Fishing Derby under attack from all directions.

And the hits just keep on coming; the Great Northern Fishing Classic is certainly the main topic of conversation across the Northwest. Ever since it was announced that the Derby was on there has been no shortage of those that are suggesting that it may not have been the best of ideas ever thought up.

From city council conversations in both Prince Rupert and Port Edward to rather heated comments from the inland communities, the Derby is quickly becoming the lightning rod for all of the northwest.

Today’s on line edition of the Terrace Standard features an article which suggests that some hard feelings still linger further up Highway 16. With terms such as “hogging” and “short changed” to say that the reaction has been a tad negative would be an understatement. The Standard has been kind of leading the charge of late in reflecting (some might say creating) the backlash against the derby from the interior communities. Seemingly striving to stoke those inter community rivalries that seem to pop up around here from time to time.

To keep you up to speed on the latest amplification of rhetoric on the Derby we provide the entire article below.


Rupert fish derby draws fire for impact on area tourism
By SARAH ARTIS
Terrace Standard
Aug 16 2006

ORGANIZERS OF a major Prince Rupert salmon fishing derby are under fire for creating what critics call an unsustainable event that is competing with local derbies and hogging government money intended for the entire region.

"My personal feelings are that we got short-changed," said Terrace and District Chamber of Commerce president Glenn Kelly.

Called the Great Northern Salmon Classic, Prince Rupert's fishing derby runs from Aug. 1 until Sept. 15. It is the largest non-invitational fishing derby in western Canada and has prizes of up to $100,000.

The derby was made possible with $250,000 from the Northern Fund Management Committee, a group organized this summer to manage almost half a million dollars the province invested in regional tourism promotion.

The committee was set up to cover losses in tourism dollars due to the Queen of the North ferry sinking this past spring.

"Prince Rupert will benefit," Kelly said. "What did Terrace get?"

"And the derby is not what it should be either," he added. "The department of fisheries and oceans won't let commercial fishers fish for Coho and now every man, woman and child can go out there and kill Coho. That's crazy."

Kitimat city councillor Joanne Monaghan has similar feelings.

"We are supposed to be working together in the northwest and that one community is being greedy about it all. Why give to one community and not to others?" she said.

Monaghan and Pauline Maitland, who has helped organized the Kitimat fishing derby for the past four years, think a regional fishing derby would have been more fair.

"We can't compete with something like that," Maitland said of the Prince Rupert derby. "We don't have a zillion dollars worth of prizes."

Kitimat's 19th annual fishing derby runs Sept. 2-3, with top prizes valued at about $3,000.
But Bruce Wishart, executive director of Prince Rupert Tourism, that city's tourism agency, says the city's fishing derby was meant to benefit the region, not just the city.

"We are trying to replace the independent tourists that would be travelling to and from Rupert to catch the ferries," he said. "One type of traveller that goes up the highway and back is the fishers."

Each community along Highway 16 should benefit, because tourists are "doing the same thing - stopping for meals, fueling up, staying at hotels," Wishart said.

As for a regional derby, the logistics of managing a large-scale event would have been too difficult, he added.

With the high stakes up for grabs, it was important to localize the event for better control, he said.

Wishart said organizers have been and will continue to work closely with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to monitor fish stock numbers.