Fresh-caught salmon on fish boat Estevan
It is wonderful to see when coastal BC transformed by a colossal sockeye season like in the 2014 year. That year, salmon fishermen put in a full rewarding season, food fish were abundant for all the villages upstream way into the interior, the few canneries remaining were running full-tilt, producing tens of thousands of work hours and solid pay cheques for the cannery workers. And our species wasn’t the only happy one – bears, eagles, ravens, and all the denizens of the BC bush feasted that year, up-cycling into the forests, making for a rich ecological cycle.
It reminded me of the glory years in the past when I was a youngster just starting out in
the fishing industry. My first job was working the filleting line at McMillan Fisheries in Prince Rupert. In those days, that was the high-end line, and when we had to switch over to the canning line when too many fish came in to keep up, we were less than impressed by the smell and quality of the cannery grade fish. I bought my first home canner at age 18.
Well, I am pleased to tell you that times have changed. The old days of waste and mediocre handling practices are long gone. Radical rationalization reduced the salmon fleet from thousands to hundreds. Reorganization brought in area licensing and individual quotas on many salmon species, notably sockeye. A new professional ethic developed among the remaining fishermen who now take great pride in the quality and traceability of their catch.
Gourmet Canned Salmon
This professional ethic, along with a strict management regime emphasizing discrete stock management and sustainability and the inherent quality of our big rivers’ runs, has created a huge demand for wild BC sockeye. Most of that sockeye run of 2014 will fill long-standing orders to international centers in Asia, Europe and US and will never hit BC stores.
The following is what I wrote in 2014:
Which brings me back to our new product, Estevan’s Choice Wild Sockeye. That original teenaged investment in a home canner taught me a lot about canned sockeye, and four decades of fishing and canning have honed that education. I tasted many samples of this year’s product, weighing such considerations as taste, texture, colour, and provenance. This wonderful canned ocean sockeye topped the scores in all categories, and I am very pleased to be able to offer it to our customers this year. Buy Wild Sockeye Salmon here (limited quantities!).
It’s 2019 now and how the times have changed. There was a dismal return of sockeye to the BC coast this year and there is little expectation that it is going to rebound soon. Welcome to one of the myriad effects of climate change, folks.
Sockeye is the only species of salmon that spends a whole year in a fresh water lake before it returns to the ocean. The theory of some biologists is that the interior lakes are now too warm to support sockeye fry. Let’s hope it’s just a theory and that this year is an anomaly.
In the meantime, Alaska has had some phenomenally big sockeye runs. We have sourced this sockeye and offer it to you on our website.
Check out the Fisherman Favourite Canned Salmon Recipes
Canned Salmon Nutrition Facts
Salmon is high in vitamin D3, the “sunshine and seafood vitamin.” Our wild sockeye provides an astonishing 400% Daily Value vitamin D in a 100 gram serving (slightly less than ½ can.)
Salmon is high in protein – 19 grams in a 213 gram can.
Canned Salmon is high in calcium – when canned with the bone in and the bone is mashed into the meat (making it unnoticeable). In fact, there is 20% Daily Value calcium in a 1/2 can of salmon. Combined with the calcium absorbing qualities of vitamin D3, it offers an excellent non-dairy source of this essential mineral.
Salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids. Salmon is one of the best sources high in omega-3 fatty acids. The two most important ones for human health, EPA and DHA, are found primarily in seafood such as salmon, tuna and herring.
Wild salmon is low in omega-6 fatty acids, unlike farmed salmon (due to their grain based diets). Most North American diets already have a surfeit of omega-6 fat, which decreases absorption of omega-3.
Premium Wild Sockeye Salmon from the Bristol Bay, Alaska run. This select run is sustainably fished in pristine northern waters. After we sampled several canned salmon products, this was the best for taste, quality, and consistency. Limited quantities!