If salmon disappears, everything else becomes folklore.

When salmon becomes secondary, we’re no longer managing a resource—we’re accompanying its decline.

At some point, we have to stop lying to ourselves. Atlantic salmon in Québec doesn’t need to be celebrated more. It needs to be protected. For real. Now.

When podcasts, magazines, mentorships, banquets, film festivals, photo contests, and the entire culture surrounding salmon take up more space than the salmon itself, there’s a deep problem. Not a minor issue—a complete drift.

We’ve reversed our priorities. We protect the image of the salmon angler. We protect habits. We protect events. We protect folklore. We protect the experience. But the salmon—the one that has to return upriver, survive, spawn, and ensure the future—where does it stand on the list?

So low that it’s almost invisible.

We talk about it. We photograph it. We film it. We use it as a symbol. We put it on posters, in magazines, in videos, at fundraising events. But while we celebrate it, it’s disappearing. And that’s the real scandal. Because without salmon, there are no salmon anglers. No culture. No tradition. No legendary rivers. Nothing left to tell. Only the memory of a resource we watched collapse while still organizing events around it.

Let’s be clear: more visibility will not save salmon. More content, more banquets, more speeches, more publications, more beautiful photos—none of that will reverse the trend.

What it will take is difficult decisions. Strong measures. Real sacrifices. Management that finally puts the fish ahead of the social, tourism, and cultural industries built around it.

Because at a certain point, continuing as we always have is no longer tradition. It’s blindness.

And what if, for once, On Écoutait Vraiment le Saumon? (we actually listened to the salmon?)

Not the interests. Not the habits. Not the excuses. Not the empty phrases. Not the “we’ve always done it this way.” The salmon.

The one returning in fewer and fewer numbers. The one crossing the ocean, climate change, predators, nets, estuaries, overheated rivers, handling, captures, catch-and-release, photos, and all the human pressure we keep imposing on it.

That fish isn’t asking for more attention. It’s asking for a real chance to reach the spawning grounds. It’s asking us to stop treating it as an opportunity—for events, for content, for personal performance.

It’s asking us to finally recognize the urgency.

Because when runs collapse, every salmon matters. Every spawner matters. Every fish that reaches the river should be seen as a chance to reproduce—not another opportunity to keep business as usual.

The question is no longer how to preserve the angler’s experience.

The real question is: how much longer are we willing to sacrifice the salmon to preserve the illusion that everything can continue as before?

We have to choose. Do we protect a culture that refuses to change? Or do we finally protect what makes that culture possible?

Because one day, it will be too late to pretend we understood.