Eulachon is a small fish with profound significance to Indigenous peoples throughout the Pacific NW. It was the first fish to arrive to spawn each year, abating winter hunger, so is known as the savior fish. Though many "oolie" populations crashed in the 1990s, the Nisga'a of BC have managed to carry out their traditional harvest year after year, benefitting from a run that remains strong. They smoke, dry, and turn the fish into fabled oil called grease. These images were created for a bioGraphic story about the Nisga'a nation's ongoing, but increasingly precarious, connection to eulachon.
