All language subtitles for Guardian.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX].EN

- This is the real world out here.

Where you come from,
that's not the real world.

This is it, this is
where it all comes from,

this is where it all starts.

You know?

You can't build your cities
without this out here.

Bears, wolves.

Birds, eagles.

Even the trees.

There isn't an animal
in the bush around here

that doesn't somehow
relate back to salmon.

We're all out there trying
to do the same thing,

and that's make this fishery last forever.

The Great Bear Rainforest,
now that's a new name.

We used to just call it the Central Coast.

North Coast.

Well, that's from the north
end of Vancouver Island

to the Alaska border to the
outside of the Charlottes.

And I mean at one time
each statistical area

had a government boat involved in it.

Anyhow, they don't have that now.

We're on our own on the salmon.

Sophia to Surfbird, how
are you doing Hermann?

I'm doing pretty good.

Where are you heading to?

Oh, we're probably gonna end up

in Goat Harbor tonight.

We just were up in town
for fuel and groceries,

on our way back now.

Oh yeah, I'll hold it to you.

Not too many fish around, is there?

No, no, there's
not many fish around

at all, Hermann.

Yeah, I actually
saw one chum jumping

just below a low inlet
and that was it for me.

- Oh, you did better than
me, all I'd seen was a whale.

There's a bear.

It's a grizzly and two cubs with her.

Two yearlings.

She's the one that's been
hanging around here all season.

"Guardians" hasn't been used
for quite a few years now.

They call us "Creekwalkers."

We do a little more than
just walk creeks, though.

They spawn among the rocks, and the eggs

just go in down there into the crevices

and that's where they lay and incubate.

Salmon is a timed fishery,
that's how you manage it,

by how much fishing time they get.

So, really you gotta keep
track of what they're catching,

what you have left in the creeks,

and make decisions whether
you're gonna continue fishing

the next day or not.

How do you manage that fishery

if you don't know how much you got?

There's a big commercial fishery on it.

There's a big sports
commercial fishery on it.

There's a sports fishery on it.

A ceremonial food fishery on it.

When the fish don't come
back, everybody knows it.

This is where we usually
bump into the bear.

He's usually in among the logs here.

So they'd come out of the bush there,

and run across the log and come in here.

They're probably not very far away.

And you can see they sort of
feathered all of the bark.

That's their claws goin' in.

And then they go up,
just up above the limb

is about as far as they go.

Yeah.

There's a bear scat right there.

A big berry dump.

Should've been gray
colored from eating fish

instead of blue colored
from eating berries.

Yeah.

I'm a little leery that
they'll start chasing him

and I really don't want that to happen.

Hey you, get back here.

I always thought I had a
little bit of Davy Crockett

or Daniel Boone in me.

I always was curious about what
was around the next corner.

Still am.

And that's why I crawled into
the back end of these creeks

looking for coho.

I've hiked into the back of creeks

where I was walking in snow to find fish.

Curiosity.

That's basically what drives me, I guess.

What am I gonna find?

What's gonna be different this year?

Probably about 50/50
on the pinks and chums.

A few coho in the corner
over here, I don't see a lot.

And I spotted one sockeye
in there somewhere.

They're not really thick.

They'd be piled up more
if there was really thick.

It looks like just one
surface layer there.

And if you don't think there's
enough fish around to supply

the creeks, then you
shut the fishery down.

A week-by-week decision on
whether you keep fishing

or not fishing.

Oh, it's a tally whacker.

That's chum.

That's pinks.

And a lot of times I'll carry a third one,

and that's for the dead.

So technically, if you
were doing pinks and chum

you'd need four, but I use
four I get 'em all mixed up.

I start counting on the wrong one.

Wait till you see Stan, I
think he's got five of them.

- Well, if we're gonna continue
having commercial fisheries

for salmon, these small
streams are very important.

They're the ones that will
probably save us in the end

when something catastrophic happens.

These small ones will be
the savior of everything.

If we don't have some idea of
what our salmon populations

are in that stream, or even
our wildlife populations,

how would we ever say that
there was any kind of an effect

from manmade influences?

6.9 degrees.

44.4 on the Fahrenheit scale.

So it's pretty cold.

OK, get in.

It's a black bear.

They strip the skin off.

I just seen a fish jumped out there.

Last week when I was here,
there was a black bear

right out there underneath
the falls fishing for salmon.

And when he smelled me,

he ran right up the
waterfall, right on this side,

and into the bushes.

I just seen another fish jump.

If you look down here,
you stare long enough

you'll see fish jumping,
trying to jump the falls.

They'll never make it.

I started last year writing up a thing,

so I could get it clear in my head,

like what this is all about,
what we're doing and stuff.

And I was hoping that
someday I could actually go

into the office and present this,

or even send it to them in
writing to what goes on.

More for the fact that they can say, well,

"Oh, these guys are actually--
this is actually important."

That's half of the day.

165 chums.

Only seen two pinks in the main river.

And...

I had a hundred and...

And I walked...

Two hundred and...

My hands are too cold to hold a pen.

And the cat come to check it out

and make sure it was done properly.

And then-- I'll avoid
it as long as I can--

but on a rainy day,

I take that and enter
it into the BC16 program

on the computer.

- You don't actually go
in and count every salmon

of course, in a creek.

You count to a method that
you've picked up over years

and you count to that method constantly.

So if you're changing the person

that's going in and
counting it every time,

their methodology's gonna be
a little different than yours.

They might think they're seeing
fish, but not seeing fish.

They might be mixing species up.

It takes a little time.

It took me a number of years

to really get down to what I did.

My first season was in 1977.

When you've got wolves in the
creek, all they eat is that.

Basically, the brain.

They'll catch the fish, bring
it out and eat its brain.

And usually you find a bunch
of them laying on the beach.

That's not looking good there.

That's warm. Sixteen.

There should be a bunch of
fish going.

But I don't see much.

I guess ocean conditions,
that's what everybody is saying.

We've only got 310 pinks to here.

We should be up into
the 10,000 range by now.

OK, you can run ahead now,
I don't care. I counted.

We seem to have more poor
years than we have good years.

I just wish my knees were a lot younger,

then I could do more of it.

Heavens, I tried to trade my
birthday with my granddaughter

and she refused me.

OK, let's start down before I get stiff.

They gotta get some young
people in this business,

there's no doubt about it.

You gotta be out here to
know what the catches are,

what the streams are getting
back in this particular year,

just to fish this year alone.

It's a lot of work.

It actually needs a lot more
people out here doing it.

Most of my adult life,
I've been doing it 38 years

or something like that.

Well, hopefully it's not dying out.

My family, we changed our
lifestyle to accommodate

doing this work.

- See where that boat
is in front of us there?

That's Butedale.

The huge big lake system behind it,

it had a salmon cannery at one point.

And then it went to a
reduction plant for herring.

And a mega supply of fantastic water.

And they had their own power supply,

and that's what Doug
and I used to look after

when we were there, was the power supply,

'cause they had their own
generators with big Pelton wheels.

But the coastline here was
just a regular pipeline.

Everybody knew where everyone
was, what you were doing.

When we lived in there, we
knew more about the people

that lived on the outer coast here.

And they knew more about us

than we knew about ourselves, actually.

'Cause everyone would
come in, would visit,

then repeat what we said.

And we'd hear what was going
on out on the lighthouses.

Yeah, it was really nice.

It's changed quite a bit.

Sounds like those guys

are gonna have pretty slow fishing.

They only got a one-day-a-week opening

or something for them.

It's pretty grim.

How's numbers been looking
for what you're looking for?

Probably some
of the worst returns

we've ever seen in this area.

Well, I guess
there's some kind of great big,

giant plankton blob off the coast there

that seems to be throwing a
wrench into everything, eh?

Yeah, well,
they've sort of figured

that's what did most of
the pinks in this year.

It's coast-wide.

Right up into Alaska.

It's a pile of dead water.

I don't know how you recover enough

to have a surplus for fishing, so...

Wow.

What a screwed up year this is, holy moly.

Oh God, yeah.

No doubt about that.

And you gotta wonder about what's coming.

Yeah, so you're saying

that they're cutting you back on that gig?

Yeah, yeah, I'm
done here on the 20th.

I usually don't get
done till about the 10th

or 12th of October.

You're about
the only one left now, Doug.

There used to
be quite a few more.

Government boats are gone, the
fisheries officers are gone,

and there's just us.

There's just two of us left.

Of course we don't get it all done.

- This area, Statistical Area 6,

is the largest statistical
area on the coast.

It probably has the most streams.

I think it's 129 streams that they think

that two people can look after.

This area, when I first started,

had had the main office in Kitimat.

It had a full staff--

a manager, an assistant
manager, and a clerk.

Three full-time fishery officers.

It had two departmental
fisheries patrol boats.

Five patrolmen like myself,
four Guardians based in cabins

in certain areas-- like
in creeks and stuff.

There was an airplane on
floats used for flying streams

and getting people around.

And then they switched
to using helicopters.

And that's what it took to run this area.

Now all we have is two
of us patrolmen left,

and our average age is 65.

We're gonna be gone soon.

- Looks like a drugstore.

It's comin'.

Where's Griffin?

You wouldn't think
anything would be changing

looking out there.

The rain collects on the roof,

and we've got hoses connected to that.

And that's what goes into our water tanks.

The water off the roof.

We don't get any water
unless we go into Rupert

or someplace that's got water.

Otherwise we wouldn't have any water.

So that's why we kind of conserve.

I said to Doug, "I think it's gonna rain,

I'm gonna put the water hose in the tank

in case we get some rain."

He said, "Well, thanks very much."

I said, "Well, what do you mean by that?"

He said, "Well, you're
saying it's gonna rain,"

now he's gotta walk the creek.

Don't I have a
lighter one of these things?

I don't know,
I'll go down and look.

I need a second
t-shirt or something.

You want it with you?

- No, I'll put it on.

I'll take it off.

That doesn't look like mine, does it?

You've got a
t-shirt, did you say?

- What was that?
- Did you say you have one?

There's another
old-- there's a dirty t-shirt.

It is raining.

- I know, you wished it on me.

No, I didn't.

I just said it looked
like it was going to.

I didn't say, "Oh, bring on the rain."

Where's your other t-shirt?

You wearing the sunglasses?

Do you want them in the pack?

Oh, I'll put
them in the case here.

- There's like nothing jumping.

Usually if there's a
great abundance of them

they'll be extras out here in the bay

that haven't gone up yet.

But nothing seems to be jumping.

Don't even see any birds.

There's no eagles.

This time of year there's
usually some chums

still hanging in the bay here.

And it's usually over
that shallows over there.

But I don't see any life
there, not even a seal.

Oh, my pepper spray is there.

Oh, right.

Six guns.

- Thanks.

What you worried about?

Eh?

What are you worried about?
What are you worried about?

He's afraid he's
gonna have to stay with me.

Got everything?

I hope so.

I'm ready.

Your turn now, huh, boy?

You staying or coming?

Let's go.

Let's go.

Come on, get up here.

- You gonna stay with me?

Oh, I'll come and get you then.

Come on, you can stay up here with me.

Come on.

See, child psychology.

Amazing the two of them can
just fit in there like that.

So agile.

I usually watch till he hits the beach,

and then I know he's fine.

Doesn't look that far, but, you know.

Just looks like a dot in
the water, doesn't he?

Well, while they're gone I'm
gonna run the vacuum around.

Hello?

Hi.

- How are you?
- Good, and you?

Oh no, it's low water right now.

He'll do the one and paddle
into the other, so, yeah.

Everything going there fine?

Everything there going fine?

All right.

OK, if you can hear me,
talk to you later. Bye.

Oh, I lost her.

It just phases in and out.

Every once and a while she'll
say, "Oh, I can't hear you,"

or "You're all garbled," so
then we just say goodbye.

There's not point in yelling
back and forth.

What's going on, so, yeah.

It's a quiet life.

I'm gonna be on the boat here, full-time,

20 years next year.

So it's been a fantastic
life and I can't complain.

And we had four fantastic years
when our daughter was young

in Butedale, and that's really memorable.

Doug and I are kind of the
ones that are off on our own.

Nobody wants to travel up here to see us.

They say, "Keep in touch," but it means,

"Come and see us, we're not
coming to see you" type thing.

And you won't get Doug out of BC, so.

He's not gonna leave British Columbia.

This is the day we got married.

I was 17, he was 19.

And that was one of Doug
had walked to the end

of one of his rivers and
that's where he got to.

We were poor, so we went on
a camping holiday, actually.

Here we go, Butedale.

This is your post office.

That's where I was.

Well, it was only me.

We ran the store and the post office.

We went in in '73.

We left in '77.

Oh, it was fabulous.

There was no TV, it was
just straight radio.

I guess people would call it isolated,

but we never felt isolated.

I taught Moyna kindergarten

through grade three, correspondence.

This is what Butedale looks like now.

It's falling apart.

Actually, there isn't even that
much of the buildings left,

I don't think.

And that was our first boat.

That was the boat that Doug
started his patrol work in.

At that time, the
fisheries officers came out

on patrol boats and they
actually walked the rivers

and counted the fish themselves.

But they also had the programs

where they would have patrolmen,

or Guardians they called us.

And that particular
year they needed someone

for the area that we were in,

so that's when we took the job.

Yeah.

Here's Moyna walking the creeks with Doug.

'Cause she'd go out with
him in the summer months

and then I'd come out
in August on my holidays

and bring her back to town.

She was so shy.

By the time she was
nine we felt it was time

that she should actually be in school

and able to learn social
skills more than anything.

So I moved into town and Doug stayed out

and worked on the boat.

She still walks with Doug.

And that's when Kyla was born.

You can see that I was
a proud grandmother.

Kyla is now 13.

Kyla's been coming out since
the year she was born in 2002.

And she's been walking creeks here

just the last three years.

There she is, her first canoe
ride with her mom and Doug.

That's Stan, yeah, with Kyla.

They understand that
we're out here working.

We get together every once
in a while, so it's nice.

There's Stan when he's on his boat.

Now there's Doug and Stan.

Definitely best friends.

- It started off with
a little bit of a leak

in the exhaust manifold.

And then I drilled and tapped it,

and put a bolt and a gasket
on it, so I fixed that.

But then now the belts on
the front of the engine

are a little loose.

I've manged to figure out most things,

at least to get me back to town anyway,

so I can get it fixed properly.

Today, showers.

Tonight, showers.

Tuesday, periods of rain.

Tuesday night, rain.

Wednesday, rain.

Wednesday night, rain.

Thursday, rain.

Thursday night, showers.

In rain like this you can't really do much

'cause the surface of the
water is all broken up,

so you can't really see down into it.

I should be doing my paperwork.

I don't like paperwork.

I was just checking to see
how many more I had to do.

Well, I've been lazy this week

so I got another 15 to enter,

plus today's stuff.

This is the program,
Stream Escapement Database.

Today we were counting coho,
pinks and chums, mostly.

We like to do at least three
counts for each stream.

So you got the early in the
season, at the beginning.

And then you like to get
the peak of spawning.

And then at the end, so you
kinda got the whole run in

so you can do a better estimate on that.

But I had...

I think it was 160,

around 160 inspections last year.

Well, the season's not over, but I'm

probably about 175 so far.

I do a lot.

It's not new, but the other
one's got a pretty good leak.

I think these have a leak, too.

At least they're dry to start with.

I've been meaning to

fix my other one.

A few more years.

I'm gonna squeak a few more
years out of it, maybe.

Well, I hope I'm like
Doug, I can get to 70.

So that would be 10 years.

Physically I'm still good.

I'm able to outwalk most
of the young people, so.

I started here in '74.

I've had many different positions.

I worked on patrol boats.

I worked in the engine
room as an engineer.

I worked as a mate.

I worked as a skipper,

like a captain on a couple of the boats.

Then I was a fisheries warden.

Fisheries officer.

As long as there's a
job, I'll keep doing it.

But, Doug Stewart,

his days are so short he
doesn't even get a chance

to finish his salmon escapement numbers.

So, all of his reports this
year will probably just say

"Adults Present" instead of
an actual number of fish.

The chums are done and the pinks,

they're just at the peak here.

I'm certainly disappointed,

I sure thought I'd see a
lot more chum.

Anyhow, where are you off to today?

Yeah, well, OK.

Well, they do hold a while
in there, so, I don't know.

Yeah, well, even 7,500,
if you put that on it...

that doesn't make for a
fishery in two years time.

Oh yeah, how'd you make out in there?

Did you see any sign of
the grizzly in there?

- The two of them are like
two peas in a pod, actually.

They do the same thing, they
talk about the same things.

They've been together a long time,

worked together a long time.

They can practically tell
what the other one's thinking.

Their phone calls...

I get bored after a while
listening about fish,

and fish, and more fish.

Yeah, so I don't...

After a while I just
leave, let them go at it.

- Yeah, you too Stan.

Thanks.

We'll give you a call
here in the next day.

We were living in
Butedale when I met Stan.

He was 18 or 19 years
old when I first met him,

so just about 40 years we've been working

sort of together, I guess.

Stan and I, we share information.

So I've gotta bunch of all of
his reports that he sends in,

so I know what he's up to
and I do the same for him.

There's an annual stream
report for each system we do.

And then here's a record of
rainfalls that I send them.

This one goes from 1987 right up to 2011.

And then we make up weekly reports.

This one here talks a bit
about the commercial fishery,

and the sports fishery,
and the food fishery.

And I throw a few pictures in
just to make it interesting.

There's a neat-looking grizzly bear.

Oh, here's the famous picture.

That's Moyna's, I steal her pictures.

Everybody loves that picture.

I got all kinds of pictures
at the end of it here.

This is a stream.

I put a couple of pictures in
to show you what it looks like

in sort of a normal water flow,

and then what it looks like in full flood.

Oh, and this one, I just
took pictures to show

how the bank's being
eroded and all of the trees

that are coming down and
being washed downstream.

Anyhow, by the time the summer's over

we fill a bloody three-inch binder

with all of the bloody paper.

I don't really believe they
read it, but I could be wrong.

And then I think about
things like the countryside.

Winning the lottery,

so I can do more things like this

without having to work for somebody.

I just daydream, it goes on and on.

I was thinking about how important it is

to having guys like me
out here doing this.

I've probably been walking
this stream for 36 years.

So I know what it looked
like over 36 years

at different times.

If they get rid of guys like
me, and they slowly are,

the numbers they get aren't
gonna be anywhere near accurate.

- Most people would call it your kitchen,

but this is what we call our galley.

I've got an oil stove,
which is diesel run,

and this is what I cook on.

We use it for heat, as well
as heating the hot water.

If we were rolling or
anything in the seas,

you want to have the door locked.

And it's not to keep people out,

it's to keep the door from swinging open

and everything falling out on us.

Under the floorboards

I've got my potatoes, carrots, onions,

apples, oranges.

And because of the
temperature of the water,

it keeps everything
down there really cool.

I've got enough stuff down
there to do me a good month.

And this is my pantry,

and you can see I've got stuff everywhere.

But I did used to have it
where it was all lined up,

all my cans, everything,
and we'd go out in the sea,

and by the time we got
to where we were going,

everything was on the floor.

So now we put everything in tubs.

Dry goods, I've got enough
here to do us, oh gosh,

I bet I'm good for six months.

But produce and that only lasts 10 days.

You can't keep anything fresh
any more than about 10 days.

So you're on either frozen or canned.

Which is fine.

They're still good.

First year was really hard.

Being out on the boat,

90% I was the only woman there.

It was tough.

I gave up my house, my job,

seeing my family and
everything to move out here.

But after I talked to
myself a few times and said,

"OK, this is what you decided,

this is what you're gonna
do," I was fine with that.

And I'm still fine with that.

Good boy, Griffin.

How far did you get to?

- Huh?
- How far did you get to?

- Oh...

I got within half a mile of the lake.

Oh, wow.

That's quite a ways.

- Huh?
- That's quite a ways.

Any fish?

Oh, there's
chum, there's no pinks.

- No pink?

Wow.

Coho.

- Any other life?

- Nothing.
- Really?

I didn't even
see a scat out there.

- No?

No tracks.

The only thing that I
could see was the odd fish

that had been chewed on.

- There's one eagle been
flying back and forth.

Huh?

- I said there's just been one
eagle flying back and forth.

Yeah, there's
only been one eagle,

that's all I saw.

The only adult.

- Nope, and there's one seal
out here, we just seen it.

Other than that, I haven't
seen any fish here either.

It's been pretty quiet.

Come here, you're still soaking.

You're the worst one to dry,
'cause you won't stay still.

I know what you want,
you want your dinner,

but it's not ready.

They're charging up just
to get their dinner.

It won't take me long.

It won't take me long
to get it ready for you.

- Our contracts used to
always be like 120 days

and now it's down to 70.

It sort of came to a point where
we're actually volunteering

our time, for my own
satisfaction I know that the fish

are there at the right time and stuff.

Our habitat monitoring
was pretty much shut down.

That was a big department

within the Department of Fisheries.

We used to actually
have on-site inspections

for pretty much everything.

Any development plans were all inspected

on the grounds and OK'ed.

Or if it was a logging shoal,

or if somebody was building a bridge,

or if somebody had to
get a piece of equipment

from one side of a river to another side,

there would actually be a representative

of the government to monitor it.

But that's not done anymore.

It's left to the people
that are doing it now.

They hire, like, a consulting
outfit or something

to do the work that the
government used to do.

It's kind of like the...

...the fox looking after
the henhouse, I guess.

You know.

You're always gonna favor on the people

that are giving you the paycheck.

I think, anyway.

That's one of the liquid
natural gas projects.

That was actually quite a
big hill there at one point.

They just cut the top right off it.

They took the mountain away.

It's actually an IR.

It's a First Nations Reserve Land.

So it's actually built right on a reserve.

That's the Haisla.

Bish Creek is a fairly
big producer for pinks,

chums, and coho.

And it's also a steelhead river, too.

And then Shell Canada has
a huge project underway.

And then there's-- I think
there was two or three

other smaller ones, too,

that they had proposed for that area.

Kitimat has all these
proposed LNG projects

and pipelines.

This is Kitimat LNG,

this is the Chevron one
I was talking about.

It's supposed to be a
5,000 or 7,000 man camp.

I guess the proper terminology

is all pre-construction, actually.

The setting up for construction.

So this is the site of one of the camps.

And you can sort of get a
feel for the size of it,

and all of the erosion already.

This will all be trailers, eventually.

Tankers is a big concern.

But there's not a lot of talk

about the actual pipelines themselves.

Why don't you answer your bloody phone?

- They're in there screwing
up, I gotta get ahold of...

They're falling trees in there.

The survey group, right into the reds,

like overhanging vegetation.

Oh, in Anderson, you mean?

- Anderson, because
they're gonna realign it

with this Shell project.

So they're gonna
actually change the stream around?

- That lower end, yeah, where
all of the spawning happens.

How can they do that?

- They're gonna cut out
about, I don't know,

300 to 500 meters of stream in there.

Basically all that logjam area.

As I understand it, I haven't
seen the final design,

but that's what their proposal is.

Because they'll be using
that area north of that.

They'll be actually building in there.

- Here's one here, this is LNG Canada.

There's a good sign.

"Goal Zero. No Harm. No Leaks."

If a pipeline broke or
some spill or something,

and we didn't have an inventory
of what we have for salmon

in the river, how would we
know what damages were caused?

And this is Bish Creek.

One of the streams that I walk.

You on here, Carol?

You on 14?

Yeah, go ahead.

- What time's high water?

Just a sec.

1300.

- Oh, OK, I've got lots of time then.

OK, thanks.

There's not a lot up here.

Not as much as there should be, anyhow.

We should have fish
running out from under us

all the time here right
now, and we haven't got any.

Oh, there's a few.

And that's about all it is, a few.

I've been doing this since
1977 and they've been cutting

this program constantly since 1977.

They say that they've got
somebody out here doing it,

and we're just a token effort, I guess.

I felt I was contributing
something to the future

of the salmon fishery
and the area as a whole.

But, yeah, it's quite disappointing.

I mean, now they just
sort of shuffle us off.

I don't know how they're gonna do it.

They gotta get back into
counting creeks, I don't know.

Well, there's no interest in it.

That's the only conclusion
you can come to,

that the government of
Canada's really not interested

in the wild fishery at all.

I mean it stops a lot
of development, really.

So maybe, I don't know,
there's ulterior motives here

or not, but you sometimes think
so but you mainly hope not.

Whale Point, Whale
Point, Hawk Bay on 14.

Whale Point on 02.

- I think there maybe
actually two males there.

Oh, back there?

Yep, right where I am.

OK, yeah, we've got three up here.

Oh, yeah, the Sea
Wolf is another huge boat.

Huge.

- Yeah, it is.
- Yeah.

- There's two fin whales
that were just observed,

and so I'm just looking to
see if I can see them come up

to see which direction they're going.

And there's also a couple
of humpbacks out there.

So it's really neat, actually,

because a lot of times
you'll have these humpbacks

and fin whales, they
actually share the area

while they're out there foraging.

The fin whales are threatened.

The humpbacks were threatened as well,

but they were downlisted
to "special concern."

Our resident orcas are
threatened, as are transients.

So pretty much they're all threatened.

When we first arrived,

we documented 42 humpback
whales that were in this area.

By 2006 that number had
doubled to almost 82.

And now we have close
to 400 humpback whales

that are resident to this area.

And by "resident,"

I mean they keep coming
back year after year.

So what we think happened is we had

the original 42 resident humpback whales,

and somehow the information
was passed on to whales

they were traveling with,

perhaps whales they had
an acquaintance with

in Hawaii or Mexico, and said,
"Hey, I found a great place.

There's lots of food, it's very quiet."

And the word got out and
then all of these whales

just started coming in and coming in.

With fin whales, we documented
our first fin whale in 2006,

and we had three sightings that year

with two different individual whales.

And again, that population
started to grow from 2006

and now we have over 60 fin whales.

They first
traveled west, then east,

then back to west.

- And there's lots of birds, eh?

We believe the reason that
this population is growing

is because there's so
much food here for them.

They can communicate with each other,

they can use sound to locate their prey,

because it really is a quiet ocean.

We're just gonna play a whale
sound for just one minute.

So the reason this ocean is so quiet

is because there is really hardly

any boat traffic through here.

There's days you can go out on the water

and you won't see another vessel.

And there's not too many
places left on this planet

where you can actually say that,

that you've listened to no
boat noise for a whole day.

If any of these proposals go through

and we start having these
large tanker vessels transiting

these waters-- besides
the obvious oil spill

or an explosion with one
of these LNG vessels,

the effects of that are pretty obvious,

it would just be death everywhere.

But just the transiting of
these vessels-- for one thing,

you're having a huge
increase in the amount

of ambient noise in these waters.

So whales are not going
to be able to communicate

with each other, they're
not going to be able

to locate their prey.

But the biggest fear we
have is ship strikes.

There's days you can
be in Squally Channel,

which is the proposed tanker route,

and you have blows of humpbacks

and fin whales from one end to the other.

And if you go through there
with one of these tankers

you will hit a whale, you have no choice

because they are everywhere.

These whales are not boat savvy.

We are already, with smaller vessels,

we have whales showing up--

humpback whales where half
their fluke is missing,

or you can tell they
were hit just with a prop

just in behind their dorsal fins.

So, they will be struck.

We will see a decline in
their numbers without a doubt.

And it's really sad to us,

because years ago all
of the hunting occurred

and we lost so many
whales during those years.

And now finally the
numbers are coming back,

they're coming back into these waters.

They think it's safe, they
think they've found paradise.

And if any of these
proposals come through,

paradise will be lost for these whales.

Very disappointed.

After all these years of working hard

and feel that you are
contributing something

and then it just comes down to...

Well, nobody cares.

Nobody in the upper echelon cares.

In the government, I should say.

That's all there is to it.

Oh, there's a pink salmon!

One pink.

- You got no fish, you've got no bears,

'cause that's how they feed.

You got no wolves, you
don't have any otters--

you don't have any of these
animals that we're now seeing,

and they're all gonna disappear.

There's so much happens in a river,

even over the course of the summer.

We could have heavy rains
and it would be no water

to flood situations.

So what's happening to
the gravel and the eggs

that already been spawned out?

So, we'll have to see
what happens this year

over the winter.

And there might not be
anything in three years' time.

And the only one that can
see what's in the rivers

are the people that are walking them.

Out here shouldn't be just

for "come and see the last species" tours.

It should be, this is gonna be going on

for generations and generations.

What's my granddaughter gonna have--

her children--

if it isn't gonna be funded and
isn't gonna be looked after?

Oh no, don't.

It's something that...

Yeah, I think it should be
funded for generations to come.

Excuse me.

But that's how I feel.

We've got another year on
our contract here and...

It may be funded again and it may not be.

- It's...

...kind of frustrating
in a way, 'cause I've got

38 years of working with the department.

I kinda never ever thought
that it would get to a point

where nobody really cares
about the natural resources.

That side of it falls to
the bottom of the pile.

Always, I mean this has always--

well, this is a big
part of life, actually,

this walking streams and counting fish.

Now it's...

Now it's kind of over, I guess.

- Oh, it's coming.

"How much" is gonna be
the big question mark.

When you read the initial
reports on how many LNG plants

that they were gonna put in
Kitimat, I believe it was three.

And there was gonna be a ship
a day at each one of them,

plus all the pertinent other
vessels that they need.

So the traffic was gonna get outrageous.

You take in the summer time

when there's a commercial fishery going on

and we got four or five ships coming in

through the fishery every day,

it's gonna make some changes to it.

There's no doubt about it.

But the big thing, I guess, is
the influx of humpback whales

and fin whales to that country.

And having that many ships a day

is just gonna totally change that.

The pipeline itself's a big problem.

It crosses many hundreds
of rivers and creeks

and salmon streams
through all the mountains

through to Kitimat.

And then the other thing
I always wonder about,

what's gonna happen to
all of these pipelines

and these terminals and that

when they're all done with them?

What's in the rules to say,
well, you gotta take it all out,

you gotta return it to the way it was?

I don't think so,

I don't think there's
any of that in there.

I think they're just gonna
leave it where it is.

Go back down.

Who's that, there's Kona.

Hi, Kona!

No, no, you stay here.

Both of you.

- No, no, no, no.
- No!

How you gonna get him back out?

Oh, we'll get him out.

All in good time.

Whatever happened out there,

they just about wiped
out the pinks this year.

Not far from it.

- It's gonna be worse when they run across

the mountains, I think.

All these landslides.

The size of the lines
that they're putting in

for natural gas is way bigger
than they actually need.

So, what does that
blasting do to the fish?

Does it vibrate through the river?

Yeah, it's a long ways, actually,

it affects things.

- Wow.

- It'll kill eggs.

- It'll kill eggs?
- Even well-set eggs?

- Well, at the beginning
at the critical stage,

once they're in the gravel for a while.

Water hardened, they're OK.

Yeah, right at the beginning

they're pretty sensitive.

You don't think
of these things, do you?

You don't think that any of
that would affect the fish.

There was a
time that all that stuff

had to be kinda contained to...

- Non-spawning periods.
- Yeah.

Nobody worries about it anymore.

There doesn't seem to be
any timing windows anymore.

They just get permission to do it.

- What's gonna happen in the future?

I mean, who's gonna...

Was all the work we did all
these years really worthwhile?

Or was it just such that,
"We didn't really need you

all that time, anyhow."

Just a waste of time.

The government just out there saying,

"Oh, we got people on the
field doing this and that."

And they didn't really care

whether they had you out there or not.

Still personal
satisfaction for us.

- Well, personal satisfaction's
there, definitely.

You just wonder about the future.

You would wish that the
information that I gathered

would push the next person
along the same line,

or improve on it or whatever.

- It's devastating, actually,
when you think about it.

There's no kids coming
up, there's nothing.

And nobody gives a damn.

- Kind of a sad thing, really.

- It is very sad.

The government seems to think now

that all these industries
should be self-policed.

Well, I don't think that works.

I don't think it's ever worked.

I don't think it ever will.

You gotta have somebody else.

I don't think it's good
for the environment

or good for the fish or good for fishermen

or good for local people.

It'll just be someone off somewhere else

that'll gain from it.