Competition for access to and control of the abundant salmon on west coast leads us to a history is rife with bandits, smugglers, and other lawbreakers. The issues surrounding licensing, environmental protection, and fisheries management are obviously pertinent to the history of law-enforcement, and make for a fascinating study of policing the border. In her book, The Nature of Borders: Salmon, Boundaries, and Bandits on the Salish Sea, Lissa Wadewitz, has explored the history of policing salmon fishing. Starting from the Indigenous Peoples that fished the Salish Sea and the rivers that ran into it, she explores how the area has long been the site of intensely managed fishing practices. When settler colonial states drew the boundaries along the 49th parallel they largely ignored the behaviour of the salmon. As a result their efforts to police the salmon fishery were woefully inadequate. As the canned salmon industry grew and illegal fishing escaped detection, bandits competed and stole fish from each other, nation states were unable to responsibly manage the salmon fishery. Overfishing, social tensions and international mistrust were piled on to environmental devastation and by the first quarter of the twentieth century it was clear that the fishery was in decline. In this interview we talk about the complications of jurisdiction, dispossession, and the challenges of policing this precious resource. We talk about the challenges of accessing historical sources in the history of policing illegal activities and joys and goals of writing about the histories of environmental regulation and its failures.