I had the opportunity last week to sit down and chat with Terry Boulton, a man whose ancestors have been a part of the town since the early 19th century.

Boulton, having grown up in the Docklands into a family that began commercial fishing around the 1830s, is a wealth of knowledge about the history of that industry, the people involved and its impact on the town.

Although our discussion was focused around Boulton’s vision for an interpretive display to educate visitors and residents alike – more on this in a future column – on the history of the Docklands, this chat was liberally sprinkled with facts about the fishing industry.

As I left, Boulton presented me with one of the books he has authored, (“Destroyed: Commercial Fishing in Niagara”) and last evening I sat down and read about a fascinating slice of Niagara history that I had been largely unaware of.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Lake Ontario was considered one of the finest — if not the best — fisheries in the world.

The lake waters teemed with Atlantic salmon, lake trout, sturgeon, blue and yellow pickerel (walleye), black bass, herring and etcetera.

It was only natural that by the 1830s, a thriving commercial fishery industry would take advantage of its apparent endless abundance.

At its peak in the latter half of the century, in addition to supplying the local market, two freight cars full of fish destined for the American market — transhipped through Buffalo to New York — were being shipped out of Niagara-on-the-Lake by train.

Twenty extended families plied their allotted waters in fishing boats and around these harvesters grew other businesses; employers who processed the catch in smokehouses (etc.), boat builders, net manufacturers and so on.

The commercial fishery and its associated businesses formed a vitally important component of the local economy.

But no natural resource is “endless,” nor is there any business sector that can maintain high levels of productivity unless carefully managed on the basis of long-term wealth creation.    

From the beginning, rampant overfishing decimated the natural fish populations.

By the century’s midway point, Atlantic salmon had virtually disappeared, and was declared extinct in Lake Ontario by the end of the century.

Catastrophic declines in the lake trout, blue pickerel, yellow pickerel and sturgeon populations followed during the next few decades. Even the lowly herring (one of the backbones of the industry) suffered a similar fate.

Overfishing, however, was not the only culprit in this story.

Raw sewage and industrial wastes pouring out of open pipes from Niagara Falls, N.Y., Buffalo and Niagara Falls, Ont., were spewed into the river, which carried the poisons down to the lake.

Indiscriminate clear-cutting of the forests raised the ambient temperature of the air and freshwater creeks across Niagara, while increased erosion silted up the watercourses, effectively ruining the all-important fish spawning grounds.

And, the warmer waters — deleterious to cold water species like salmon and trout — actually benefitted the invasive foreign species, such as lamprey, alewife and shad, many of which preyed upon the eggs, fry, fingerlings and adults of the native fish.

By the 1930s, only the hardiest of the commercial operators were left and most of them had other jobs to supplement their income. And by 1955, the fishery was virtually gone.

Now, there is a great deal more to this story than I have related here and, if you’re curious, copies of Boulton’s books can be obtained at the NOTL Museum.

However, it is clear that the failure of the commercial fishing industry in Niagara (and elsewhere on Lake Ontario) is a textbook example of short-sighted management based on the idiotic belief — one that remains common across North America — that “the good times” will go on forever, even in the face of what people do or fail to do.

I cannot help but find the story of the rise and fall of Niagara’s fishing industry analogous to the edge of the precipice that the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake stands upon today.

For decades now, really since the Shaw Festival Theatre opened in 1973, we have been building an economy largely based on tourism.

In fact, it is widely touted that over three million people visit Niagara-on-the-Lake annually.

Why do they come here and to this town in particular?

Some may point to the wineries as the principal draw, however I am forced to point out that towns like Grimsby and Beamsville have an equally thriving wine industries, but welcome significantly fewer visitors compared to NOTL.

Perhaps it is the Shaw, but it only welcomes about 325,000 guests each year. Admirable though that number may be, it certainly doesn’t account for more than three million tourists.

Is it the shops and restaurants? Not likely — they exist largely as a service to visitors.

Bluntly, in a town of 19,000 people, most would not exist in the absence of established pre-existing tourist traffic.

Speaking from personal experience, prior to moving here nearly a decade ago, my wife and I were regular visitors to NOTL.

Sure, when we made the trip down here, we always stopped at a few wineries along the way, but that might just as easily have included 14th Street (back when it was on 14th) as Marynissen.

We attended the Shaw a couple of times per year, typically stayed in a B&B, and ate in a local restaurant.

But none of those things were the principal reasons for which we kept returning year after year.

We came to Niagara-on-the-Lake because it offered the opportunity to walk along tree-lined streets, to enjoy a gentle peace of mind engendered by the slower pace, the smiles and chats with residents while surrounded by the rich cultural heritage reflected in the landscape and built architecture that embraced 200 years of congenial social evolution.

It was the gracious nature of all parts of the town that kept drawing us back and the reason we moved here.

Moreover, it is this sentiment I hear echoed by the many hundreds of residents I talk to every year — those both born here and those who have come from away.

And, similarly, it is what I am told by the many visitors who engage me on the street every week. 

It is this gracious nature that a series of decisions by the current town council is threatening to destroy and replace with contextually inappropriate, crass tourist venues and soulless residential development.

And they justify these decisions with excuses such as the short-term fiscal management of legal costs, the professional staff (who apparently consider the official plan an obstacle rather than a defining principle) told them they should and the implied suggestion that all development is good and will lead to a more robust economy.

I am sure a similar thought process, or lack thereof, was employed by the 19th-century commercial fishermen as they raped the fishing stocks, threw “garbage” fish like sturgeon up on the shores to rot and burnt vast quantities of netted whitefish because the market was gutted. 

To paraphrase the writer and philosopher George Santayana: one can either learn from the past or be condemned to repeat it.

Let us hope this council listens to the voice of the people, takes a moment to learn the lessons of the past and corrects their mistakes while charting a course into a sustainable future.

Keep in mind, one can kill the goose that laid the golden egg — it has been done many times before.

This time however, what will we have left to build back from if the character of the town eradicated by Las Vegas style development, the farmlands consolidated (as per a recent piece of provincial legislation by the Ford government) and our gateway entry skyline a duplicate of Mississauga?

There are a couple of local petitions now on change.org. I encourage you, let your voices be heard.