unselective gillnets which has been the standard practise now for decades.

But selective fishing operations have made a huge come back in recent years and now First Nations like Kitselas, the Nisga’a, Wet’suwet’en and Lax Kw’alaams and Gitanyow have all been diligently refining their selective fishing operations to provide their communities with food fish and, in some cases when runs are string enough, economic stability. But it’s more than that. It gives these nations hope for the future and a way to pass on the knowledge from the elder fishermen to the youth.