| Occasionally we cross paths with a working boat. This one's a seine boat; Jon can identify them all at a glance. Each type of boat has its subculture: gillnetters, trollers, seiners, draggers, shrimpers, crabbers. We often end up talking about the tragedy of BC's fisheries; out here we are faced with the wreckage of the "gold rush" and the incontrovertible physical evidence of decline. Fleets that once were huge are reduced to a handful of boats; licenses that were once issued for $50 or $100 are now worth a million dollars and more. |
