Once upon a time, any of the dishes on Olson’s menu could have been made using only animals and plants harvested from Haida Gwaii and from the seas surrounding it. Now, the k’aaw she serves to provide patrons a taste of traditional Haida cuisine have to be imported from Bella Bella, a town some 280 kilometers (174 miles) away on the Canadian mainland. The Haida have a saying: G̱andlaay iinang ad sG̱uuluu G̱ihl—the water is bubbling with herring. But it’s become a linguistic relic from a different time. The kelp forests that once provided a place for herring to deposit their eggs have all but disappeared.

Throughout the archipelago, what was once a lush underwater ecosystem is now an urchin barren: spiky balls as far as the eye can see. Historically, sea urchins coexisted with the kelp, which provided shelter and sustenance for the urchins and dozens of other creatures, including sea otters, abalone, herring, starfish, rockfish, salmon, and more. Sea lions followed the herring, and orcas followed the salmon.

But the fur trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries decimated wild sea otter (Enhydra lutris) populations, and with no otters around to eat them, sea urchin populations exploded. The invertebrates gobbled up everything in sight, clearing the area of the kelp forests on which the entire ecosystem hinged.

Conventional wisdom holds that sea otter recovery would help to correct the imbalance, allowing the ecosystem to return to its original state—not unlike the stories told about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone. And that could set the stage for the return of herring, and abalone, and other foods the Haida have relied on for thousands of years.