There was nothing to do today so I took the family on a two-hour drive into the boonies to a place call Weaver Creek so we can see some spawning salmons. Sarah’s parents have never seen anything like this before so it’ll be one more thing they can add to their list of things they’ve done in Canada. The Weaver creek spawning channel was constructed in 1965 at a cost of $281,000. For those wondering, a spawning channel is a shallow, man-made stream with a gravel bottom and sloping sides built up of rocks. The flow of the water through the channel is regulated.
In this channel, which is about 3KM long and 6 meters wide, sockeye, chum and pink salmon deposit their eggs naturally. The channel is a meandering extension or side channel of Weaver Creek. Its purpose is to provide favorable conditions and more room for salmon to spawn than is available in the creek alone.
Salmon run times can vary year to year. As a rough guide, runs begin October 8th and end November 7th. Peak numbers of fish arrive about October 15, with most spawning activity taking place over a ten-day period from October 15 to 25th, so we caught the tail end of the run. If we had came a week earlier we would have saw a lot more salmons in the channel.
Being a weekday, the channel wasn’t busy – with the exception of one school group, we practically had the place all to ourselves. Here are some pictures from our trip. And no, I didn’t try to steal any salmon.
I have a feeling those birds are going to get really fat! After the visit to the creek, we headed east towards Harrison Hot Spring for a dip in the hot pool. Well I didn’t go because I didn’t want to cook myself. I looked after Sally while Sarah and her parents went.