Nisga'a History of Food

History of Food

Traditional Use

For thousands of years North Coast First Nations have harvested oolichan in the spring to provide food for their people. The oolichan were known to be the "salvation" or "saviour" fish as they were the first fish to arrive in the river after a long cold winter when most of their stored food supplies had been depleted. First Nations from northern California to the south Bering Sea along coastal North America fished for oolichan each spring in rivers closed to where they occupied the land. The oolichan and/or the oolichan grease was traded with neighboring nations.

The Saak, Oolican, Savior Fish of Lisims at Fishery Bay

The traditional name for the location of the fishery is Di’oots’ip – ‘a fortress’ , named after a high ground on a hill immediately on north end of the village of Fishery Bay.

This writer is bold to say ‘that the passion of Laxgalts’ap people is their Saak / Oolican Fishery’.

The Spring intertribal ceremonial and Oolican Fishing ‘convention’ which was owned, hosted and controlled by the nation was doubtless the single most important vehicle for the spread and integration of Northwest Coast institutions, art, and ideas.

The ancestry of the Git Ksi Lisims is interwoven with the origin of Lisims, the Creation of daylight, and the presence of the unbelievably valuable oolican.

It was in a contest with the ghost [spirit] people for access to this resource that W’iigat [very huge person] released light into the world.

The oolican, a finger-sized member of the smelt family is the mainstay of the culture and an historic staple of trade. In earlier times, Lisims people shared their oolican grounds with other Northwest Coast tribes – the Gitks’an, Ts’imsan, Haida and Tlingit.

“By canoe it travels to Sitka
                           on the north and Puget Sound
                          on the south, as well as up all
                          navigable rivers. Inland, borne
                          upon the backs of men, it goes,
                          no white man knows how far;
                          certainly to the Arctic Slope,
                          traded from tribe to tribe and
                          becoming more costly the farther
                          it gets from its source. How long
                          it has been made is mere conjecture….”

                                        Chismore, 1870.

To the Git Ksi Lisims, the oolican fishery meant three things: Survival, Wealth, and Power.

The fishery yielded the first food of the new year (Feb./March) and for this reason they are called ‘Savior Fish.’ In essence, ‘the oolican fishery saved many people on the Northwest Coast from starvation.’

By a process of rendering or clarification the small fish are processed to make the Oolican Oil / grease which was both a dietary requirement and the essential ingredient required for food preservation.

Oolican oil / grease is unique among fish oils—after rendering or clarification, it is particularly resistant to spoilage.

Thus, it was highly prized as both a food and the only medium in which berries, shellfish, crabapples, et cetera, could be stored/boxed for transport in any weather or storage at any temperature.

It was required to replace these fats when the ‘hard’ smoked foods are toasted and served. This oil/grease was required for survival. It was also required for travel in the bush where it was used for medicine as well as food. It was a prerequisite for war, and was used in displays of wealth when poured on the fire to illuminate, or sometimes taunt guests who, once seated near the fire would not, by custom, with-draw or even turn away without embarrassment.

Oolicans even appear to have been used by the Git Ksi Lisims as part of an oil-tempering process when they worked steel.

While Peter Farb does not discuss the importance of grease in fish preservation technology, he relates success in food (fish) preservation in general to growth in Northwest Coast populations and the importance of wealth, status, and rank.

The incredible yield of the seas, together with the discover of ways to preserve fish by smoking and drying, resulted in the piling-up of vast surpluses which in turn gave rise to large populations, much larger than might be anticipated in a hunting economy not located in such a favorable environment. The Northwest Coast Indians might have developed any one of several different kinds of societies. But they handled this large population, which possessed a surplus of food, by developing elaborate institutions based largely on wealth, status, and rank.

         Peter Farb, Man’s Rise to Civilization, 1968,p.134.

J. W. MacKay sometime Hudson Bay Company Factor and Indian Agent surreptitiously urged his compatriots to quietly acquire properties where the small fish could be taken. Soon the fish were rendered in an H.B.C. factory in 1877 and exported to Europe where even rancid grease fetched a high price as a medicinal subs-tance. At about this time the Git Lisims drafted an Oolican Petition in an effort to save their fishery. Collison and others extolled the medicinal virtues in various publications.

 “The Nisga’a And Their Neighbors” by John Corsig and the Nisga’a Tribal Council, 1986.

Researched/written by Alan Moore, email: bonycreek@yahoo.ca