In last year’s Georgia Straight BEST OF awards we took home an editor’s pick for “Best Navel Gazing Web Site“, and while our non-profit organization that supports our web site (Vancouver Is Awesome, Inc) is focused on celebrating all of the awesome things that make up our city one of those things is it’s proximity to other awesome places. In this series of features entitled Super, Neighbours in British Columbia we take you on adventures to other BC locales that we think you should check out. For this second edition I wanted to follow up on a STORY I’ve been bringing your attention: all of those sockeye salmon who have been making their way from the ocean into the mouth of the Mighty Fraser River in Vancouver and upstream to spawn. Where do they go, you wonder? They head into the many tributary rivers where they were born, and the most active of those is the Adams River near Sorrento in the Shuswap region. I am STRONGLY encouraging you to make your way up to see this once in a lifetime wonder of nature. Check the Adams River Salmon Society WEB SITE for all the info you need to get there, then step into Super, Neighbours…

It was estimated that 14 million of the 34 million sockeye that made their way up the Fraser this year (the largest return in 100 years!) were headed for the Adams River, and though this past weekend was the peak they will be running all month and the Salute To The Salmon festival that happens every 4 years goes until the 24th of October. Here’s an overview of the village that greets you after you make your way from the parking lot in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park. The log cabin on the right is where the Adams River Salmon society non-profit operates out of.

I think the proper word to describe what I witnessed in the Adams River this past weekend, though I’m not at all religious, would be “biblical”. Fish line the banks, and it’s one of those sights that photos could never do justice because it’s less of a “sight” than it is an experience. I attended the run when I was ten years old and this past weekend I returned with as much awe as I did when I was a kid.

Sometimes the sockeye jump.

And they always die. After they spawn they’ve effectively completed their life cycle and they perish, and in a few weeks you won’t be able to see the rocks pictured in this photo because they will be absolutely covered in carcasses in varying states of decay (this might be the first and only time you see the term “carcasses in varying states of decay” on this web site).

There are many signs that tell you all about the fish and their 400 kilometre, 21 day journey up the river. They tell you about how when fish hatch from their eggs they go down the river to spend a year in nearby Shuswap Lake before making their way to the ocean where they live for 3 years until they return to spawn. But let’s gets real, you want to know what there is to eat here, right? BANNOCK!

I’d never partaken before and I’m sure that opting for the wiener-bannock-dog is a total cheater move but I imagine it would be just as tasty without the wiener and I thank the local Quaaout first nations band for serving up such a delicious and somewhat traditional treat for the thousands of people who roll through every day. Oh and, incidentally, the sockeye don’t eat a single thing during their entire 21 day journey. Bummer for them!

Not much to say about this photo below but I spotted this sweater under one of the bannock eatin’ tents and wished it was mine. The printed jacket creeping it’s way into the photo on the left also invoked a pang of envy of it’s owner on my part. And that’s it for my experience at the Adams River salmon run!

I hope you enjoyed this first edition of Super, Neighbours in British Columbia and that you are seriously considering heading up to the Shuswap to celebrate the fragile wonder of the salmon’s life struggle.