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Swimming with the salmon on Vancouver Island
By KRISTIN DIZON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
CAMPBELL RIVER, B.C. -- I should feel sad.
I am suspended in liquid, watching the final elegiac journey of thousands of salmon that will end in death and rebirth.
I should feel sad, watching this swimming armada in the Campbell River on the northeastern coast of Vancouver Island.
They are on their way to die.
Salmon is one of our most sacred icons, our totem, the nourishment on our dinner plates. We smoke it, poach it, barbecue it, fillet it, tartar it, can it, bake it, even moussify it.
It sounds strange to swim with salmon. People laugh and look puzzled when you tell them what you plan to do. They've heard of swimming with dolphins or sharks, but swimming with fish?
I have come to Campbell River, a town of about 30,000 that bills itself as the "salmon capital of the world." Campbell River, two hours' flying time from Seattle via Vancouver, is a small city of strip malls, a paper mill and logging and tourist attractions.
The salmon that have made it this far have overcome great hurdles. They have avoided anglers in Alaskan waters and the fishing boats that ply the waters near their origin stream, the Campbell River. They have eluded northern resident killer whale pods, sea lions, bears, seals and other predators.
And now they see large black blobs, flippered and masked, hovering awkwardly above them.
I am -- arms spread like Superman -- swimming with salmon.
Over the next few weeks, these fish will lose 25 to 30 percent of their body weight as they flail and fight their way up the hostile current of their birth stream. They will not eat, so single-minded are they in their obsessive mandate to mate and reproduce.
They will turn from silver to a drab olive green while they prepare to spawn. Their pronounced, hooked jaw will grow bigger, as will their teeth, as they make that ultimate transition from salt back to fresh water. Flaps and chunks of their flesh will begin to dangle and slough away.
For years anglers have flocked to this city on the Strait of Georgia to try their luck with hooks and bait.
Eight of the travelers in the small commuter plane that brought me here were Seattleites who said they come annually in search of "salmon and beer."
But four years ago one woman thought of something other than reeling them in or eating them.
Scientists in wet suits had floated down the Campbell River to conduct fish counts of hatchery-raised stock. Area residents followed suit recreationally.
Catherine Temple, a local woman, thought others might want to try it too. So she started Paradise Found Adventure Tours.
Her ecotours have taken professionals on mountain-bike trails and mountain climbs. But the one that people talk about most is her snorkeling tour with salmon.
"We just kind of stumbled onto this. But there was a pretty immediate response," Temple says.
"We're having the best salmon runs we've had in 10 years. There are monsters in there. I saw an 80-pound fish that scared the hell out of me."
On a cold, drizzling day, seven of us arrive at Temple's compound and begin squeezing our bodies into neoprene. It feels like being vacuum-packed into rubber as we put on the jumper, jacket, boots, gloves and hood. Suddenly, we have become jointless and move like waddling penguins.
"The hardest part of the trip is trying to squeeze into these wet suits," quips one of our guides, Jamie Turko, who is also a "swift-water rescue technician."
"Anybody comfortable?" he teases, as faces grimace.
Before heading off, each participant signs a waiver of liability. To do this tour, you must be prepared for the bumps and scrapes that may go home with you -- or, occasionally, worse. Last year, a man drowned during a snorkeling tour, but Turko says it was never determined exactly how it happened.
Leslie Doherty, a local, has brought her 11-year-old daughter, Jenika, and her brother, Bruce MacGregor, from inland Ontario for the experience.
"I did it about eight years ago. I saw two fish, a tire and a crab, and I was higher than a kite. And this year there are supposed to be thousands of fish," she says with anticipation.
As we are driven to a popular fishing bridge along the river, guide Bill Elliott points out the various types of salmon on a laminated diagram. We are shown drawings of the large chinooks, the white-bellied pinks, the bright silver coho and chums with spots on their back.
Should we spy a renegade farm-raised Atlantic salmon, Temple jokingly encourages us to "feel free to grab them, kill them, whatever you want."
At the river's edge, the guides stuff our feet into flippers, and we rinse the masks with anti-fogging spit. Turko and Elliott instruct us to stay close and follow them through the river, since they know its rapids and rocks intimately. Each carries a boogie board for nervous guests to cling to or if anyone gets in trouble, which is signaled with a downward thumb.
It will take 35 minutes to float down the short 1.5-mile stretch of river. The Campbell is the only known place that offers a salmon snorkeling tour because it has several accommodating features: the river is wide; the steady water flow is controlled by a dam; and the salmon come back in large numbers because 80 percent of them are from a nearby hatchery.
We get used to breathing through snorkels and adjusting masks. A group of three takes off with Elliott first. We wait a few moments and our foursome follows into the water, which is running moderately at 1,400 cubic feet per second.
Despite being covered from head to toe, we find it chilly in these waters -- about 52 degrees, Temple says. And on a cloudy day, the salmon can be more difficult to spot.
To my surprise, the salmon aren't just swimming upstream. Many cruise from side to side, coast downstream a bit or just hover in the current.
They don't touch us, though a woman wearing dangly silver earrings had a trout bite at one like a lure, Turko says.
What is it like to be a mighty chinook in this river? I later ask this of Dave Ewart, acting manager of the Quinsam River Salmon Hatchery, from which most of these salmon come.
He tells me they return between August until the second week of November. They start spawning, and degenerating, in mid-October. The males are usually 3 to 5 years old, while the females are 4 and 5. Their average size is 28 pounds, and last year the return rate of those originally released at the hatchery was 0.5 percent, down from 1 to 2 percent in the 1980s.
Once the fish start spawning, Temple stops offering her snorkeling tours.
"They've only got a week or so of life to do this, and if they're harassed by people, they won't be able to spawn," Ewart says. "They would actually swim at you and protect their spot."
Like me, Ewart marvels at their strength and grace.
"They have one long streamlined body that's all muscle, and they use the whole thing," Ewart says. "It seems like they hardly move their tail, and they go through the water."
I, on the other hand, face the current and try with all my might to swim up it, but I can't even stay in place.
When we go over the shallowest stretch -- in about a foot of water -- I'm a little stressed. For these few minutes of mini-rapids, Turko's advice is to "just spread your arms like superman and enjoy the view."
But it's hard to feel superhuman when you are zipping over rocks and boulders with very little clearance. I suck in my gut as I envision myself smashing into one. As little whitewater caps break on the surface and water churns beneath, it's tough to see what obstacles await you.
Miraculously, I get by without a bump or scrape.
We get out of the river within sight of where it meets saltwater in Discovery Passage. The van is waiting to take us back for another run, which goes better because we know what to expect now and have more time to watch the fish.
When we are done, Temple doles out hot chocolate and granola bars.
As we strip out of our penguin suits, I ask Doherty if it was what she expected.
"I loved it," she says. "Just being in another world -- the world of the fish."
That was the best part for me, too, to be part of their world for just a few minutes.
P-I reporter Kristin Dizon can be reached at 206-448-8118 or kristindizon@seattle-pi.com
Tour informationFor more information on Paradise Found Adventure Tours, call 800-897-2872 or visit www.paradisefound.bc.ca.The swimming-with-salmon tour costs approximately $47 U.S. plus tax and usually runs from early July through late October. For more information on activities in Campbell River, see www.campbellrivertourism.bc.ca or call 800-463-4386.
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