The Barricade Agreement

At the beginning of the last century, around 1910, the Government of Canada decided to ban the Barricade method of fishing among First Nations people. In other words, they made it illegal for people to use the fish fences to harvest food from the lakes and rivers. For the first few years, the government gave the people nets to replace the fish fences, so they could still catch fish for their families After awhile, they stopped providing the nets, which created hardship for the people.

Today, fish fences are being used again in some places by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and by the First Nations communities. The fences are used to count the fish and monitor their populations and to provide food fish for the community members. The modern fish fences are very similar to the traditional ones except that today they are made of aluminum. The traditional fish fences were made of wooden poles harvested from the forests nearby.