Richmonds Harold Steves smiles as he recalls setting a net at the same time a large school of sockeye salmon happened to be swimming by. He watched in wonder as hundreds of salmon charged and leaped into my net.
A few strong salmon were trying to get out my net and I must have had several hundred of them, said the 74-year-old longtime Richmond city counselor. The fish were really weighing down my net, which of course wasnt as strong as the nets of the other fishermen, when all of a sudden my net sunk.
Because my boat wasnt as fast as the others, pretty soon, I was surrounded by fishermen trying to go for my catch.
Steves was 16 at the time.
He was part of a unique fleet of fishing boats out of Steveston known as the Mosquito Fishing Fleet.
Steves thinks the Mosquito Fishing Fleet was coined back in the 1890s.
It was called the Mosquito fleet because the boats were small like mosquitoes and because there were so many boats, said Steves. The fleet became quite a tourist attraction in 1903.
Trains came in from Vancouver and visitors came to see the boats.
Steves went on to say that by 1918, the Mosquito Fishing Fleet was the largest fleet in the world, numbering more than 3,000.
At that time, it would have been a third to a half Japanese and the rest Caucasian, he added.
In the 1950s, when Steves was fishing, most of the fishing vessels were small skiffs and outboard motor boats.
I was the only one on our group without an outboard motor, said Steves, adding he fished each summer while attending Richmond secondary.
Steves uncle, Allan Steves, ran a boat building company at the time, Steves Boat Works. Steves worked as a junior apprentice and the wages he made went into paying for the supplies needed to build his own skiff.
I built a 16-foot boat that costs me around $300, said the fourth generation descendant of Manoah Steves.
The summer he turned 14, Steves also worked one day a week t the Phoenix Cannery as a cannery slimmer. His job was to scoop the blood out of the inside of the fish and then wash them out.
It was mostly Japanese women and a few young guys like me, Steves added.
For that stinky job, Steve was paid less than a dollar an hour.
But working at my dads farm I only made .20 cents an hour so the wages at the cannery were great, he said. I also had to lie about my age because you were suppose to be 15 to work in the canneries.
It was also the same summer his parents installed an outdoor shower on the back porch.
Because of the smell of dead fish on my clothes, I would have to shower before I came into the house, said Steves with a laugh.
Meanwhile, Steves said in those early days the salmon runs were boundless.
We mostly fished sockeyes and springs we never bothered to fish for chums because in those days there were tremendous runs of sockeye and springs, he said.
His largest catch was a 45-pound sockeye, for which he was paid about 10 to 15 cents a pound.
It seemed like a lot of money then, Steves said. With my first paycheque, I bought myself my own portable radio and I used to bring it with me on overnight fishing trips.
If you were good at it, the money was pretty good back then.
His fondest memories were of the camaraderie amongst the fishermen and the sense of adventure. He recalled the time he was sleeping on his boat for a few days and he ran out of food. The only items left were ketchup and bread.
So, I made myself a ketchup sandwich, he said.
On those overnighters, Steves and his pals would tie their vessels together.
Only a couple of dozen boats would tie up overnight, he added. We didnt always stay out.
Each day though the Mosquito Fishing Fleet guys would sell their fish either directly to the canneries or head to Iona to the Packer boat, which would weigh them and buy them for the canneries.
However, there was a wizened old man that Steves knew as Stradiotti, who would give the young men two cents more per pound than the canneries would.
We wouldnt sell him our whole catch, maybe about a half or two-thirds, he said. He sold the fish to stores in Vancouver.
Like his great-grandfather, grandfather and father before him, Steves was drawn to the allure the coastal waters offered to a young man.
Meanwhile, Steves still lives in the same house that his great-grandfather, Manoah Steves, built in 1917.
Manoah Steves was the first European fisherman in Steveston. The strapping young man brought his young family to Steveston in 1877. At the time, said Steves, all that stood where the house now sits was mud flats.
My great-grandfather originally built the house on stilts, he added.
As soon as Steves father, Harold senior, was old enough he went to sea himself.
Then, my father, Harold senior, fished in the 1940s with the Mosquito Fishing Fleet as well, he said. His was a sail gill netter.
Steves paused for a moment and then as he said his goodbyes he added: It was a real adventure fishing in those days a great adventure.
