Ontario
Fishing
At some time in the first quarter of the nineteenth century someone developed commercial fishing on Georgian Bay. The introduction of fishing to the Thirty Thousand Islands region was achieved through the natural extension of operations further down the Great Lakes.
Georgian Bay fishery grew in time to be the greatest source of lake trout and whitefish on all the Canadian lakes. The east side of the bay, with its deep water and sandy shoals, suited these fish well. In the 1850s, Georgian Bay harvest was upwards of a thousand barrels annually. When the railroad reached the south end of Georgian Bay, circa 1860, a more direct route to market was opened, and Collingwood, Meaford, and Owen Sound became the major fishing ports of Georgian Bay.
The expansion of the fishing market prompted more vessels to sail out each spring to the various fishing grounds in the bay. The men who fished some distance from home built a fishing station on the outer fringes of the Thirty Thousand Islands. The largest station was at the Bustard Islands. There were others at the Minks, the Snakes, and Champlain Island. These were sizeable summer colonies, made up of a number of fishermen and their families.
Improved transportation made it possible to market fish in very fresh condition. United States buyers sent schooners on regular rounds to collect the fish at the stations, packing them in ice in great wheeled boxes with a capacity of half a ton, that could be rolled on and off the schooners. One of the best available descriptions we have of the fishing industry in the nineteenth century is contained in the book entitled The Georgian Bay, written by C.L. Hamilton in 1893. After a sailing excursion on the bay he stated, “There were then over 400 men engaged in fishing in Georgian Bay, and equipment included 150 boats, 15 tugs and one and a half million yards of nets. An outfit for two men, a boat and sails, and three gangs of nets was valued at around $1100. In a season, these men would take perhaps twenty tons of fish, for which the buyer’s agent would pay seventy dollars to eighty dollars a ton. ” Mr. Hamilton also recorded that there was a small trade in fish oil at the time.
In the 1930s the sea lamprey entered Lake Huron and destroyed the lake trout population there. At first the Georgian Bay fish seemed to resist the invader from the Atlantic, but by 1960 there were no trout left in the fishing grounds. Other fish were attacked by the lamprey, the most important of them the whitefish. In 1959, the total catch amounted to only 14,515 kilograms of fish.
Large-scale commercial fishing in Georgian Bay came to a close. Today there are still a few commercial fishermen working their nets. However, when a licensed fishermen retires the government buys back his or her licence and usually does not reissue it. Therefore, the commercial fishermen are becoming a dying breed, just like the fish themselves. More questions need to be asked of our politicians regarding the restocking and current levels of fish in the Great Lakes. Restaurants operating in our tourist destinations in Georgian Bay never know if the commercial fishermen will be able to fill their orders or what will happen when the last commercial fisherman disappears. Their businesses may very well vanish like the fishermen and the fish before them.
