It is their juvenile form that has turned an odd-looking, slippery fish into an expensive commodity. Elvers are now Canada’s most valuable fish. Driven by demand in Asia, glass eels can fetch thousands of dollars per kilogram (approximately a one-litre bottle full)—even sometimes more than $5,000 per kilogram. In 2022, fishers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick earned $39 million from 7,557 kilograms of elvers harvested, according to DFO.


I haven’t been looking for eels. This doesn’t surprise me.