“Home is the place to start.”That was one of the many lessons Telfer Barnes passed on to his daughter Tina as she was growing up, living close to the land around Toba Inlet decades ago.

So it makes perfect sense that Tina Wesley has returned home to Klahoose First Nation where she can look out her office window towards Toba and put the many lessons from her father to good use as fisheries officer for her people.

“He was so ahead of his time,” Tina says of her father. “Dad always talked about the destruction of the environment. He warned me about damage to oceans… We lived at 10 miles, between the Big and Little Toba rivers. The abundance of fish was incredible.

“He taught me to be environmentally aware at such a young age… We worked the drift nets and spent hours pulling them in… There was no dumping of anything; everything was recycled. I saw the innocence of our environment and assumed the whole world was like that. “He taught me to ‘do it right or not at all’ and that I was just as good as a boy, capable of doing anything from fishing to mechanics and building. I was in awe about it, those lectures from dad, and I still am.”

Some of those lessons came as Tina worked log booming grounds with her father at age 13. Others came while building a waterwheel for their house in Attwood Bay in Homfray Channel.

And those many lessons, summed up were: “Every individual has a choice, what tools you use and what you do with them… that if you want to make a difference, fisheries and resources is a good place to start… home is the place to start.”

So, that was why, after suffering a serious back injury, Tina went to university and earned a degree in resource management.

“It was a blessing in disguise,” she said of the injury. “It gave me the opportunity to come home… This is my niche in life, my passion. I know I can make a difference.”

Tina’s resume

Fisheries Officer- Klahoose First Nation

Resource management degree

Environmental engineer

Heavy equipment operator

First-aid medic

Habitat restoration and assessments