I do not know about this because I wasn't even using bitcoin at the time, but I have checked the price history of bitcoin before, 2017 was very bullish all through which is a reflection of what you are commenting to be true because the fee will be high when the mempool is very congested while bull market is a reflection of mempool congestion.
The high fees during 2017 was only partially because of the bull run, and I dare say it was the smallest contributor. The biggest reason why fees were so high in 2017 was because of the spam attack sponsored by certain groups including the shitcoin pumpers (Dash and ETH specifically).
You can always check the blockchain using a block explorer.
During 2017 fees per block went as high as 10
BTC (ignoring the extremely high fee of 3 blocks: 79.66, 51.04 and 30.72
BTC) with 990 kb blocks.
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/blocks?s=fee_total(desc)&q=time(2017-01-01%2008:39:09..2017-12-01%2008:39:09)#f=id,time,fee_total,sizeIn comparison the
average high fee per block we had in past 2 years is 3.5
BTC with 1300 kb blocks.
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/blocks?s=fee_total(desc)&q=time(2020-01-01%2008:43:37..2021-09-28%2008:43:37)#f=id,time,fee_total,size