Take a look inside this Tahltan woman's 'amazingly smokin' fish house

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Noreen Vance craves spending time in her simple, wooden fish house in Telegraph Creek, B.C.

"It's our culture to live this way," she toldCBCNorth on Facebook messenger.

The Tahltan womanlearned early on the importance of practicing her cultural traditions, like catching, drying and smoking fish.

"I started at a very young age with my grandma ... we use to walk sevenkilometresto her fishing hole and fish every day and pack fish back on our backs," she said.

That's when she learnedfishing was hard work.

But she also learned it was worth it.

"I crave the smell of my fish house," she said.

Vance can catch upto 25 fresh sockeye salmon while using a net at her favourite fishing hole in the StikineRiver.

"Then we haul the sockeye back to town where we have a fish gutting table ... then we haul it to our fish house," she said.

That's where the magic happens.

Vancehangs her fish for a full day before filleting it, because, she said,the salmon is too wetand mushy to cut right away.

"When it is dried for a while the fish fillets real nice."

The strips she cuts off the fish are called enacoga.

Once they are ready, so is the fish house with smoke from poplar wood.

"As soon as I cut my fish, the enacoga and salmon are hung in the fish house and the drying and smoking process starts," she said.

This processcan take up to a week, depending on the weather.

"The flavour is amazingly smokin'," she said.

But it's about more than just the taste.

"I feel grounded and closer to my grandmother," said Vance. "She and my mother taught me everything I know about fishing."