Seafoam Seafoods
The salmon products you are enjoying come from Seafoam Seafoods, the brand representing our First Nation’s community’s fishing enterprise, Pacheedaht Fishing Corporation Inc. Our community of Pacheedaht is located on the southwest corner of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, home to rugged coastlines, open ocean, and pristine wilderness settings.
Our fisheries include a mix of salmon, groundfish, and shellfish, including Dungeness crab. Historically we were once whalers. Our fisheries programming includes both our modernized fish processing plant and smokery which are central to our brand, we are also responsible for a variety of salmon habitat restoration, stock rebuilding, assessment, and monitoring.
Location & Significant Feature
Pacheedaht’s traditional and ancestral homelands are adjacent to Port Renfrew and sheltered inside the inlet of Port San Juan, at the southern gateway to British Columbia’s 75-kilometres West Coast Trail. Our Pacheedaht Campground features stunning views from the beach at the head of the inlet and our fish processing plant and primary sales outlet are just steps away from the foot of the government dock.
The traditional and ancestral homelands of the Pacheedaht First Nation include Port Renfrew, Port San Juan, and the tributaries of the Gordon, and San Juan River estuaries. The traditional territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation includes the lands and waters along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island between Bonilla Point and Sheringham Point. The territory reaches out to sea to the salmon, halibut, and cod banks and including the pristine waters of the Swiftsure bank, and the headwaters of streams and rivers that drain to the coastline (source).
Mission
The Pacheedaht Fishing Corporation is a relatively new enterprise created by our community to manage our marine fisheries, processing and sales activities. Through this company we aspire to create an economically viable and environmentally sustainable, integrated and scaled seafood company with full involvement by Pacheedaht people.
Traditions
Pacheedaht First Nation and neighbouring Ditidaht First Nation share a common history, language, and culture. We are among the southern-most Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations whose ancestral territories cover much of the west coast of Vancouver Island. We are a potlatch culture, stewarding and sharing the wealth of our rich ocean and coastline is central to who we are. Potlatches are central to the whole concept of status and rank in our communities.
The Pacheedaht language diitiidʔaatx̣ is similar to that of its neighbours and relatives amongst the Ditidaht First Nation and also with the Makah people across the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington State.
History
According to their oral tradition, long ago Pacheedaht and Ditidaht ancestors lived together as once tribe at a village located on the river whose native name is diitiida, now called the Jordan River. During the legendary great flood, some of the people living at diitiida managed to survive by fleeing in a canoe that was anchored to the top of a high mountain in order to escape the rising waters. Afterward, some of the survivors settled at Whyac on the Pacific Ocean coast near the outlet of Nitinat Lake and became the ancestors of the people who today form the Ditidaht First Nation. Other flood survivors returned to diitiida.
Modern Fishery
Pacheedaht Fishing Corporation currently is responsible for a number of business holdings including fishing licences and quotas, a community fishing vessel “Deltaga” and we own and operate our fish plant in Port Renfrew. We have a partnership with SalPac Fisheries LP with Snuneymuxw First Nation and are in co-management agreements with DFO, as well as being involved in the modern treaty process.
We contract out our groundfish operations and we lease out some licenses to generate revenue, if the licenses are not being fished by our own members. We process all of our local commercial harvest in the community fish processing plant, and do custom processing for the local recreational fishery. We also own and operate a mobile fish stand, complete with freezers, live tanks and even a commercial steamer we use to supply fresh cooked crabs in-season. The highlight of our plant is the smokery where our smoke-master Nick Orton (formerly Sointula Wild Seafoods and Smokehouse) impresses our clients with his no-nonsense organic ingredients and his unique products and flavors that are inspired by our own smokehouse traditions.
Pacheedaht leases the Port Renfrew Community dock in Port Renfrew and contracts with the Pacific Salmon Commission to unload and purchase test caught salmon there that generate data used to inform salmon fisheries management throughout the south coast. It is also the source of our small but sustainably caught salmon sourced for our fish plant. That is why we have salmon available for market when many other fisheries around the coast are shut down.
About Our Logo
The Seafoam logo is a Pacheedaht artist’s rendition of a halibut. The halibut is popular in both traditional and modern fisheries and is harvested predominately at swifsure bank (the largest bank in western North America). Pacheedaht and Ditidaht share a fishing bank in the strait of Juan de Fuca. The logo was developed by a Pacheedaht woman – Carlene Charlie when she was only 17 years old.
At a time before modern memory, the village at diitiida (Jordan River) discovered seafoam in the San Juan River so thick that It covered the river banks to about 8 feet (2.4 m) above the level of the river. So they decided to call the river pacheeda or p’a:chi:da, which means ‘Seafoam’, and ever since that time, the band has been called Pacheedaht meaning Children of the Seafoam. Sources: Cerantes Rocks, San Juan Point | CoastView
Our Products
WILD BC PINK SALMON
Premium WILD BC PINK SALMON is a great source of healthy Omega-3s, vitamins, and anti-oxidants as part of your regular menu.
Seafoam Seafoods offers a variety of locally sourced wild pink salmon products such as the shelf-stable Candied Wild Pink Salmon 60g packages and in-house smoked Wild Pink Salmon full sides.
This code denotes a traceable sustainably harvested product. Product traceability is validated by Authentic Indigenous Seafood.
