This used to be a vibrant fish processing plant in the inlet of Tofino, BC. Nowadays, there is not enough commercial wild salmon fishery along the central west coast of Vancouver Island to make the plant operational. The facility has since been partitioned to house consumer retail businesses.
It is the fish, or the salmon that was, which brought me to a 2-day trip to Tofino. The place is best known as the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve where a collective effort of stakeholders aspire "to use the area's resources in a sustainable manner." The pristine waters around the Tofino peninsula invite migrating grey whales, chinook and coho salmon, steelheads and the inhabitants of the Pacific Rim Forest Reserve, the black bears, to partake of their fish foods which still abound in the area.
A guided tour of the place opens various choices: whale watching, bear watching, sport fishing for chinook and coho salmon, pacific halibut, steelheads and trouts. The powerful waves of the northwest pacific ocean invite the daring to surf along the coast of Long Beach. Those who prefer the serene can retreat to one of the hot spring spa and whole body rejuvenation resorts. I opted to take a tour of the calmer inlets and visit a chinook salmon open mariculture (to the lay person, generically referred to as fish farm).
In my country of birth, the Philippines, for 16 years I cultured premium finfishes (groupers, snappers and white seabass/'baramundi') using open water floating cages in estuaries. It was, thus, the call of sense memories that prompted me to ride a boat and get wet with the afternoon showers. 
Salmon farming made a big entry into British Columbia in the 1980s. The culture practices were imported across the Atlantic, principally from Norway and Scotland, and the preference for a specific type of salmon, atlantic salmon, was adopted lock-stock-and barrel. One farm in Tofino opted to stay with an indigenous (native to the place) specie of the locality, the chinook salmon, commercially named in the USA as King Salmon and in Canada as Spring Salmon. To date, over 90% of the total salmon farmed in BC are of the atlantic type. The farm I visited has remained at a small-scale level and dedicated to the monoculture (single specie) of the native chinook. The first genetic origins of the stocks were adult chinooks sourced from natural salmon spawning grounds in the rivers of western Vancouver Island.
The Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans lists five commercial salmon species: Chinook, Coho, Sockeye, Keta (Chum) and, Pink (or humpback). The biggest in size, and of least abundance is the chinook. Although it exhibits a paler orange body meat color when compared to the popular sockeye, it is far superior in terms of meat texture (smooth), firmness of flakes, omega-3 fatty acids content. 
The gelatinous fat formation in between the flakes give a smooth and almost buttery texture when the fish is cooked. The same heart-friendly fat content allow the chinook to be stored days and weeks in the home freezer and still keep its overall flavour and meat quality compared to most other fishes. 
On the grill, the freshly harvested ice-chilled chinook needs only a simple dry rub of one's favorite herb and spices seasoned with semi-coarse sea salt and rough ground peppercorn. As the chinook's fat is coaxed by the heat to emerge, drippings will send the charcoals dancing with flames releasing a salmonic aroma that would send the diner salivating in anticipation of a gourmet seafood treat. One distinct advantage of the farmed chinook over the wild catch is the evenness of meat thickness making cooking a lot more manageable. In the wild, the chinook caught by trolling can reach as much as 20 lbs. and when filleted, the thicker portion would be as much as 2- 1/2 times that of the belly portion. That alone spells a hurdle in achieving an even cooking of the fish. Additionally, the farmed chinook swims against milder ocean currents that flow into the inlets of Tofino thus allowing the fish to build up more flavour-packed fats in its body.
It takes about a year and a half before the farmed fish in the grow-out cages in Tofino reach marketable size. Female chinook yearlings are hatched and reared in closed fresh water systems in a privately run hatchery-nursery located in the eastern coast of Vancouver island. 
The provincial government of British Columbia operates similar hatcheries under the Salmonid Enhancement Program. One is the Capilano River Facility in North Vancouver which in the past released into the free waters as much as 600,000 chinook yearlings which make their way to the north pacific ocean. This form of finfish marine culture is referred to as sea ranching. The grow-out area is in the open ocean where the fish fend for themselves to source their food. The greatly reduced run of adult chinooks that survive the predation by bigger fishes and escape capture by commercial fishing operations in international waters and licensed fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska and the BC coastline are harvested 3-4 years later when they return to the river of their birth to spawn the next generation of salmon.
Comparatively, the grow-out of chinooks in Tofino yield over 90% recovery. Lower stocking densities reduce cage stress that make fish vulnerable to disease. The healthier fish, thus, eliminate the need for preventive medication mixed into the fish feeds. Under water video monitoring of feed consumption reduce wastage and unnessary build-up of excrements. In addition, the practice of site fallowing, that is, resting the farm site for as much as two years after a complete harvest, reduce the environmental footprint. When the site is eventually reused, the conditions are again favorable to a low-stress marine culture. Cross-contamination accidentally introduced into the farm by birds is managed by a physical method: the use of overhead net covers on the cages. This discourages sea gulls and crows from coming to the farm to scavenge floating fish food. Their bird droppings can contain parasites acquired from food eaten in other locations.
The farm has six sites and only four are operational at any given time. The locations are spread way apart from each other. 
The only human inhabitants within the proximities including the nearby islands are the farm crew shifts who are part of the company's less than 50 employees that include the land-based administrative and technical staff. The small scale operations is the strategic choice of the company which seeks to remain a good fit to the sustainable use of resources in the Clayaquot Sound Biosphere. Fish harvest is done only once a week. A small team of First Nations people who are native to the area prepare the fish: gutted, cleaned, and ice-chilled packed in totes. The proximity of the farm to the Vancouver, BC market make it possible to make the fish available to the retail consumers within 48 hours after the fish is lifted live from the waters. Comparatively, wild caught chinook would take 3 to 5 days to reach the end users.
Spencer Evans, the farm company's general manager, says there remains a moratorium in the grant of fish farming lease areas in BC. Only when the government opens new farming sites will the company be able to expand the culture of chinook salmon. Elevating fish densities in current cage systems is discounted as a production option since this would trigger environmental consequences. In the meantime, limited quality grow-out of the top-ranked indigenous chinook salmon continues in the natural salmon migration grounds of Tofino and the Clayaquot Sound.
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Posted by: CECILIAHayden | May 24, 2010 at 02:02 PM