It was the middle of a sunny day on the West Coast of British Columbia.

Charlie, who had gone outside to check his newly planted apple trees, took a deep breath with a feeling of satisfaction at his family’s accomplishment yesterday. It had been no small feat to plant two apple trees in their yard the previous day, with the rain coming down so heavily.

“I’m going to have lots of apples in about five years,” he cheerfully thought to himself.

He could feel the cool breeze on his skin, and he smelt the salt air that had blown up over the hillside from the ocean.

As it was, the Tuckers only lived about three miles from the ocean, and on some rare occasions when the wind was just right, you could smell the salt in the air.

While Charlie was outside, Mrs. Tucker was searching for a healthy dinner, but she, to her dismay, was not having any luck.

As Charlie came in from being out in the backyard, Mrs. Tucker asked, “Charlie, what would you like for dinner?”

Having still the smell of the ocean lingering in his little nose, he could not think of any other type of food but fish. “Why don’t we have seafood, mom?” he replied.

“Seafood? Well, we don’t have any fish in our fridge, so we should go to the fish market before it closes. Come on, Charlie, let’s go get dinner,” she responded, with a smile.

Now at Sammy’s Selective Fish Market, Mrs. Tucker and Charlie headed directly over to the Sustainable Seafood Aisle.

“Why let’s see, Charlie, we could have oysters that have been farmed anywhere in the world in a suspended culture system. On the other hand, we could have spot prawns that have been caught off Northern Vancouver Island. Do you like sable fish?” she inquired.

However, Charlie’s attention had drifted and he was now off admiring a purple squid.

She then continued to read the little card about the sustainable practices for catching sable fish, “These Sable Fish have been caught from the Canadian Pacific or Alaska and they are trap and bottom longline caught!” Hmmm. They aren’t trawl-caught sablefish; that’s great, she thought to herself.

“Mom, what is that?” Charlie asked in awe, pointing at a fish with a long, sharp beak between its eyes.

“That’s a swordfish. Let’s see.” She started reading the little label about sustainable consumerism. “It says these Swordfish have been caught within Canadian waters and in the United States. They have either been harpoon- or handline-caught.* That’s interesting,” she thought aloud.

“What’s that, mom?” Charlie asked curiously.

“It says here to avoid buying swordfish that have been harvested with unsustainable gear types such as the harpoon/handline, or the pelagic longline from places like the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean or the International Pacific and Atlantic Regions.”*

“I’m not going to eat that,” Charlie blurted out.

“Well, you could eat it, Charlie, if you wanted, but it would be best to find fish that are local, that are caught in our Pacific ocean, rather than those fish caught far, far away. The small choices we make today, Charlie, will have huge outcomes in our future.

But, I think we are going to have sable fish tonight,” she said while reaching for a brown ready-made package.

“Whew, because I wasn’t sure how we were going to eat all of that Swordfish”, he said in all seriousness to his mom looking up at the front window display.

“You wouldn’t,” she chuckled looking down at Charlie. “Oh, my dear little man,” she said, brushing his hair away from his eyes.

The information about sustainable fish practices was influenced by David Suzuki’s blog site.*  For more information about these practices please visit: Suzuki’s Top 10 Sustainable Seafood Picks.

© 2011 Crystal Buchan