On July 1st Four Seasons YEW Seafood Restaurant and Bar's chef Ned Bell set off to cycle across Canada. He'll be keeping us posted with his journey from the road for the full eleven weeks. Here now, the eighth of his diary entries.
The last week and a half has been the toughest yet so far for the Chefs for Oceans Team. Not to say it still isn't incredible to be out here, sharing the message, raising awareness and experiencing some of the best that Canada has to offer.
Let me first say, that Northern Ontario is spectacular. Beautiful, rocky, rolling, perfect weather but definitely chilly and crisp in the mornings up on top of the Great Lakes. The journey got tough these last two weeks mentally. Emotionally it can be challenging to spend six to seven hours on your bike and ponder what is next after this journey. What's next for Chefs for Oceans, and what's next for the health of our waters and the fish that swim in them.
This is a giant task. A global project. But really, when I break it down in my mind, the mission will be leaps further ahead if we leave a legacy for the next generation. That legacy might start with us accomplishing one of our goals, to create a National Sustainable Seafood a Day on March 18. The most common question I am asked out here is, "what is sustainable seafood?' That's a hard one to answer in a simple clean concise way. It means different things to different people.
To me, it starts with healthy lakes oceans and rivers, healthy communities that rely on the sport and commercial fisheries, and seafood that comes from wild well managed stocks, that will be around next year, and next decade, and next century. It also involves land based closed containment fish farming, improved regulations, and rules surrounding current fish farms. Traceability of the fish we import and continued regulations protecting what little fish we have left in the world's seven oceans.
Overfishing is the greatest threat facing the oceans today. By catch, waste, mismanagement of the resource as a whole. It all starts in the communities we roll through, the provinces and territories we hope to touch with this message. Maybe not now, this summer, or next year, and the years after that, but hopefully the grassroots groundswell of support will continue to build. People care about this, they genuinely do. And they want to help, they want to know how to help.
As I reached a personal milestone last week, Mile Post 3339, and the Terry Fox Memorial, I realized something much bigger than me: Terry was a true Canadian hero. One that fought every step of his journey. His mission wasn't finished the day he stopped running. In fact, it still hasn't stopped. It lives on in the hearts and minds of millions of Canadians and people around the world who have suffered from of struggled with the tragedy that is cancer.
Our mission isn't on Terry's level, but it is an important one. One that affects 100's of millions of humans worldwide. Healthy fish feed people. We need healthy lakes oceans and rivers, for water, for fish, for life.
· Chefs for Oceans. [Official Site]
· All Ned Bell Coverage [EVAN]
· All Chefs for Oceans Coverage [EVAN]