PEOPLE ON THE MOVE vs FISH

From "Our Living Heritage, the Glory of the Nipigon"
page 85- 89
by Kelso and Demers
For the Nipigon Bay RAP Public Advisory Committee
Mill Creek Pub. 1993

" Nipigon had remained the hub of the Nipigon Basin settlements for the first half of the 20th Century. First the fur trade, then the sportsmen, then the railroad, loggers, hydro, Transcanada Gas Pipeline and the Transcanada Highway prolonged Nipigon's heyday well into the 1950's."

"Throughout the decades, as the number and location and size of nearby settlements rose and fell, Nipigon slowly assumed a character that was the intersection of an emerging North Shore Culture, flavoured with sports, fishing, hunting, hockey leagues, baseball teams, representing Ontario Hydro, CNR, CPR, papermakers, foresters."

"A simple chart of road building shows Nipigon as the hub of an ever expanding wheel of roadways."

• 1920 Cameron Falls is linked by road to Nipigon
•  1920 Port Arthur is linked to Nipigon
• 1937 Hwy. 17 links Nipigon to Schreiber
• 1950 Hwy 585 links Cameron Falls to Pine Portage
• 1950 Hwy 11 links Nipigon to Geraldton
• 1961 Hwy 17 links Nipigon to Sault Ste. Marie

"This, of course, gives no indication of the ever growing webwork of minor roadbeds and bridges all intended for one purpose - to get to and from the forests, the lakes and the rivers and the cottage."

"There can surely be no clearer indicator of the prosperity of the Nipigon Basin in the '50's, than the building of leisure time camps and cottages on the watershed. Polly Lake, Rocky Bay, Lake Nipigon and the islands, Black Bay, Nipigon Bay, Kama, Black Sturgeon, Loftquist Lake, Fire Hill Lake, Stewart Lake are lined with cottages built in the mid-century hey-day of the northshore."

"But even before the cottage boom the watershed was subject to a degree of population pressure."

"Cameron Falls, begun in 1920 with only four houses grew to a population of 150 by 1943."

"Log drive camps that were located along the river at Virgin Falls, Pine Portage, Cameron Falls and on Lake Helen each usually held 75 to 80 men. The largest river settlement, at Pine Portage, housed 1,300 workers from 1948 to 1950 during the peak of dam construction."

"Although surprisingly large numbers of people were housed in camps and colonies along the river for 50 years, residents of those camps from the 1940's until the 1970's recall that few people were interested in fishing."

'Two periods of increase in fishing pressure have been observed by local fishermen. The first, after 1950, was attributed to increased leisure time. As the cottage and camp building spread from lake to lake, new roads, bridges, gullies, ravines and rivulets changed the way waters made up the ecosystem of the river. The new road to Pine Portage provided the access that contributed to the increase in fishing above Cameron Falls at that time."

"The second increase, first noticed in the mid 1970's, appeared to coincide with increased fishing for rainbow trout, and more recently Chinook salmon in the lower river."

"Both these periods of increased fishing served to create an unofficial task force of river watchers. Local fishermen, camp and cottage owners all developed a keen sense of proprietorship over these rivers and lakes. Truck and boat access over the years allowed a familiarity with the watershed to nourish a watch dog sentiment on water levels, spawning grounds and fluctuating fish populations. Those who had courted the fish life in the watershed for twenty or thirty years were the experts on the ecosystem by the early seventies."

"By the time Domtar ceased river logging in 1972-73, the new sporting freedoms this provided to local and regional residents was being viewed with care and caution by communities of sportsmen and cottage owners whose lives were intimately linked to the survival of the watershed's ecosystem. All of this lies against the historical backdrop of industrial and government efforts to both harness and preserve the water levels controlled by dams, apply chemical extensively for blackfly control and spruce budworm infestations and eradicate the invading sea lamprey. In such a setting it can be no surprise that the Nipigon Basin found itself with a resident population of environmentalists."

"Ultimately an issue like the decline of walleye in Nipigon Bay would alarm and energize those environment watchers. The walleye fishery was no longer commercially viable. The unnatural taste of walleye and whitefish flesh resulted in market drops. Commercial fishermen blamed the taste on the wastes from the Domtar Mill."

MAYFLY AND SLUDGEWORM

"As is always the case when nature is put under the microscope the simplest of symbols emerged to form the story of the Mill on the Bay. For fish to thrive they need to eat. If the food supply is removed, the fish die. For populations to continue, they need to reproduce. Ultimately that is the bottom line, the meeting place for the pulp industry and the fishery. Those valuable food organisms that supported both game and commercial fish species such as Mayflies and amphipods were casualties of pollution from the mill."

"On the other hand, the lowly Sludgeworm survived the pollution. That simple fact produced a stark reality - coarse fish that did not hesitate to eat Sludgeworms survived while game fish with, perhaps, a more particular taste in foods may have suffered. Of course the whole picture is not quite as simple as the symbols suggest."

"Netting surveys, discharge plume tracking and echo sounding of the Bay provided graphic measurement by which to gauge life in the Bay. The plume effluent seemed to have a life of its own - it went south, north and offshore. Fish were most dense in number where the effluent left the mill and entered the Bay! Fish density was lowest in the deeper waters offshore, while the greatest abundance appeared in a band along shore from the Red Rock wharf to Five Mile Point."

2012:

The Mill at Red Rock has been closed for nearly a decade now. The Nipigon Bay RAP is still monitoring the fish populations in this Area of Concern.

The Nipigon Bay is also part of the National Marine Conservation Area for Lake Superior.