Wild Night

At 6 pm, four candidates took the stage at Radio Canada offices in downtown Montréal for the first of two debates that would help decide the federal election. At 7 pm the puck dropped at the Bell Centre where the Montreal Canadians were playing for their play-off lives. At 730, a block away, dinner was served at ASF’s 41st Spring Banquet, a lovely dish of roast veal and vegetable with a vegan option of a cauliflower steak.  

Perhaps not entirely oblivious to the events taking place just blocks away—there were a few phones and a lobby TV tuning in to the hockey game—the dinner crowd was treated to a hopeful outlook on the salmon population by ASF’s vice-president of research and the environment, Valerie Ouellet. 

As a light dessert of rich chocolate fudge and ice cream was served, auctioneer Charles Cusson, banged his gavel, appropriately a “priest”, the tool once used to dispatch fish before live release became the norm. People roared as bids on a variety of auction items rose into the thousands of dollars making the 41st edition of the Montreal Spring Banquet a great success in terms of fundraising for Atlantic salmon conservation and just plain fun and excitement. 

Perhaps Stephen Bronfman summed it up best when he leaped to the stage at the close of the festivities, and raised his arms shouting, “Les Canadiens sont la!” Probably to announce the local hockey team had won, but he might just have been referring to another tremendous show of generosity from the group of Atlantic salmon supporters.