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As I a little while back, I was invited to speak at the fundraiser that happened last week on the 34th floor of the Scotia tower downtown. In case you're unfamiliar this non-profit is not affiliated with the Georgia Straight newspaper; They're an organization dedicated to insuring the quality of water in the Strait of Georgia - you know, that large body of water between Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Island and the mainland - and they are doing some incredible work.

I was brought in to share my thoughts on fishing, my experience as a travel writer and my thoughts on conservation and why the GSA's work is so important. I spoke after whale toxicologist Peter Ross and former professional fisherman and shipping expert Mike Richards.

Have a read below for the full talk I gave. In it I bring up one very small detail of our neighbourhood (pictured below), and why I feel it's an important piece of the puzzle for conservation province-wide.

"Thanks for having me. I feel honoured to be here but certainly underqualified next to these two actual experts who spoke before me.

As Christianne [the GSA's Executive Director] just told you, I work as a publisher, and the work that I do involves raising awareness about the "Awesomeness" of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­and the surrounding area, and at times specifically the Strait. I'm speaking to you today as a sportfisherman - hence my not wearing a tie.

I was lucky to grow up fishing in the Okanagan and at an early age witness the Adams River Salmon run where millions of spawning fish literally clog the waterway. Has anyone here ever gone to see that? It's one of the most amazing sights, and I often thank my father for not only bringing me there and showing it to me, but also for ingraining an appreciation for nature in me as a child.

I've always loved fish but I've only recently become an advocate for the future of salmon here on the West coast. I half joke that the reason why I care so much about their wellbeing is because I hope it'll always be promised that I'll be able to go out onto a river or the ocean in order to catch and kill them.

I say I'm half joking because the statement is entirely true; I do enjoy going out and catching fish in order to feed them to my family. I also enjoy just being out there on the water. The resource is a huge part of my lifestyle and I know that healthy populations of salmon are an indicator of the health of our waters.

Over the past couple of years I've been lucky to be able to go on a number of travel writing adventures to fishing destinations like Sonora Resort, April Point and Painter's Lodge, and I feel I've also been lucky because I've been able to share those experiences with more than a couple hundred thousand readers. I've told stories of sportfishing and conservation while tying in organizations like the Pacific Salmon Foundation, raising awareness about the work they're doing to improve the chances for our Pacific Salmon.

Being invited to speak to you in support of the Georgia Strait Alliance I feel is really timely because just days after I had met with Christianne to talk about this event I saw a story on the news that not only made me really angry but it also made me physically ill. The basic gist was that some folks on the North Shore decided to dump the entire contents of their chlorinated pool into a storm drain that then went directly into a nearby stream where it killed a thousand or so fish. Not only did it kill them, but it bleached them. It was quite obviously really bad, for lack of a better adjective.

My first thought when I saw it was "Who are these evil bastards?!". But as I read further into the story it became apparent that it wasn't malicious of them, it was just complete ignorance on their part. To everyone in this room this is probably an unimaginable scenario, but this incident is an indicator that water quality and where we dump stuff from our homes is a topic that needs to be brought into the public eye more than it already is. This could happen anywhere, and in fact it's probably happening somewhere right now but it's just not being detected or reported on.

In the neighbourhood that I live in, the Olympic Village - or The Village on False Creek as it's now known - the storm drains have an image of a fish engraved into them along with the words LEADS TO FISH HABITAT - KEEP OUR WATERS CLEAN. Every single storm drain has this etched into it as a piece of the design, kindof like the next generation of the painted yellow fish that you used to see all over the place.

There are no private pools in the Village that people might decide to drain nor do I imagine there are many toxic chemicals that need disposing of by most of the residents, but having this messaging highly visible helps to remind everyone about one of the things that make it the "Greenest Neighbourhood in North America". It's a growing neighbourhood with a few hundred residents, so the impact of this little detail might not be immediately visible, but in the end it makes the general population more mindful of our water...

in general.

This sort of awareness building shouldn't be exclusive to a single well-planned super-neighbourhood. This messaging about the health of our waters needs to be delivered so far that even the most ignorant people in the province - I don't care where they live - are made aware of the direct implications of their actions.

We need the Georgia Strait Alliance to be strong, and to be loud, for this reason. We also need them to continue their work that's maybe not as loud on the policy side, advocating for perhaps better storm drain marking systems – and reform in the salmon farming industry - rallying on the side of closed containment and insuring the future of these waters, and these fish that I think it's safe to say we all love so much.

Thank you."

Learn more about the Georgia Strait Alliance and how you can help .