From the Archipelago: Rivers of Life and Death

December 2003 - January 2004

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Alexandra Morton

Spawning chum salmon.

The warm breeze carried the smell of mint and rotting fish as Claudia, Glen and I followed the latest path of the Viner River. Every few years the river, seemingly tired of forever bending the same way, carves a new sluiceway. When we ran out of water, we slipped overboard up to our waists, leading the boats like obedient water ponies, tethering them to the mud bank.

The ravens were talking. Cackles, bells, screams and growls came from the treetops. They have a language that is theirs alone, though the rest of the forest listens to them closely. They are the sentinels and many furry ears no doubt understood the sounds coming from the treetops—‘humans are here on the banks of our banquet’.

The Viner River cuts deep into the western shore of Gilford Island, originating from a mere crease on the west face of Mount Reid. It is a gentle river, wide-hipped and alder-shaded, the perfect place for chum salmon to spawn. Chums are large, with slender tail stocks, not nearly as athletic as the coho or chinook. We could see their silver, tiger-striped forms streaming up river, resting beneath sweeps of cedar and fir that overhung the bank, digging redds (nests) and chasing each other.

Every few steps I passed pieces of chum salmon, flesh-stripped jaws revealing ferocious, white, curved teeth. Heads with maggots teeming in empty eye sockets and decaying into the ground. A fin here, a tail there, tufts of eagle down fluttering against decomposing scales. The nutrient bearers were here and all were doing their part to spread the riches up and down the food chain.

There was one carcass left intact, scarcely covered with grass and alder leaves. “Grizzly did that”, Glen commented. All around, carcasses were shredded, claimed, devoured, but none had touched this one set aside by a grizzly bear. In the end the maggots got it.

Grizzly bears are rare on Gilford Island. Every few years the guys in my community argue whether they are here or not, but this year grizzlies have been seen and their sign is becoming more common. They have also been seen on more of the islands near western Knight Inlet and on Vancouver Island. Are their movements natural or in response to declining pink salmon stocks in some areas? We don’t know.

Glen dragged the beach seine onto a small gravel bar and Claudia waded to her armpits, careful not to lose her footing in the relentless seaward flow. The bright, white cork floats on the net snaked out into the dark brown water. The pool was still. A young raven sat in the enormous spruce towering over the pool, watching us. As the net came ashore, the dark water we had corralled began to swirl, then froth, then come alive as fifteen chum salmon came to us. They slithered up the beach, over the net and against our legs.

We were there to take some eggs to rear in a hatchery. Hatcheries are rightfully coming under increasing scrutiny. Once a human decides which fish should combine eggs and sperm, the fish population drifts away from its wild perfection. However, we hope that by protecting DNA from the naturally very high mortality that salmon suffer during their life as eggs and freshly hatched alevins, we can maintain a fish population while its river stabilizes.

When a river’s banks are logged, the first round of impact can come from the loss of living trees. Trees keep water temperatures low with their shading branches, and even more important, their roots slow the effects of the rainfall, preventing floods. When a mature tree falls across a river, it creates essential habitat for salmon. A river without logs across it scours all life away, so a second impact is from the lack of dying trees. The Viner River was once home to more than 70,000 chum salmon; now only hundreds come her way. But this is up from tens, so we are hopeful.

There is no substitute for a truly wild run, but in the face of all we have done to the salmon, taking a small proportion of fish out of a run and boosting survival rates in a hatchery, may give fish the precious time that will make the difference.

Most of the fish in the net had already spawned, and so we only counted them, checked their condition and then released them. A stunning, deeply-reddened coho was released along with one lone male pink salmon. The coho had a lovely hump and would be considered ever so handsome by a female if only there was one to catcheye. His hump would proclaim his successful life—“I went to sea and returned with this much extra”—demonstrating his genes were the best.

Several chums were over 30 pounds. The new arrivals were silver bright, the spawners were an alternating pattern of maroon and black, and the spawned-out ones were rough-skinned and white. The males knew how to use their teeth and one turned and bit me. I hurt but I had deserved it, and with blood running down my arm, I felt connected for an instant to a fish that held my greatest respect.

Wolves howled nearby and the weight of eagles perched above us sent small twigs falling into the river around us. The pulse of life was visible with every flash of salmon running up the river.

In contrast, a few weeks earlier I had stood on a bridge overlooking a stretch of spawning gravel as wide as a highway. The light had been perfect for seeing into the river, shallow for lack of water in the late summer sun. I had seen two trout and four coho seek cover under the bridge, but the stones of the Wahpeeto River, tributary to the Wakeman River, had borne no sign of pink salmon.

Pink salmon are well known for their prodigious ability to move rocks. They are small, but so abundant that they are major architects in the rivers where they spawn. But there, each smooth stone wore a blanket of algae, like the dusting of new fallen snow. These pebbles had not felt the caress of female salmon digging nests to lay their eggs.

A set of grizzly tracks showed the bear had not turned, had not entered the river, had not found any food here. There was one fish jaw on the beach, but no scent, no eagles, no seagulls, only one lone water ouzel, a dipper slipping beneath the water searching for eggs.

It is hard to prove the absence of something in science, but the scene below me spoke more eloquently than I ever could. No pulse was beating here. No nutrients were coming upstream here, only running down. The insects required to feed the coho and chinook salmon, which stay a year in the rivers before going to sea, were not hatching, no insect eggs were being laid in rich salmon flesh. Another 12 months would pass before food could come upstream again. Lean times were upon the Wakeman Valley.

Pink salmon were down 80-90% for the second consecutive year in the Broughton Archipelago. These diminished stocks could not replenish themselves nor their rivers. Some who make their living in the Broughton think we should not talk about our problems because this might hurt tourism. I can understand their point. But the Broughton is no less beautiful in her hour of need.

She stands before me now in shades of swirling grey, deep forest greens and silver seas. Her white clam beaches are just as inviting, loons still call and wolves still howl. But without the currency of tourism, I think she will be traded away to an industry designed towards boom and bust, yet capable of leaving fatal tracks.

So I invite you all to paddle here. Fall in love and breathe life into her. Come to the Broughton as never before, help strengthen tourism, put the Broughton on the map as the place to see, and maybe you will do what I have not been able to. Maybe you will carry life into these waters as the salmon should. Maybe each one of you has become essential to this place.

© Alexandra Morton (R.P.Bio) is a marine mammal scientist and author in BC’s Broughton Archipelago. www.raincoastresearch.org.

Editor’s Note: if you’re thinking of visiting the Broughton, check out Bill Proctor’s new book, "Full Moon, Flood Tide" from Harbour Publishing. See our last issue online for the review.