Keeping the Stream

                                                By Doug McFee

Courtesy of:                 British Columbia Almanac 

Written and edited by: Mark Forsythe. Host of B.C. Almanac on CBC Radio One

Published by:               Arsenal Pulp Press 2000

The girls were excited when they heard the splashing in the creek.  Their air of resignation (“Why are we going down here again, Dad?”) disappeared as we hurried down the last few feet of the steep embankment and scampered along the stream.  We were rewarded with the sight of a coho and its distinctive red spawning colour.  It thrashed its way up the narrow, shallow creek in water just barely covering its body. 

That November morning had turned out well.  Although we were enjoying the sunshine, it was the heavy rains of the last couple of days that brought us luck.  For it is the rains that bring the coho up the Salmon River in Langley at this time of year.  The Salmon River is small, but is the most prolific stream in the Lower Fraser for coho and cutthroat.  Despite this, our previous attempts to see the run had been unsuccessful.  This is not unusual, as coho and cutthroat are wily species that make their dash to spawn during the higher and murkier waters.  They are visible only when they have to jump or when the water is shallow in the small tributaries like the one we visited, Union Creek.  These tributaries may be only one metre in width while depths may be less than thirty centimeters (although the higher flows after the rains do expand their size), but they nevertheless provide good habitat for juvenile coho to mature in the river for over a year before migrating  out to the ocean.  Small tributaries such as Union Creek are actually quite typical of coho and cutthroat streams and are the key to the success of the Salmon River . 

The sound and sight of the coho was lost as it pushed only a short way upstream and then, perhaps hearing our approach, it paused.  We found it a few metres further along hiding with two other spawners under the large rootwad of an upturned cedar.  The cedar had been one of the few big trees left beside the stream but had blown over with its mass of roots standing vertically against the opposite bank of the creek overhanging the water just enough to provide shelter.  One of the coho carried the distinctive green tag place by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. (DFO) for their yearly inventory of returning coho.  The Salmon River is one of only two rivers in B.C. that has consistently been monitored by DFO over the last twenty years.  Both the adult spawners and the juvenile one-year-olds are trapped and tagged to keep track of the yearly variations in coho stocks.  For this reason the fish in the Salmon are all wild with no hatchery fish or fish introduced from other systems. 

We watched the three salmon for a while, took some footage on the video camera, and then went on a walk to inspect tree plantings done by the Salmon River Enhancement Society.  The girls don’t always appreciate our tree inspections but are well aware of the importance of trees; the older one, at the age of four, commented that “ Vancouver is nice but it has too many houses and not enough trees.  They should cut down some houses and build some more trees.”  The cedars that had been planted over the previous four years were growing well and would eventually return the streamside closer to its original state prior to the logging of the early twentieth century.  The cedar limbs will eventually provide shade to keep the water cool while the roots will help stabilize the banks of the stream.  The cedar leaves and bark will fall into the stream to provide food for the multitude of insects that are the main diet for the growing juvenile coho.  Even those few cedars that topple into the stream as its course meanders to and fro over the years will serve an important purpose.  The cedar’s trunk and branches, which can last decades before decomposing, will not create a barrier as so many observers assume, but will force the waters of the stream to find new paths, creating hiding places and pools that suit the small coho well.  It is for these and other reasons that the cedar has been called by First Nations “The Tree of Life.”

The fate of the Salmon River and the fate of coho stocks around B.C. rests squarely on whether we are able to protect tiny streams such as Union Creek.  These streams are easily destroyed and altered by agricultural and residential development or by activities such as logging and road construction.  Will the girls and their children still enjoy the thrill of the coho in the future?