SAGUENAY, QUE. – There shall be no vibrant ice-fishing huts dotting the frozen water close to Saguenay, Que., this 12 months after gentle winter climate compelled authorities to cancel the favored custom for the primary time.
The municipality about 200 kilometres north of Quebec Metropolis introduced final week that the ice wasn’t thick sufficient to open the fishing villages at Anse-à-Benjamin and Grande-Baie, which usually characteristic a whole bunch of huts and cabins which are common with vacationers and locals alike.
The information was an enormous shock and disappointment to individuals within the space, based on Rémi Aubin, who’s president of a neighborhood fishing group.
“Ice fishing for the individuals of the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean area is an exercise that isn’t solely leisure and financial, but additionally a part of the tradition of the individuals right here,” he stated.
Aubin, who has been fishing by the ice since he was seven years previous, stated the Saguenay fiord’s spectacular panorama, the quaint fishing villages that may attain over 1,000 huts and the presence of saltwater fish resembling redfish and halibut mix to create a novel expertise that draws individuals from all over the world and brings hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to the area.
However past the financial spinoffs for accommodations, eating places and tourism firms, fishing is a beloved exercise handed down from technology to technology and an enormous a part of individuals’s lives, he stated.
iStock.com/Chantale Ouellet
“It’s a bit like their winter medication that makes them really feel good,” Aubin stated. “For some individuals, it’s about travelling south within the winter. For them, it’s their fishing hut. So we’ve taken away their happiness, and it even has an influence on individuals’s psychological stability.”
The controversy round whether or not to cancel the season was so heated that Contact Nature, the group that manages the villages, posted a message on its Fb web page in early February pleading for respect amid what it referred to as “defamatory allegations and private assaults.” On Monday, calls to the group went to voice mail, with a message saying it was receiving too many calls to reply them promptly.
Dominic Arseneau, a spokesman for the town of Saguenay, stated the choice to cancel wasn’t made calmly. He stated the ice at one web site was about 27 centimetres thick — wanting the 30 cm minimal for giant autos and huts — whereas on the different web site it was solely about 20 cm.
“It’s unhappy. No one was completely happy to make that call and it was made with a heavy coronary heart, however on the identical time we will’t play with individuals’s security,” he stated.
He famous {that a} survey carried out by the group that manages the ice villages discovered that almost all of respondents — 58 per cent — most popular to not open for a season lasting 4 weeks or much less. Individuals who paid to order a spot on the ice shall be refunded, he added.
Francis Girard, vice-president of the game fishing affiliation Affiliation des Pêcheurs Sportifs du Québec, stated the information is a “reflection of the local weather adjustments we’ve seen in recent times.”
He stated ice fishing seasons within the province are beginning later and ending earlier, particularly within the southern components of the province. What occurred in Saguenay, he stated, is “an indication that what we’ve seen within the south of the province is slowly extending northward and in direction of the east.”
He stated ice ranges are thinner than they was normally, and that anecdotally he’s listening to about extra individuals needing to be rescued.
Nonetheless, he stated individuals can usually begin ice fishing safely on foot beginning at about 10 cm of ice — which remains to be current in lots of components of the province. Ice villages, then again, require a lot thicker ice due to the snowplows and vehicles wanted to put in the huts.
Aubin stated individuals in Saguenay are improvising, by heading out on the ice with lighter tents and snowmobiles or all-terrain autos as an alternative of huts and vehicles. He stated individuals who accomplish that proceed at their very own threat, as is the case in most areas of the province.
Function picture: An general view of some the greater than 350 ice fishing cabins on the Ste-Anne river in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Quebec on Sunday, January 15, 2023. The Sainte-Anne river is a tributary of the Saint-Lawrence River and it is called the Tomcod capital of the world. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Bernard Brault
