The 610-kilometre Skeena River is one of the world’s longest undammed rivers, and is the second longest river in British Columbia. Unlike the Fraser, the Skeena has been spared widespread industrial development, and a large portion of the Skeena watershed remains an intact, functioning ecosystem.
The last couple of years has had us here and there, north and south, east and west around the Province…and I gotta say that it doesn’t matter where you go it is freakin beautiful (Maybe the exception is Ft. St. John) and after travelling around a kilometer or two you find out it is freakin huge!
Last week we tootled north west down the highway trying to find clean air…which we did find but we also found a whole different way of life or at least a new way of sustaining life if you don’t fall into the raging river at Morriceton.
Now this is working hard for a living! When I asked them if they were just crazy or brave they said brave…but it is not dangerous as long as you are tied up…but even though the fish are biting I am definitely not…there is no way if you fall in you are pulling yourself out…nope you would need the help of others.
But now a days this is working much easier, the ropes the ramps, the nets make for catching those salmon much easier and much safer than the old days of spearing or gaffing.
But even though it is getting easier the catch is much less for yes indeed something is amiss in the Salmon world and somewhere somehow they are not coming home up the rivers…is it the fish farms, is it the new predator fish swimming up where they don’t belong with the new warm currents? Is it the changing acidity of the ocean? is it over fishing?
If only the Salmon could talk. Could someday the only Salmon we see is one like these?
http://www.skeenawatershed.com/swim
Wild salmon are at the heart of what makes the Skeena River special. Each year, all five species of wild salmon plus steelhead make their way up-river to spawn in their natal streams. They give rise to a $100-million wild salmon economy that sustains communities along the Skeena and includes First Nations fisheries, commercial fishing, and recreational angling.
