It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to sit down and try and catch up on photos and posts and such. I’m a couple of months behind, and i need to catch up on a few fun things. I made two trips to France in September, which meant not a lot of time for much else. I’m sure it’s going to take some time to get through it all.
In early October, Justine was away for about 10 days, and I had a weekend to myself at home - a rare thing indeed! So on Saturday I took a little day trip to the Weaver Creek Salmon Spawning channel, hoping to catch the peak of the salmon run. I’ve been up here a few times, and it’s always great to see. It was a beautiful, sunny fall day, so I took the gold clubs with me as well, just to see if I could get a round it. There is a very interesting golf course nearby that I have been interested in playing for a while.
Sockeye salmon in the spawning channel.
I was up and on my way early, and it was still dark for most of the drive east into the valley. As the sun came out, i was treated to the glory of a clear, sunny fall morning. It was a but cool, but the sun was warming the day quickly. The drive up was pretty easy, and I was there by just after 8:00 when they open - and I was the only person there.
The Weaver Creek Spawning Channel was built in 1965 to provide additional spawning habitat for sockeye salmon. In this channel, which is three kilometres long, sockeye salmon, and smaller numbers of chum and pink salmon, deposit their eggs naturally. Since this channel was built as an extension to the existing Weaver Creek, more salmon can spawn naturally than in the creek alone. The channel holds about 45,000 spawning adults. Recent returns to the system range from 1,000 to 100,000 adults. The spawning channel provides a stable flow of clean water for the salmon eggs and alevins in the gravel. As a result, the channel is protected from flooding and/or freezing that could kill eggs and alevins.
A view of the spawning channel, providing over 3 km of perfect habitat for the fish to breed.
A stellar jay was the only thing that kept me company that morning.
I had the place to myself, and was able to walk the banks of the channel and see all the salmon. There were a few birds about, but not a lot and even fewer that were willing to sit still and have their picture taken. A lone stellar jay was an exception.
I was a bit surprised how few salmon were in the channel. There were quite a few right at the head of the channel, but very few in the stream. I had heard that the numbers of salmon were down, but this was surprising. The last time Justine and I had been there, there had been a lot more!
As I got down to the far end, part of the lack of fish was explained. I was a bit too early, and they hadn’t arrived to open the “gates” to let the fish in. As different species spawn in the channel, they control the numbers, both of species and of sex in the spawning channel to drive ideal spawning rates. So every night, they close the gates, and salmon that are working upstream through the actual Weaver Creek, are held up at the gates until someone can come in to either let them through into the spawning channel, or re-direct them back into Weaver Creek. They were quite pent up and eager to finish their journey!
This is the end of the road for these salmon. The end of the spawning channel.
After wandering for a bitI drove up the forest service road that starts where Weaver Creek is situated, to see if I could see anything interesting. I love our Subaru, but it isn’t my Xterra, and i was feeling like I was going to wreck the car, so i turned around and headed back. I had seen some Varied Thrushes, so that was interesting.
I headed back down towards the main road, and pulled into Sandpiper golf course. I have driven by the course many times, and it looked really nice. I was in luck and was able to get out almost right away, and even better to be able to play by myself. The day was perfect, and while I didn’t play great, it wasn’t the worst I had played lately.
While on the course, I saw a ton of eagles - a half dozen in one tree alone. So after the round was over, I grabbed my camera and did a bit of a walk around the resort to see if I could get some pictures. Of course, most of the eagles had disappeared, but there was still a few things to be seen.
The fall colours on the local mountains were quite beautiful as the sun started to fade on the day. It was time for me to head back towards home. It had been a nice day out, but I had hockey in the morning.