Prince Rupert in British Columbia, Canada, has a long and storied history in the seafood industry, once home to large-scale commercial fishing operations, canneries and processing plants. But much of that history is just that history. Now, Coastal Shellfish, an Indigenous aquaculture company, is slowly changing the tides as it builds its business and sells its first product: Great Bear Scallops.
Prince Rupert produces some of the most iconic seafood in the world, Michael Uehara, president and CEO of the company, said in an interview.
Coastal First Nations an alliance of nine nations on B.C.’s central and north coast started exploring the viability of shellfish aquaculture in the region in 2003, testing various species including oysters and geoducks. In 2013, the nations formed Coastal Shellfish, with Metlakatla First Nation as the majority owner, and started producing scallops. Three-quarters of employees are Indigenous.
The decision to focus on scallops was based on sustainability, Uehara said. Scallops are filter feeders, so farming them in the ocean means they clean the water while they grow.
Our idea essentially establishes what amounts to a restorative ocean patch that would create ecological benefits, but more importantly, not create ecological harm, and delivers, at least calorically, a tremendous amount of sustenance.
Coastal Shellfish operates a hatchery and ocean farm sites, and last year opened a processing plant. Uehara said it’s the first seafood plant on the north coast to open its doors in about 15 years.
A couple of years ago, I said that once we started selling scallops live in Prince Rupert, we would become the live scallop capital of North America by virtue of the fact that nobody else is doing it, he said with a laugh.
Nothing says inclusion like ownership’
The concept of establishing sustainable Indigenous-led businesses on the West Coast was a prominent part of the Great Bear Rainforest Act, an agreement between the B.C. government, the Coastal First Nations and other First Nations whose territories are within the area. The agreement became official in 2016 and had been in the works since the late 1990s.
The agreement includes land and marine use management plans, which were announced in 2006. As part of these plans, the provincial and federal governments each contributed $30 million to support conservation and sustainable economic development projects, matching $60 million contributed by philanthropists and conservation groups.
The donors, governments and First Nations agreed to set up a trust called Coast Funds to administer the money to Indigenous projects that meet the goals of the agreement. Coastal Shellfish was the first project Coast Funds supported.
Brodie Guy, executive director of Coast Funds, said the trust has invested $4.7 million to date in Coastal Shellfish, including providing funding last year to support the development of the processing plant. He added the intent of all this investment is to shift the north coast economy from one based on extraction by outside interests to one that is driven by local and First Nations interests.
Coastal Shellfish is really an amazing result of the vision that communities had 20 years ago, he said.
Uehara said seeing the vision become reality is gratifying. Our goal has been fairly ambitious to produce an economy of inclusion for Indigenous communities in coastal British Columbia, Uehara said. And quite frankly, nothing says inclusion like ownership.
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