A force of nature left us last night. Donna MacIntyre, longtime Fisheries Director for the Lake Babine Nation, passed, much too young, from the complications of cancer.

Donna was a passionate leader in her community and defender of their salmon resources. Donna also started one of the first ‘known stock’ First Nation commercial fisheries in B.C., restoring her people’s ability to employ the salmon resource to support employment and economic progress in her nation.

Chris Wick, co-owner of North Delta Seafoods, pictured with Donna and Greg Knox, executive director of SkeenaWild. Taken in a LBN community smokehouse near Fort Babine, BC at the confluence of Babine River and Babine Lake.

Donna often said Lake Babine Nation women forced the government into retreat the first time Canada, at the behest of cannery owners, came to destroy the Babine weirs in 1904, “and it would be us LBN women who will lead our people in the restoration of the fishery.”

As the first commercial buyer of in-river First Nation salmon back in 1992, I had heard of Donna and her desire to develop a commercial fishery in her territories. Meeting her, we agreed to help her set up a practical commercial fishery in Babine Lake. Donna not only set up the fishery but went on to access hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants over the years to create the infrastructure to support the fishery.

When I met Donna, it was on a deserted sandy beach near the village of Tachet. As I write this, there is a thriving ongoing commercial fishery on that same beach with seine boats, trucks, forklifts, crane trucks, packers, and a few dozen workers, fulfilling Donna’s vision of integrating a “traditional fishery, modern business.”

But Donna and I agreed, even back then, that a fishery founded on enhanced fish was not only unsustainable, but a threat to her people’s future. After leaving the commercial industry in 2010, I worked with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and Watershed Watch Salmon Society to support Donna in her efforts to reduce the negative impacts of enhancement on LBN’s wild sockeye populations and begin to rebuild them. Donna spoke of her wild streams like they were her children.

It broke Donna’s heart to see the collapse in her nation’s wild salmon populations from enhancement, mixed-stock fishing in Alaska and the coast, habitat damage, and climate change. She gave all her energies to the end to turn the situation around. We owe it to her to continue this work.

I had Donna’s son read her the following note I wrote her the day before she passed. I hope it paints a picture of Donna, the person, and the leader:

Donna

One of my most striking memories in a long career is being stopped in my tracks by the sight of a stunningly beautiful woman standing in Babine Lake, long raven hair, dripping wet, t-shirt clinging to her with rubber boots up to her knees, amongst a chaos of men and boys catching and loading sockeye on a beach.

But it wasn’t your beauty that took me by surprise. It was your confident, strong, and commanding presence. You were undeniably the leader. People were looking to you for direction, with not a little caution in their eyes. This was not a woman to be crossed. Something I would learn to my chagrin a few times over the next decades.

But something else shone in you, like an aura, or an energy. It was the passion you had for your place, the fish, and your people.

As you will all-too-well recall, this was the fishing industry in the 1990s. There were no women in leadership in the world I worked in. You were a revelation.
But it was something I would come to learn and cherish about the LBN people: Women were often the most effective leaders. They got things done.

The story of the woman challenging and overwhelming the nidos who came to tear down the Barricades suddenly leapt off the pages of a book in your form.

This first startling glimpse of you on a beach was the genesis of the respect, caring, and commitment towards, and for, you that grew in me for you over the next years.

I watched you grow from that young woman on the beach into a leader within your Nation. Many of us reach a place and plateau. But not you.

You had a vision of how to strengthen your people, their salmon resources, and their relationship with the salmon. But you knew, sadly, that you were still seen as ‘only’ a woman in a misogynist world.

You knew that being the smartest, the most passionate, and the hardest working was not enough.

So, you went back to school. I can’t imagine how difficult that was while you were being a Mom, a wife, a business owner, and working full time. You went back to high school, got your degree, went on to get an education in biology, and finally your MBA.

Your strength of character, intelligence, passion, and dedication makes you a force of nature.

We went through many ups and downs in our friendship. I pissed you off many times. You were never shy about why and what I needed to do to fix it.

But we always found our way back to being good friends and colleagues. Mostly because you were nearly always right, and I just needed to get sorted.

But through all the years, the ups and downs, and your amazing growth as a person and leader; I have never lost the wonder and respect I felt for that young passionate leader I met on the beach.

Because when I think of you, I see her. And know they are the same.

Love Greg