Weir

The past couple of weeks I spent a great deal of time at the outflow of Marcil Lake, getting in some late season bird counts, and enjoying the wildlife, and the solitude.

I always paused at this feature in the river, imagining the activity that teemed here a number of years ago. This, is a fish weir.

Rocks were placed in the river to form this feature, and inverted "V" pointing upstream topped with a circle of rocks forming a small pond. It was, of course, an aid Inuit built for fishing. Char returning to the lake in the Fall would be funnelled up the V channel, ending up in the circular trap at the top. In their they'd be speared with kakivak or simply scooped out by hand.

There are other fishing structures along the river. Mostly simply low dams that would slow the fish enough for them to be speared or caught. In the Fall, fish returning to fresh water were a bounty not to be missed. Stone weirs such as this, made sure that some of that bounty made it into the larder.