INTRODUCTION In October of 2001, the Leggatt Inquiry into salmon farming traveled to four small communities (Port Hardy, Tofino, Alert Bay, and Campbell River) close to the centers of operation for the finfish aquaculture industry in British Columbia (see fig. 1). In doing so, it gave local people, particularly First Nations people, an opportunity to speak about salmon farming using their own vocabularies, styles of speaking, and forms of knowledge. Their testimony, however, was about much more than salmon farming. In fact, most of the talk at the inquiry focused upon people’s sense of place and community, and their understandings of their way of life. In particular, the inquiry brought to light the legal and political context in which the salmon farming industry operates. This paper focuses on narratives that in technical and scientific circles would probably be considered rambling, anecdotal, and off the subject. Much of the background needed to make sense of these accounts of fish farming lies hidden in the colonial context of the industry and the ongoing struggles of Native people in British Columbia for recognition of their rights to land and resources. In particular, the material practices of the colonizers seem to produce Native identities quite different from the ones Native people themselves know and rely on. My analysis of the Leggatt Inquiry tries to give voice to the Native people who appeared at the inquiry by showing that, while they are certainly the victims of continued intrusions into their territories and ways of life—and, as I hope to demonstrate, salmon farming represents such an intrusion—they are not passive bystanders in the process. Instead, the aboriginal people who spoke about salmon farming at the inquiry creatively and strategically employed a variety of devices that would help others see the controversy over salmon farming as they themselves did.

The coast of British Columbia (BC) is host to runs of salmon that have been the economic, social, and cultural basis of Northwest Coast Native societies for millennia. Wild salmon hatch in streams and spend varying amounts of time there before migrating to the ocean. After spending up to several years in the ocean, these fish return to their natal streams to spawn once, then die. These spawning cycles facilitated productive Native fisheries over the centuries and, since the 1870s, industrial fisheries for global markets. Today, industrial salmon aquaculture sites can be found almost everywhere in the protected waters near shore, along the migration routes of what were once flourishing populations of Pacific salmon. Fish farms compound the destructive effects of more than a century of logging, overfishing, and urbanization on the wild salmon fisheries. The most direct and striking impacts of fish farms—ones that are directly observed by many local Native people—are the spread of fish diseases and waste materials into the surrounding habitat. Sea lice infestations of wild stocks are on the rise: these parasites and other disease organisms concentrate in the densely stocked net pens and appear to spread easily to passing wild salmon. Although a few fish farms are stocked with chinook salmon, a species that is native to the region, most farm sites contain Atlantic salmon. The reality of salmon escapes from net pens and the fact that Atlantic salmon originating from fish farms have been shown to spawn successfully in BC’s rivers have raised grave concerns about the ecological consequences of the invasion of local streams by this exotic species of salmon. Furthermore, the effects of the sewage emanating from fish farms are often noted by Native people using traditional clam digging and fishing spots.