Detroit River, ON

My waterbody is the Detroit River. My first memory of the Detroit River, I was a child, maybe 5 or 6 years old. My father took me down to the local docks and we shoreline fished and I remember catching a bluegill sunfish for the very first time.

From there I had a fascination with fish! At the time, I’m dating myself, but used to watch Jacque Cousteau and I thought I wanted to be an oceanographer. Turned out I ended up studying the Great Lake Seas, so the Great Lakes are my study vehicle and I work on fisheries and I work on Fish consumption advice, is the fish safe to eat.

So our ancestors settled the region in the 1750’s from France and we have a long history in fact part of my forebears were granted French long-farms along the Detroit River. We cleared that land and we actually contributed to some of the environmental degradation as part of that process, part of my tie to the Detroit River is helping to bring it back to life again.