1859 Sept | Oct 2012_opt

The Estuary
The Salmon River estuary is one of those rare stories of renewal in
North America. Its once fertile lands were diked in the ’50s for cattle
grazing, its banks covered in asphalt by the Pixieland amusement park
and a trailer park in the ’60s. Consequently many of its native salmon
runs were over-fished and replaced by hatcheries. In 1974, however,
the United States Congress passed the very first Scenic Research Act
to protect the future of the estuary. The Nature Conservancy bought
nearby Cascade Head, and the United Nations declared it an International
Biosphere—protecting its biological value. Today the dikes are
gone, native Coho are making a comeback and a consortium of nonprofits
and governmental agencies have helped return the banks of the
river to grasslands.
The Journey Ends
DAY FOUR:
ESTUARY AND THE SEA
The Hatchery
We make our way through a crowd of fishermen on the banks of the
lower river, each hoping for the tug of a fall Chinook on the other end
of the line. We come to a makeshift dam across the river and a series of
concrete fish ladders leading into a fish hatchery. Hatcheries started in
nineteenth century Europe as native runs were wiped out by dams and
industry, and were adopted en masse on rivers throughout the American
West in the early days of the last century, often for the same reason.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of small Chinook and steelhead are
raised here to be released into the river. Some argue that native runs
should be allowed to rebound without the genetic mixing of hatchery
fish. Others believe that salmon would largely be extinct in the lower
fourty-eight states if not for the presence of hatcheries.
A New Beginning
The sight of the river meeting the broad back of the sea
unexpectedly brings me to my knees. I feel humbled and
fortunate. At the end of the line, the memory of standing at
the headwaters comes back to me vividly, watching the first
gurgles of water flow from underground. Over the course
of one hundred hours, we have experienced the life cycle
of a river. Fed by one tributary after another, growing more
boisterous and loud, it flows through countless numbers of
lives, nourishing, cooling and cleaning as it goes. Humans
cannot replicate the perfection, efficiency and beauty of a
river system. This quiet miracle of water incessantly bubbling
up from underground, down the side of a mountain
and out to sea makes everything we do possible.
1859 oregon's mAgAzine SEPT OCT 2012