Bob Wright Legacy Award Recipients

Dr. Gerry Kristianson

When Gerry Kristianson moved from small town Saskatchewan to Squamish he discovered the world of sport fishing that is so familiar to those who grew up on the coast during the mid-20th century. Squamish was still a small town, isolated from the Lower Mainland, but was home to a seemingly endless series of lakes and rivers teeming with salmon and trout. It was here that Gerry discovered his love of angling. Gerry left Squamish to attend UBC and Australia National University, and then spent several years in Japan and Guyana with the Foreign Service, but his love of the coast and sport fishing would bring him back to Victoria in the early 1970s where he established a successful government relations firm, raised his young family and spent many hours on the water chasing salmon. It was in these years that Gerry formed friendships with many of the key players in the BC sport fishery and began to combine his expertise in government relations with his love of fishing. In fact, it was during these years that he worked extensively with Bob Wright in his advocacy work for the sector. Gerry sold his business in the mid 1990’s and retired early to his home on Piers Island. It was then that his involvement in the politics of sport fishing really took off. Over the next two decades Gerry was involved in a number of activities maintaining and promoting sport fishing. He has been involved with the Sport Fishing Institute almost from its inception, and in recent years served as a Director and Fisheries Chair. He is currently Chair of the Sport Fishing Advisory Board and is actively and passionately involved in every aspect of the fishery, working tirelessly to both foster and protect the advisory process which he clearly cares deeply about, and of course the fishery itself. He served as the sector’s representative on the Pacific Salmon Commission where he was heavily involved in negotiating the treaty between Canada and the United States His negotiation and political skills were of significant benefit to Canada in the successful renegotiation of the Chinook Annex in 2008 which was a difficult and at times controversial process. He served on the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission where he helped deal with multi-lateral efforts by Canada, the US, Japan and Russia to address illegal high seas drift net fishing. He served on the POST Project that used cutting edge technology to develop new data and salmon movements on the coast of BC. He helped the Middle Bay Aquaculture Corporation develop experimental closed-containment fish farm technology to address long-running concerns about the impact of fish farming on wild salmon stocks. Gerry has been recognized twice by Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s National Recreational Fisheries Award for his tireless efforts on behalf of the entire sector.