Bruce Burrows started his fishing career underwater, abalone diving. Fortunately it didn’t end there. His diving career took him to Scotland where he worked in the North Sea oilfield. After 6 years he had accumulated 286 days living in a decompression chamber. “One more season and I would have been able to say I’d spent a year of my life in a decompression chamber. Then I thought, why the hell would I want to say something like that? So I went home.”
In 1980 Bruce moved to Sointula where his choices of employment were logging or fishing. “I couldn’t remember all those signals a chokerman is supposed to know so I became a fisherman.” He survived several years as a beachman and eventually worked his way all the way up the ladder, 2 rungs at least, to drum man.
Fishermen may remember his popular newspaper column, “Channel 78, eh”, in which he explored such delicate themes as “Whither the salmon” and “Why is DFO trying to exterminate me?” In 1995 Bruce bought a gill netter and fished until 2001 when he was “Mifflinized”.
Bruce continued his relationship with fish, working in the environmental field, and then as the fisheries manager for the Oweekeno Band in Rivers Inlet. Currently he works as an at sea observer and managed to finish editing the River Killers while rolling around 8 miles off the west coast of the Charlottes.
“The River Killers” is a murder mystery set in the fishing industry. As well as being an intriguing hunt for a killer in such intriguing locales as Bela Bela and Shearwater, Bruce uses the book to take a few jabs at DFO- actually several jabs, a couple of left hooks and a well placed right cross. The book also deals with the madness of the fish farm industry.