For six weeks, each summer, Alex Cormier has the salmon and helps them cross a migratory pass on the Military River, located in the middle of nowhere, 100 km north of Sept-Îles. For the past five years, he has also been one of the first witnesses to the decline of the king of fish in the rivers of Quebec.
Employee of the Moist River Protection Association, the 42 -year -old has been going to Katchapahun Falls, for the Moist River, where he became a migratory pass operator for a few weeks. The only means of transport to access this remote place are the canoe, from Fermont, or the helicopter, from Sept-Îles.
Photo provided by Alex Cormier
Alex Cormier in front of his workplace, the legendary moldy river
It is therefore by helicopter that it is placed near the Katchapahun falls with its equipment and food for three weeks at the beginning of July. A single mid-term supplies allows him to last three additional weeks before returning to Sept-Îles.
It is an unusual job offer that drew our attention at the beginning of June. On the Canot Quebec Facebook page, Alex Cormier was looking for a partner to support him in order to operate a migratory pass on the legendary mold. His message was not an invitation to Club Med …
“The most difficult is to stay a month in a camp without seeing people, not having a lot of electricity, a lot of flies, no internet (communication by satellite phone). The salary is $ 200 a day. Obviously housed (each their room) and nourished. For someone simple, who likes nature, who wants to withdraw from society for 3 or 4 weeks is paradise. The place is beautiful! »»
Alex Cormier expected to receive a few candidates at most, but more than 70 people expressed their interest in the position.
Less and less salmon
The migratory pass was installed in 1973 by the mining company Iron Ore Company of Canada, he says. The installation allows salmon to continue their path and go up the river even further. The work of Alex Cormier is first to open the doors of the various basins according to the flow of the river.
Photo provided by Alex Cormier
The migratory pass which allows the salmon to continue their rise in the Military River.
He also counts the salmon that passes and notes his observations: approximate size, seal bites, white spots (sign of an infection called saprolliosis).
In recent years, there have been seals at the mouth of the river [près de Sept-Îles]. Two years ago, there were bites on many salmon, sometimes they lacked backs of the back, but they are made strong and they are still able to go up the river!
Alex Cormier, migratory pass operator
The information thus collected will be transmitted to the Quebec Ministry of the Environment, which will analyze it.
What he sees every day are the signs of a discreet, but real collapse. Over the years, he has observed fewer and fewer salmon. Since 2020, the year he started this work, he observed on average 570 salmonids per summer, far from the balance sheets of the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s, where more than 1,100 fish were counted on average with a record year of 5,886 individuals in 1987. In 2024, he only saw 166.
Photo provided by Alex Cormier
Salmon going up the Military River.
These figures confirm a well -documented trend: the salmon are fewer and fewer to reassemble the rivers of Quebec. The Ministry of the Environment has also declared for 2025 the compulsory delivery of the captured fish.
There are also fewer and fewer fishermen, he notes. While they were more than 200 to register for the draw each year to access salmon pits, there were only 31 this year. No draw was necessary.
“Happiness is really relative”
Apart from his work partner, Alex Cormier meets little humans during his stay. But he meets on the occasion of the canoes descending the Moist River from Fermont. “I met Belgians, Russians, Americans and French who had already participated in the Olympic Games. »»
“They are with angels: I serve them a glass of cold water which comes from a source from the mountain. The purest water there is 6 degrees. They condom! »»
Photo provided by Alex Cormier
On occasion, canoes stop on the way and meet the guards of the migratory pass.
He generally drinks one beer per week: priority is in essential articles when you spend six weeks far from everything.
I remember three chums that descend the river and realize that I have beer. Three beers are still three weeks of alcohol consumption for me! I gave them one, a very cold beer! They replied that it was the best beer in all their lives! No need to have a PlayStation 5 or a Ferrari to be happy, finally.
Alex Cormier, migratory pass operator
He particularly remembers a group of young people who stopped at his camp to spend the night there. “They were doing the dishes inside the refuge and he was starting to be dark. I entered and pressed the button for the light. And then there, I have six young people who do wow!
“These young people, they surely have everything in life. And they were impressed by a light that lights with a piton! It is really one of my favorite stories: this is where we realize that happiness is really relative. »»
