Inside the Generational Fight for Indigenous Fishing Rights in Yuquot Bay

Ray Williams recalls the day Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO, confiscated all the Mowachaht boats from Yuquot — his hometown and ancestral territory on the southeast tip of Nootka Island — in the 1960s.

“There were still a few boats left on the beach that day,” said Ray. “But the DFO came and burned them.”

With no prospect of earning a living, most of the community was forced to relocate to reserves near “Gold River” on “Vancouver Island.” Before long, Ray became the last remaining Mowachaht/Muchalaht to live in Yuquot year-round.

Ray was 80 years old during an interview in August 2022. A pillar of the remote Yuquot community and Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, Ray also holds the name Ghoo-Noom-Tuuk-Tomlth, which means “spirit of the wolf.”

As he tells his story from the small wooden house on the beach — the same one he grew up in — he looks out to sea and the memories rush over him like the tide. Memories of secret fishing spots, plentiful food and a way of life stripped from him and his family.

Although Ray and other Nuu-chah-nulth people have witnessed some progress on fishing rights — thanks to a landmark court case led by five Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations — it hasn’t been enough to break the cycle of harm caused by “Canada’s” forced control over fish management in their unceded homelands.