KIDFISH - The First Nations Perspective - The Cultural Importance of Fish

The Cultural Importance of Fish

Our people have always depended on the fish for our livelihood. We’ve always respected it and we never waste any of it. We’ve caught what we needed, but no more than we needed. It was just a part of our life cycle. It was something we lived with. Something we had to look after.

We are part of our environment, it is part of us and we respect it, just like we respect the people in our neighbouring villages. We look after them and they look after us. We have to get along with each other. It’s the same with the trees and the wildlife and the berries. They are part of us and if we hurt any of it, we are hurting oourselves. Whenever we take anything from the earth we give thanks and always leave a gift in return.

Déné Man
BC Department of Education bulletin "BC Heritage Series - Our Native Peoples - Series 1 Volume 9

We wouldn’t go out and kill an animal for sport. We wouldn’t even cut down a tree if we weren’t going to use it. In my culture, we would not go out and catch a fish for fun and then let it go. That is like playing with your food, and we were always taught not to play with our food. Our belief is that if you catch a fish or an animal, you thnk the animal for giving up it's life for you and make use of the whole animal.