Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services

Hay River (Oct 08/01) - Bert Buckley apologizes as he sits down in his favorite restaurant, where he would later persuade the owner to make coffee on the house for bringing in a new customer.

Dave Bert Buckley at the helm of Haley Dawn, named after his daughter. - Sullivan/NNSL photo

Bert Buckley is a Grade 4 dropout, but cold and dark Northern winters have instilled in this Hay River commercial whitefish catcher a life-long love of books and learning. "Reading is so important," he says.

"I smell like fish and diesel fuel."

No surprise there. Even though the sun had set, Buckley just finished work, getting his whitefish boat ready for one of the season's last trips.

There are interruptions, to return greetings from others. Buckley knows everyone.

"You look years younger," a man at the next table informs him.

"I was out on the lake for two weeks, that helps." This is an off-year for the 50-year-old Metis fisherman. He's been on the lake for just a few weeks this season because of family priorities. With wife June in Fort Smith learning to be a teacher, he's both parents to four children. For Buckley, family is first. He won't go fishing until after an assembly at daughter Haley's school the following day.

Another love is an insatiable desire to learn about everything possible, mostly by reading. Buckley is a Grade 4 dropout. When he eventually learned to read basic things on his own, he kept reading more and more.

"You get better with practice, until you can read books that require a lot of thought."

"Reading is so important," he says.

These days Buckley prefers books about mariners and the sea.

He credits cold and dark Northern winters for getting him hooked on reading.

"My first winter here there was nothing to do and I noticed another crewman used to read pocket novels so I gave it a try."

It's all in keeping with a lifetime of self-learning. One academic challenge was passing a navigation course which certified him as a boat captain.

His education is still in progress, especially since being appointed two years ago to the board of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation.

Buckley has a lot to say about South Slave's fledgling fishery and laments the dwindling number of the bigger boats, which are down to a dozen. There are plenty fish in the lake, and even the government says there could be double the amount of vessels.

Because of that, he doesn't understand why aboriginal people interested in traditional living buy their fish at the store.

His oldest son Bert Jr., 17, has learned the fishing trade but naturally, his education is the priority. The fishery will be a good thing to fall back on, the father figures.

"This has given him a work ethic. He wants to be a marine biologist. If he wants to fish at least he'll be an educated fisherman."

Buckley senior sometimes thinks of the night he and his 18 year-old nephew were steaming home in separate boats during a gale in 1985. The nephew, in a small, open craft, didn't make it.

Buckley came to Hay River when he was 18 to fish, because that's what he knew how to do. The lake at his birthplace of Buffalo Narrows Sask., which supported a commercial fishery, was getting fished out. By age 29 he could afford his own boat, the one he still uses which is now 40-years-old.