Traditional Territory of the Ts’msyen Nation (Prince Rupert).
Led by School District 52 in partnership with Ecotrust Canada, TBuck Suzuki, and Fukasaku, this initiative focuses on increasing access to locally caught fish on the North Coast. The partners created an annual fundraiser to raise money for the school district to support a harvester who can provide salmon for the school meals program, which serves over 400 students daily. The initiative worked with regional partners, including the North Coast Skeena First Nations Stewardship Society, to source the locally caught salmon.
Rupert Schools
T. Buck Suzuki
Ecotrust Canada
Story of Impact
The story below was shared by this initiative as their Most Significant Transformation Story, submitted as part of their final report. It reflects the perspectives and experiences of individuals involved in each initiative.
Our salmon in school project is a transformative food system project that will impact how salmon is accessed on the North Coast and surrounding regions. In terms of the most significant impact, there are a couple that come to mind. First of all, our district was able to work with a local fish processing facility and North Coast Skeena First Nations Stewardship Society to purchase locally caught sockeye salmon from the 2025 fishery. The salmon comes from the Nass/Nisga’a and Kitsumkalum demonstration fisheries. Being able to arrange a large-scale purchase of salmon for the district is a huge success in the way that we have access to salmon that is actually caught in our region at a reasonable, wholesale price.
The other piece of this project is a salmon focused (annual) fundraiser, which has not taken place yet, but is coming to fruition on March 1st. This fundraiser will help the community become more aware about the importance of access to this important coastal resource, the barriers inherent in doing so, and the value of integration of salmon into the school meals program.
Part of this project was to not only increase access to salmon for the school and community in Prince Rupert, but also to other communities. One great success came last week when Telkwa school district reached out to buy some salmon from us to use in their school meals program, as they have heard about the work we are doing on the project here. We will be starting by selling, coordinating and facilitating the purchase of 50lbs of salmon for use in their school meal program this spring. The need for salmon access through the corridor is huge, so we hope that we can grow this facilitation/access piece as we move forward. We are hoping to be able to help other communities access this wonderful resource for their programs.
This aspect of the project will be amplified through the currently planned “Connecting Food in the North” event being held in Smithers on April 28, as well as through the local procurement grant, both of which are working on moving Northern goods through the Highway 16 corridor, fish included.
As we move the project forward, we hope to be able to integrate processing salmon with community members and students into the fabric of the project, which will add another layer of value to this important project.
“I work with Telkwa and Smithers elementary schools (through Groundbreakers) on gardening and food related programs, and also volunteer with the Telkwa school PAC on their new hot lunch program. I have been dreaming about getting local salmon into our workshops or hot lunches and wondering how we can do it… I focus a lot of my energy on getting local fresh foods into our schools and salmon seems like something we should be able to access in this area.
How have you been able to source salmon for your program? That is what I wonder about the most. I haven’t made much progress with this but I have some ideas… Groundbreakers has a wild foods workshop and I wondered if the kids could go fishing, but that would be hit and miss and would require a fair amount of adult supervision.
I have talked to our First Nations asset worker at Telkwa school and she said that if it came from local First Nations it would have to be donated… not sure how we would approach something like that. Anyway I am curious to know how you have accomplished this wonderful thing for your schools and community… if you have any info that might help us develop some access to salmon for schools in our area.”
Project Poster
All posters are downloadable in print format. Original posters were designed at 3ft by 4ft; as such, we advise you to print at a similar ratio to ensure text and images are as accessible as possible.
Reframing Access to Locally Caught Salmon with School District 52: This project focuses on increasing access to locally caught fish on the…
Interactive Map
Use the interactive map below to see who we funded across the north.
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