Mandy Wesley is what her peers call a “girl guide” – a term of genuine respect from the perspective of the rough and tough male fishing guides throughout the sport fishing industry. In fact, Wesley’s skills as a guide are of such a high level, she was selected to be one of the 10 challenge assessors for the new Tidal Angling Guide certification program.
Wesley grew up in Haida Gwaii in an outdoors-oriented family, one steeped in the traditions and folklore of the Haida people. Her aunt would take a group of nieces and nephews out for the day to fish the river bank for trout, steelhead and Coho. Other days, an uncle would get a few kids in his skiff, and they would fish Skidegate Inlet. A highlight of Wesley’s year was competing in the local Coho Derby alongside her parents. “Fishing is something that has been present in my life for as long as I can remember,” she says.
When her father started guiding for a fishing lodge, Wesley got a job as a dock hand. “With my foot in the door, I worked my way up to guiding,” she says. “I couldn’t believe someone was willing to pay me to take people fishing.” She worked five years for West Coast Resorts’ Englefield Bay location, then Haida Fishing Expeditions of Skidegate. Wesley then spent five years running the West Coast of Haida Gwaii daily with Sandpit Adventures. She now guides for Good Hope Cannery in Rivers Inlet, where she completed her first season in 2011. Away from the job, she is a mom with a 13-year-old daughter.
For Wesley, guiding is a dream career. “I love having guests that come back and want to fish with you again the following summer. I love the excitement of first-time fishermen as they get hooked on the sport. But my fave part is when a guest is satisfied with the amount of fishing he or she has done and wants to go explore the places I’ve been talking about during the fishing. I like to entertain guests with stories about the local history and culture. It is not simply our job just to catch fish. We teach people about the resource and why it is important to preserve it for future generations. We entertain them with stories about the local history and culture and hopefully instill an interest in them to return and see more for themselves.”
Her new credential as a TAG assessor dovetails nicely with her concern for her guests and the fishery. “To me it means a higher level of service,” says Wesley. “It brings everyone onto the same playing field with the same level of education regarding stewardship and hospitality. The certification takes the first step to educating guides on what their real responsibilities are, and hopefully brings a better standard to the industry as a whole. It is a reminder that we want to do this job for years to come.”
TAG certification, she believes, will help guiding be taken seriously within the tourism industry as a whole, while also assisting lodges with their specific hiring challenges. Frequently, she says, remote lodges will hire someone who is simply known to other staff because of the risk inherent in hiring an unknown applicant who will have to be transported to the lodge at some expense. “If there is a certification, it will become easier to hire people based on qualifications.”
For those aspiring to be fishing guides, Wesley recommends the Coastal Eco-Adventure Tourism course that is offered through Northwest Community College. “It is an intensive guiding course that gave me a lot of certificates that were very helpful for the job.”
