A few days before my hometown’s Salmon Days Festival, I take a sunny afternoon to pop onto the bridge downtown in what is Washington State’s most visited hatchery. The pink-tinged salmon are what colored leaves are to other geographic areas – a sure sign of fall.
On a warm footbridge, I watch Chinook salmon making their way back in water turned shallow by a warmer than average summer. The King County Department of Natural Resources says “Warm waters and low flows have made 2015 a tough year for salmon as they work to return to streams and rivers around Puget Sound this fall.” A hatchery volunteer walks by while I stare at the water. “After it cools off a bit they’ll start jumping,” he promises.
I move over to the holding tank where the salmon glide by, eggs and milt ready for harvest and their journey and life cycle complete. The stream supports both wild and hatchery salmon, the hatchery fish distinguished by a removed adipose fin.
The hatchery, built in the 1930s, is a Depression-era project designed to replenish salmon from the logging and mining that took place in the area. More recent efforts to preserve the creek habitat include removal of a dam, which the state replaced with a series of weirs to make the salmon’s journey easier.
A few others join me on the bridge to take in this upstream journey and the pull of home. In shadow-spotted waters, lines of salmon return to the same place I’ve come back to, navigating the familiar along with challenges to come.
