The last issue of Klahowya featured, on the cover, children wearing seafood masks they had made at a workshop held at Snuneymuxw First Nation. In early April, Snuneymuxw and Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo hosted a final seminar and feast for the five First Nations involved in a project that looked at how much seafood people eat and whether contaminants in that seafood could be a risk. The project was called “Traditional Seafoods of Vancouver Island First Nations: Balancing Health Benefits with Pollution Risks”.

Five First Nations participated in project

Early on a Saturday morning, people traveled from five First Nation communities – Ahousaht, Pacheedaht, Quatsino, Snuneymuxw and Weiwaikum – to join a group of experts for a wide-ranging discussion about seafood, nutrition, and the environment.

The day-long series of presentations, conversations and celebrations capped off a project that started two years ago. First Nations people had been asking members of the Vancouver Island Regional Wildlife Management Society about what pollutants might be in seafood. Some Elders were asking the question because they still eat harbour seals, which are high on the food chain and could potentially contain higher levels of contaminants than other seafood.

The initial query – “Is it safe to eat seals?” – led to Health Canada funding a study through its National First Nations Environmental Contaminants Program. After talking with the five communities that eventually joined the project, three basic research questions were made:
• “How much seafood is being eaten?
• “What is the level of contamination? And
• “Is it safe to eat these sea foods?”

Lead researchers for the project were: Dr. Peter S. Ross, a research scientist (marine mammal toxicologist) with the Institute of Ocean Sciences (Fisheries and Oceans Canada) in Sidney; and Tom Child, a University of Victoria graduate student who is Kwakiutl, from the Hunt family, at Fort Rupert near Port Hardy.

They focused on four ‘indicator’ species – the harbour seal, Dungeness crab, sockeye salmon and butter clam.

Dr Ross described the project: “Working with each community, we collected samples so that we could analyze them for a two priority pollutants – PCBs and PBDEs. Of course, there is a vast range of compounds that can be found in the ocean around us, but we knew data from these two chemicals would provide us with good indications about the safety of the sea foods we eat.”

Five ‘mini-workshops’ were held over the past six months in the five communities. In addition to participating in the dietary surveys, the communities generously hosted hands-on learning sessions with school children as well as presentations to the community detailing preliminary findings of the project.

After a day in the lecture theatre in April, participants made the journey to Snuneymuxw’s community kitchen for a feast featuring traditional sea foods and more. There was much laughter as comedian/puppeteer Derik Starlight entertained 250 feast-goers. And the evening ended, fittingly, in the bighouse as guests listened to drumming and watched dancers perform.

'We like our seafood'

If there were any doubts about how vital the Aboriginal food fishery is to coastal First Nations, they were put to rest by the consumption patterns found in the Traditional Sea foods survey.

The study questioned people living in five communities around Vancouver Island and discovered that:
• First Nations people eat 15 times more seafood than the average Canadian; and
• About 90 per cent of that food comes directly from the sea, not from supermarkets or restaurants.

Total seafood consumption of all people surveyed averaged out to 60 kilograms per person per year. That equals two servings a day.

Salmon, of course, is the number one seafood eaten in all five communities. It makes up more than half of the seafood diet in every community. On average, 38 kg of salmon is eaten per person every year.

But there are other favourite sea foods, depending on where one lives. For example, the top five favourites in Snuneymuxw were prawns, crabs, halibut, butter clams and Manila clams. In Ahousaht the top five were halibut, Manila clams, herring eggs, butter clams and sea urchins. And on the north end of the Island, at Quatsino, the favourites were halibut, prawns, eulachon grease, rockfish and crab.

Two major chemicals identified

The study looked at how much people ate the four indicator species – harbour seals, Dungeness crab meat, sockeye salmon, and butter clams and how much that seafood was contaminated by two chemicals – PCBs and PBDEs.

Samples of the four species were taken in the Salish Sea and off the Island’s west coast to determine levels of the chemicals in the meat. PCBs were used until the 1970s as a heat-resistant oil in electrical transformers but are now banned. PBDEs are used as flame-retardants.

In both cases, researchers found relatively low levels of the two chemicals, well within Health Canada’s guidelines. But one potential problem is that those limits were set for average Canadians and not for people who consume 15 times ‘average’.

PCB levels in seafood were less in west coast waters compared to in the more populated areas of the Salish Sea. Even though the chemical was banned more than 30 years ago, it is still appears in our foods. Harbour seals are at the top of the food chain, have the greatest amounts of PCBs in their blubber, but levels are still below government limits.

PBDEs are another story, however. Since they are still widely used including flame-retardants in furniture, cars and electrical equipment, levels have doubled every 3.5 years over the past 20 years. But even the highest concentrations of .831 parts per million (found in harbour seal pups) is well below government limits of two parts per million.

Although final results aren’t yet finished, indications are that the health benefits of eating seafood – and lots of it – outweigh any risks caused by chemical contaminants.