Nova Scotia Lobster Fishing Dispute: My Day 2

On October 23, 2020 by jmweb

I spent the first night in Saulnierville, waking up every hour on the hour to make sure I didn’t miss anything. A lot of the content of the late-night protests were coming from amateur video and I wanted to make sure I captured it, if it was to happen.

It was now Sunday. At this point, I was going to capture some landscape photos as I don’t have a lot from this area of Nova Scotia. Having landscapes of all the areas of Nova Scotia is rather important when it comes to calendars and books. People want to see their part of the province represented in such publications therefore I was to spend the day snapping some landscape pics.

As I traveled along the Western coast I ended up seeing a Coast Guard vessel traveling along the coastline. I spent some time capturing it and as it continued North, I thought this might make for some good photojournalism pics.

A Canadian Coast Guard vessel in behind the Meteghan wharf, home of many commercial fishing boats, in Meteghan, Nova Scotia, Canada October 18, 2020.

A Canadian Coast Guard vessel floats behind the Mi’kmaw checkpoint at the wharf in Saulnierville, Nova Scotia, Canada October 18, 2020. This, usual mid-shore Coast guard unit, usually carries an RCMP unit that utilize the Zodiac.

As the day went on, I continued snapping some pics. At around 6pm, I got a text and phone call from one of the wonderful editors at The Globe & Mail asking if I was still in the area. I was a short distance North of Saulnierville.

She said she needed a cover photo for tomorrow morning’s Globe & Mail from West Pubnico. So off I went.

While finishing up snapping a few photos, I heard someone say something like, he has two cameras, he must be media. The individual proceeded to say, “I am gonna go give him a piece of my mind”.

Great I thought. Here we go, my first confrontation. I had previously been warned by some CBC Nova Scotia friends as well as saw the video of the Global TV team being pushed away at a previous protest by commercial fisherman. I was also warned by Reuters about aggressive behavior by commercial fishermen. Where there is a possible risk, Reuters is always great with giving a heads-up about safety.

The fisherman approached rather quickly and vented about his frustration with media, in a semi-aggressive tone. I listened. He was unhappy the media had been what he considered, “one-sided”. I asked him why he felt only one side of the story was getting out. He stated he felt the media was biased. I asked him if there had been anyone from the commercial fishermans side communicating with the media at which point the tone really changed. It was no longer an issue with media but an issue with no one from the commercial fisherman speaking to media. After all, the commercial fishermen were told not to speak. At this point, more fishermen walked up to join in the conversation and a discussion started amongst the fishermen about the handling of this dispute.

I continued walking and talking with the first fisherman back to my SUV, after all, I had photos to file. We had a great chat about Pubnico on the way back and he ended up apologizing for venting at which point I thanked him for the chat as it was rather informative, especially to hear from someone directly involved.