June 9, 2012 – To 21st century sport fishermen alewives are a freshwater pest, saltwater trespassers who compete for habitat with prized freshwater bass.
To Passamaquoddy tribal members, whose settlements on both sides of the St. Croix River separating Maine and New Brunswick date back 4,000 years, the prolific fish are seen as an important food source and as a critical element in the diverse marine ecology of Passamaquoddy Bay.
A two-day, 100-mile “sacred run” was held over the weekend between the Pleasant Point settlement and an ancient tribal fishing site at Mud Lake Stream near the New Brunswick community of Forest City. The run was organized by a group called Schoodic Riverkeepers, which is made up of tribal members from both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border who are focusing on restoring their ancestral river and the indigenous populations of marine species in the St. Croix River.
“These fish populations, especially siqonomeqok [alewives], are especially important to the Passamaquoddy and are essential to the health of our ancestral marine waters,” said Vera Francis, one of the event’s organizers.
For 17 years, the annual freshwater migration of countless tens of thousands of saltwater alewives has been blocked by a barrier on the St. Croix River at the Grand Falls Dam fishway that keeps the fish from swimming farther upstream to spawn. The Passamaquoddy want that barrier removed.
In a letter sent May 24, 2012, to the International Joint Commission that works to resolve disputes involving the waters separating the U.S. and Canada, Clayton Cleeves, Passamaquoddy tribal chief of the Pleasant Point Reservation, said his people want to see all alewife barriers removed.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News.