Mid-Canada Chapter of AFS (MCC)

President’s Message: 2023

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Greetings Mid-Canada Chapter

It brings me great pleasure to say that the MCC is again active! I would like to start by acknowledging that this has been in part made possible by our new secretary Amelia Corrigan and treasurer Jamie Card – Thank you! Though there has been a lot of turnover and challenges in the past decade with regards to keeping the chapter going, we have learned a lot in the past few years about how to be active in the face of adversity. With the advent of more tools that foster remote work and meetings I believe we are positioned to bring about a successful resurgence of this chapter which will aid in connecting our membership which spans the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The goal of this year is to increase membership and activity within our chapter to engage a broader audience of fisheries enthusiasts and professionals. To accomplish this, we are revisiting our bi-laws and adding additional positions focused on regional representation (by province) and student representation to provide additional opportunities to get involved. If you are interested, please reach out! Also, remember that the 2024 National AFS meeting is being held in Hawaii (https://afsannualmeeting.fisheries.org/)! So just another great reason to get involved. 

We hope that the momentum here, builds into future years and can ultimately culminate in regular workshops and symposium for our members be it in-person or virtual. 

Why the American Fisheries Society is important to me…

I joined the American Fisheries Society Student Sub-Chapter at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point (UWSP) in 2007 during my freshman year. This was an amazing opportunity for me as it introduced me to other like-minded fish fanatics and allowed me to learn the skills needed to conduct surveys, develop research questions and present them. During this time, I participated in and co-led long-term studies on walleye mark recapture and brook trout population estimates. The truly inspiring thing about these projects are that students at UWSP are still conducting these surveys adding to years of long-term data while building skillsets that will help them get future jobs (see https://www.facebook.com/UWSPFisheriesSociety/). My time in AFS did just that, allowing me to present research throughout the world (USA, Canada, and Norway) and landing me various jobs throughout North America (jobs in MN, AK, NY, OR, WA, WI, NWT, MB, AB) while connecting me with fisheries professionals in government, academia, NGOs and industry showing me the true breadth of fisheries opportunities. Now in my current role as MCC President I hope to foster a similar love for fish and fisheries research with our current and future fisheries professionals.