Prawn jewel
Fisherman-owned Vancouver company flourishes with British Columbia's spot prawn fishery
By Rick Crosby
On Saturday, May 8, 2010, a row of white tents is set up on one jetty at Fisherman's Wharf near Vancouver's Granville Island. A group of seafood chefs stand out in their starch white uniforms in the growing crowd of visitors at British Columbia's fourth annual Spot Prawn Festival. The gathering is the brainchild of Vancouver prawn fisherman Steve Johansen, 43, and restaurateur Robert Clark, 47, who believe spot prawns are the poster child for sustainable fisheries. In the early 1990s spot prawns were relatively unknown to consumers in British Columbia.
"I remember Steve and I walking around Granville Island with a plate of prawns that we cooked, just giving out prawns," says Frank Keitsch, 44, who runs the 27-foot Organic Ocean One for Organic Ocean Seafood.
The spot prawn fishery has been active for 30 or 40 years off the B.C. coast. But in the 1990s, the Japanese market made the fishery lucrative for newcomers. In the beginning Johansen and Keitsch lost gear on snags and in rockslides.
"You go out there and set the gear, and it's 50-50 whether there are prawns in the area you're working," recounts Keitsch, who began fishing with his father on summer holidays.
Sometimes they'd set in 50 fathoms and get nothing; and then set in 70 fathoms, and boom — there were the prawns.
At 6:45 a.m., on June 22, six weeks after the Spot Prawn Festival, the Organic Ocean One departs Fisherman's Wharf. This is its 47th consecutive day fishing, and the crew is starting to feel it.
"Do we really have to go out?" Johansen jokes good-naturedly when he arrives at the dock.
Yes, they do. With the market teeming for sustainably harvested spot prawns they'd be crazy not to.
Callifornia crabbing: Here's a fun video shot on the decks of the Majestik while catching Dungeness crab off the coast of northern California.
Over 500 lots of seafood processing equipment formerly owned by Adak Seafood will be sold at auction on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 10 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Daylight Time at the Hilton Garden Inn in Anchorage Alaska.
The equipment is located in a recently updated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing facility in Adak, Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Hilco Industrial, which conducts 75 machinery and equipment auctions in a wide range of industries annually, will conduct the auction.
Adak Seafood opened originally as Ada Fisheries in Anchorage in 1986. The facility, updated in 2005, is located on the island of Adak, the southernmost city in Alaska near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The facility processed cod primarily, as well as halibut, blackcod, crab and pollock, Hilco says.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
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