Geoff Hendricks' fish story for Fish Story

"My consciousness of global warming is perhaps most pronounced at my farm on Cape Breton Island where first, perhaps a decade ago, the spruce bud worm attacked a lot of the white spruce leaving patches of dead trees in the woods and then a few years ago the spruce bark beetle came along and killed off a lot more of the spruce trees. The winters were just not cold enough to kill the larvae. And last summer the neighbors said the ice never formed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It used to be that the people would go out seal hunting on the ice in the winter, and could drive from Port Hood out to Port Hood Island over the frozen harbor. With the spruce dying I haven't been finding the chanterelles in my woods that used to be there. Back in the 70's and 80's I was able to go into the woods and quickly pick a large basket full of chanterelles, and every summer we would dry them, and also pickle them and put them up in mason jars.

Could also talk about the water. When we were first coming down to Cape Breton in the 60's the water at the West Mabou beach and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was clear. Now it's not so clear and jelly fish have come in. Also in the 60's the fishermen would go out and bring in large Hake and Cod. Now they're restricted because of the diminishing stock and one can get smaller hake and cod from the local Fish Co-op caught in the Atlantic on the other side of the Island. Local fishermen will sometimes have some mackerel they've caught."

-Geoff Hendricks