Skip to main content

Techniques that have evolved

Fishers no longer use the Kamouraska Islands as their home port. They prefer to fish in the St. Lawrence River or on the banks and mudflats opposite the islands. Like most fishers, the Ouellets use fixed fishing gear, taking advantage of the movement of the tides and the expanse of the tidal flats.

Fixed enclosures allow the following fish to be trapped during ebb tide: herring and shad in May, sturgeon from late May to early July, and eel from late September to late October.

Black and white photograph: Flavius Ouellet standing in shallow water next to a fish weir (interwoven branches). Left: partially submerged two-wheeled wooden cart. Weir: shelter/barrier, rectangular opening (fish entrance/passage). Île aux Patins, Kamouraska: traditional fishing.

Flavius Ouellet in front of a fish weir at Île aux Patins in Kamouraska.

Colour photograph (2024): reconstruction of a fish weir. Structure of horizontally interwoven wooden branches (thick vertical stakes). Outdoor environment: (green grass in foreground, trees, blue sky with white clouds in the background.

Reconstruction of a fish weir.

These Installations have evolved over time. In the past, fish weirs were built by weaving alder or birch branches onto stakes to form a long fence made of two parts extending into the water: the leader, a long hook-shaped enclosure about a kilometre and a half long, formed of some 2,000 stakes between which were intertwined a few branches of coniferous trees and branches of alder; and the bowl, a circular enclosure into which the leader directed the fish, which were then collected by the fishers. They went to their installations on horseback at low tide to collect their catch. Île aux Patins was the site of one of the largest weir fisheries in Quebec.

Stake puller on a lawn. Vertical wooden structure, metal chain, long side arm, front platform with hook. Background: vegetation, white farm building with green roof.

Stake puller.

Black and white photograph (1936): men building a fish weir. Two men on a wooden structure drive stakes into the ground with mallets. Another man on the ground prepares/ handles the materials). Right: ox (transports materials /assists with construction).

Building a fish weir in 1936.

 

 

Building a fish weir was difficult and had to be repeated every year. During an interview with anthropologist Marius Barbeau in the 1940s, Flavius Ouellet explained that he began working on his fishing installations in mid-April and dismantled them before All Saints’ Day (November 1). The work also involved replacing the stakes every year, as they had a lifespan of about five to six years.

During their sixty years of fishing on Île aux Patins, Flavius and Maurice Ouellet received help from local farmers who needed fish to fertilize their soil.

Black and white photograph (1937): two men weir fishing at Île aux Patins, Kamouraska. They stand in the shallow water inside the weir (interwoven branches). Men with round dip nets. Dense branch structure with light vertical integrated stakes.

Fish weir at the island.

The Ouellet family of Kamouraska and fishing from then and now Fishy stories