We have decided that Sunday will be local exploration day. Today we set out for Kokanee Creek Park, which is only about 15 minutes from our house by car. It is on the north shore of Kootenay Lake and is home to the Kokanee salmon run. The Welcome Wagon lady, Edna, told Michelle about it when she visited last week. Unlike their coastal counterparts, the Kokanee salmon are unique in that they are landlocked. The salmon run channel was built 25 years ago in order to increase the salmon stock in the lake. Kootenay Lake has a sports fishing industry, and local flood control efforts had devastated the run. The artificial channel has succeeded in increasing the stock, and upwards of half a million salmon hatch every year. It is certainly a sight to behold, with all the crimson fish pushing upstream with all their might. They swim past fellow salmon who have given up the fight and have lost their dramatic colouring. Some areas of the creek are just a solid mass of squirming blood-red backs. Erick refers to these areas as salmon orgies; Michelle considers them to be eddies where the salmon are merely resting.
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