Wide-eyed about walleye on Lake Winnipeg

[Spiel]

Wide-eyed about walleye on Lake Winnipeg

 

CINDA CHAVICH

Special to The Globe and Mail

February 6, 2008

 

GIMLI, MAN. -- The fishing season may be over in most of Canada, but out on Lake Winnipeg, serious pickerel fishing is under way.

 

Fishermen such as Chris Kristjanson are setting their gillnets under several feet of ice for some of the finest pickerel (also known as walleye) in the world.

 

Canada's commercial pickerel fishery feeds the growing market for this sweet, mild fish, shipped to locales from Norway to New York. In fact, the fish that many prairie children remember catching in northern lakes has become one of the most expensive fillets in the fishmonger's case.

 

It's a case of supply and demand: With no commercial fishery for pickerel in the United States, all of the firm white fillets that turn up in top restaurants such as Everest in Chicago are from Canadian waters.

 

The pickerel fishery has never been better in Lake Winnipeg. "We used to go out all day and get a box of fish [80-100 pounds] and now it's 10 or 15 boxes," says Eric Goodman. "There's so much fish now."

 

It's a mixed blessing. In midsummer, the northern reaches of this massive water body are covered in thick patches of blue-green algae, a result of phosphates, manure and fertilizers from farms as far away as Alberta. While that makes for plenty of fish food now, in the long run, the algae dies, drops to the bottom of the lake and, as it decomposes, strips oxygen from the water.

 

It threatens a fishing tradition that has been carrying on since 1882. By 1887, 1.1 million kilograms of fish were caught in the lake, most by the Icelandic immigrants who settled here. Third- and-fourth-generation fishermen - the Kristjansons, Olsons and Goodmans - still make their livings from pickerel, pulling in about 3.2 million kilograms from the lake each year.

 

"We started selling fish when we were kids - we'd grab the bus to Winnipeg Beach in the morning and we'd peddle fish to cottages along the lakeshore," says Paul Olson, 89, a retired fisherman who remembers going fishing with his father on dogsled. His daughter Karen still runs the family's Gimli Fish Market in Winnipeg.

 

Today, the Gimli fishermen still head out on the ice, many in vintage 1940s and 1950s Bombardier Snowcats, from the end of November until the end of March. Which makes midwinter the best time to enjoy fresh pickerel.

 

At the Current in Winnipeg, chef Brian Roloff serves pan-fried fillets of Manitoba pickerel in a champagne beurre blanc sauce, topped with braised leeks. At Crave Kitchen in Regina, the wild Saskatchewan walleye is quick-seared with lemon sauce.

 

In Gimli, at the Beach Boy restaurant, you can indulge in the sweetest bits - the cheeks - ordered at the counter with fries and pop or Greek salad. Most locals, though, say they usually serve it up prairie-style - "fried in butter with mashed potatoes, creamed corn and pickled beets."

 

Unfortunately, demand is keeping prices high.

 

At Mariner Neptune, the Winnipeg fish wholesaler and retailer, the price in the shop is $9.99 a pound, more expensive than sole or cod, and nearly as high as Arctic char.

 

"It's one of the most expensive fish we sell," he says, "but Costco now buys 5,000 to 7,000 pounds a week."