Save Walker Hook!

Walker Hook on Salt Spring Island hosts a complex ecosystem: salt marsh wetland, a sparsely vegetated spit and coastal bluff/woodland. The BC government has identified these as rare and threatened habitats because they make up less than 2% of the sensitive ecosystems in the entire Gulf Islands.

Walker Hook is also a sacred heritage site, known as Syuhe'mun to Coast Salish people who have used the site for thousands of years.

Despite guidelines in place to protect such areas from potentially harmful development, Syuhe'mun is now part of a sablefish (blackcod) hatchery operation. Effluent from this hatchery is currently piped through the burial site 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Fingerlings from this hatchery are being sold to net cage fish farms in coastal British Columbia. There were no environmental impact studies or disease transfer studies undertaken before aquaculture was allowed to move forward with the farming of sablefish. This is the same path the government of British Columbia followed with the Atlantic salmon farming industry. Sablefish are carnivorous fish and like salmon require 3 to 5 times their weight in protein to come to market. This has a global implication, as much of the protein and fish oils in farmed fish food comes from the oceans of developing countries (see CBC Farm Fish Flap).

Here we have a priceless ecosystem put at risk by what is considered by many to be an unsustainable industry. The situation at Walker Hook epitomizes what is happening in many areas of British Columbia and in other regions of the world. Development is moving forward despite the wishes of the local community, despite the value or rarity of the ecosystem, and despite the cultural and religious significance of the land.

This web site was written and designed by members of the Salt Spring Island Residents for Responsible Land Use (SSIRRLU). It details our journey through the government bureacracy as we have tried to protect a sacred Coast Salish burial site and sensitive ecosystem called Syuhe'mun (Walker Hook). It is our interpretation of the events as they happened. We hope you will explore these pages and be inspired to learn more about other historically important cultural sites, and unique and vulnerable ecosystems. You can help!