This fish story is a whopper. It begins with an egg, an eye, an alevin, a fry, a smolt, a silvery juvenile, a mature adult and a red-spawner journey back to a fresh-water home. Pivotal are a school of people intent on ensuring safe spawning grounds.
Our three-and-a-half-hour drive from Vancouver brings us to shelter at Kamloops’ Fairfield Inn. We’ve migrated to where the north and south fork of the Thompson River meet near Thompson Rivers University (TRU). The Fairfield is set back from the highway and perfectly situated for a further 45-minute drive along the salmon route, past Little Shuswap Lake to the Adams River, one of the largest Sockeye Salmon returns in North America.
Our incredible fish tale begins and ends along a 12-kilometre stretch of river between Adams Lake and Shuswap Lake. The park is Tsútswecw Provincial Park (pronounced choo-chwek), meaning many tributaries – formerly known as Roderick Haig-Brown Park. That’s where we’re headed… to meet the sockeye keepers.
President of the Adams River Salmon Society, Don Patterson says, “We promote education and outreach. The premise is everybody is in; nobody is out… to get both (activists and fisheries people) at the same table to get from policy to practice.”
Don, 78, was raised in Montreal, studied medicine in Winnipeg, and headed west 40 years ago to begin a practice and a family.
“We became totally involved in wildlife. Our home was in the wilderness, our kids were raised with every imaginable kind of animal… a natural lead into something like this.”
By this, he means a society of 200 volunteers, of which 40 red jackets work steadfastly at the Salute to the Sockeye October fest. This year’s dominant theme is Call the Salmon Home.
One of the red jackets, Blair Acton, is Adams River Salmon Society Board Director. She’s directing traffic alongside an educational zone, stage, souvenir and artisan tent and food trucks: a kilometre walk from the river.
“When I got involved with the salmon society, they didn’t have any younger people,” says Blair. “As people came and went, I became keeper of the knowledge. We have interpretive tours; we plant trees in the riparian zone (along the banks of rivers and streams); this event basically funds us for three years to do other projects.”
Blair goes on to say, “I have an International Youth Hostel… 25 years ago I started it up and was the first business in the interior (of BC) to put in UV sterilization. I didn’t want chlorination to go into the system because of my concern for the salmon (who go right past my house). As I got more concerned, I got more involved.”
Rob Mathew, Principal of the Chief Atahm Immersion School says the school is based on five First Nation principles of which the first is foremost.
“We are all related (principle No. 1)– plants, insects, people – and if we’re all related, we’re supposed to look after our relatives. Bringing the salmon home should mean they have a clean home (not polluted with industry). In the three years they are away, we keep their home safe for their return,” says Rob.
“We share the fish and share the well-being of the fish; that’s what we teach in the school. What sets people apart is their language and their land,” adds Rob.
Dr. Kathryn Michel, along with a half-dozen women from the Adams Lake Indian Band, leads a language lesson. We twist our tongues around the word for sockeye, sqleltenuw?i.
“Most important is the connection to the land and our history,” she says of the Secwepemc language. Kathryn spearheaded a language nest initiative (babies-to-grade-four immersion) back in 1987.
“Some linguists say that the oldest form of the (Salish) language may be from this area,” she says. “Language embodies a lot of information about the land.”
That land’s history swirls around salmon, whose eyes develop first inside the egg (4,000 eggs per female); who school as smolts in Shuswap Lake for a year; who travel downstream over 400 kilometres into the Salish Sea; who grow from juvenile to adult to swim into the North Pacific; who circle back to struggle upstream – a 4,500-kilometre round trip.
Two remarkable fish out of all of these will reach adult spawner status to return to the river where the cycle began. Despite many obstacles (predators, pollution, habitat loss, overfishing and global warming), it is a celebration that brings people from all over the world to witness.
Rick, one of three Adams River Salmon Society interpretive guides, tells us of a visitor sitting along the river bank, staring at the red salmon. “It’s like staring at flames in a campfire,” she answered when asked how she was doing. “So soothing; I could sit here all day.”
Jim Cooperman, 72, is president of the Shuswap Environmental Action Society (SEAS). His book, Everything Shuswap, is a first volume that covers the watershed, geology, ecology, Secwepemc People and early settlement of the area.
“My role as an environmentalist is raising awareness of the issues and working to convince government, where possible, to change what they’re doing… improve management, protect species… writing and communicating, and writing a book, carrying on the work of being a spokesperson for conservation.”
Oliver Arnouse, Chief of the Little Shuswap Lake Indian Band since 2014, tells us how the band have their own fisheries crew “who do a really good job of looking after the area up here. We do keep records and work with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and other bands in the area to maintain the return of the sockeye.”
Of the Salute to the Sockeye event, Chief Arnouse says that the First Nations People celebrate the new park name, and “last year, we were the first First Nation to have our flag fly in a provincial park. What can we do to play our part in the survival of the sockeye? We’ll continue to make the public aware of what’s going on by bringing people in.”
We met a diverse group at Tsútswecw Provincial Park: all swimming in synch.
IF YOU GO:
Take Highway #1 east and #5 north from Vancouver (the Coquihalla Highway) to Kamloops’ Fairfield Inn & Suites (exit 367), a three-and-a-half-hour drive.
Or drive all the way on Highway #1 north from Hope through the Fraser Canyon, which adds another hour to the drive, yet parallels the sockeye passage.
From Fairfield Inn & Suites Marriott Kamloops, it’s a gorgeous fall drive, east along Highway #1 and the South Thompson River, past Chase and Little Shuswap Lake to Squilax-Anglemont Road. Exit right, up and over the highway, following the signs for the Salute to the Sockeye event.
The drive from Salmon Arm to the Adams River is 41 minutes if you approach from the southeast.
For other options contact the tourism offices: www.tourismkamloops.com or https://shuswaptourism.ca/discover/salmon-arm
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