Salmon spawning in Goldstream Park, BC

Goldstream Park is a nature reserve tucked in a deep valley just north of Victoria, BC. Each year 30-40,000 salmon return from the sea to lay their eggs in the stream.

Goldstream gets three different types of salmon:

1) 35,000 Chum (or dog) salmon
2) hundreds of coho
3) dozens of chinook, normally called king salmon in the States, with slowly increasing numbers since the stream was rehabilitated

There are also secretive steelhead (sea run rainbow trout) and cutthroat trout, who make a living eating the eggs and young of the salmon. (L'il brutes!)

To date, about 8000 chum have arrived. The run is late this year, so will probably carry on well into December. Good news for us, as our daughter's preschool will be visiting late in November.

219 chinook have arrived and the run is now over. This compares favourably with the 30 or 40 they got in the last two years.

In the last week, the gulls have arrived. It takes them a little while to realize the salmon have returned. In places they were thick as thieves, but this one had a whole section of river to himself:

The run is just about over now and dead salmon litter the area. You can smell the river from half a mile away, driving down the highway! (Somehow, that didn't stop us from roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over a fire!)

The Chinook run ended with 219 salmon, which was very good. However, there were only 88 coho this year, when normally there would be over 300. So that's not good news.

The jury is still out on the chum numbers. The park counted 50,000, but the Department of Fisheries and Oceans thinks there is something wrong with that number and is doing a recount (I didn't think to ask how they do that, darn!). Apparently, DFO thinks the number will likely be closer to 30,000. That is, a normal year not an exceptional one.

The annual arrival of the salmon in local rivers of the Pacific Northwest is one of nature's grand rituals.

For us, it is also a family ritual. A chance to connect with nature, teach our children about the world, and share a bond with the other people making their own pilgrimages.

Here are pictures that let us take stock of the kids: