Simple Salmon

Could baby Salmon evoke passions rivaling the recent reactions I've been receiving from my Tuesday posting about the Boise Broncos' spectacular bowl victory on New Year's Day (check comments for Jan. 2 posting)? I think not.

So, I'm gonna play it safe today and share a letter I recently received from one of my former students, a Linfield College graduate, by the way. Sarah is practicing aquaculture at a salmon hatchery in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

She's been working there for nearly two years now after a stint at the Nez Perce hatchery at Yellow Pine in Southern Idaho. Yep, it's in Idaho's back woods, but Yellow Pine has culture. It hosts a national harmonica festival each year, and I'm told that Jack Nicklaus would turn green with envy if he ever played its golf course. In spite of Yellow Pine's recreational opportunities, Sarah decided to move on with her career, and she loved what she had seen while visiting Alaska. So, now she's nurturing millions of the state's tiny salmon and loving it.

Sarah will receive some special billing in my new book with a story about a monumental day in her life. Bill and I proudly consider Sarah as part of our extended family, so we're always pleased to see what she's up to. With no further adieu, here's what she had to tell us. Oh yeah: GO LINFIELD!

Happy New Year! (and a belated Merry Christmas...). Wish you all were here. Just a little bit of snow here at Main Bay. On Christmas Day we had over 7' of snow on the ground. It rained a little bit this week, and the snow level dropped to nearly 6', but it started snowing
again just this morning. Since 10 am we have received another 8"!

Work is going well. It's been crazy busy here. There are only three of us here on
site right now. That's quite an improvement from a few weeks ago when I was
the only one here... I can't wait to get out of here and get away from the fish, if only for a
short while.

Not that I don't love my job; I just dream about these fish nearly every night! So far out of 40 incubators, 38 have hatched out. I'll be starting to feed those fry in another few weeks, which I will be very happy about. Incubation is a very stressful time for rearing fish. The eggs
needed constant care in order to get the maximum success rate of hatching and survival. So far I think I'm doing okay. I have a 98.7% overall survival rate, which means that so far I have 11.8 million fish that have hatched
out...

My bigger fish in the raceways are in their "forced" dormancy period right now. We manipulate the lights so they only get a few hours of "blue" light a day.
Basically we took blue painters tape and covered up the flourescent lights.

The lights are set on a timer and when the lights come on, it looks as though you're seeing light through a layer of ice. It fools the fish and they think that they are in a lake underneath the ice. We keep them on the same number of hours of daylight as would be normal for them at this latitude.

Our water temperature is currently 2.1°C, which is only a few degrees above freezing. This situation is what would normally be occurring for the fish if they were reared in the wild. Because of the cold temps and the low light, the fish go into a natural state of "hibernation". They don't eat and they don't swim around much.

At the end of January, we will start to elongate the hours of light they get and mix water from the lake to increase the raceway temperatures. This will bring the fish out of their dormancy and they will start to smolt.

At this stage, they will be ready to move into saltwater. We will set up the saltwater pens and move the fish outside in February. I can hardly wait for that. Then someone else will be responsible for their care, and I can stay nice and relatively warm with my little
fishies inside, and not outside in the blizzards and squalls...

Other than work, not much happening out here at Main Bay this time of the year. Things are relatively quiet. The bad weather has kept most of the people who hunt this area closer to Whittier. Not much sport fishing this time of year either, so it's been a while since we've seen anyone that we don't work with on a daily basis.

Zoe and I have been on a few little treks around site, but with the snow, even that's been getting difficult as of late. Zoe hates it when her feet get clogged with snow so she tends to try and walk on top of my snowshoes. Doesn't work all that well. I have a hard enough time walking in them myself, let alone with an 80lb dog trying to sit on my feet every other step!

She's been one lucky dog since she got up here. She's the only dog on site who hasn't decided to play with porcupines or attack an otter. I don't know if that's because she's exceptionally
well-behaved, or because she hasn't quite figured out what all these strange animals are around here and is too scared to find out. Either way, I'm happy...

It looks like I might be able to get off site in March. I'm really happy because when I do leave, I'll be able to be gone for a whole month! I'll let you all know as soon as I find out anything for certain. Until then, I hope you all have a great start to the new year. Write back if you have time. I always love to hear news from "civilization"!

Carpe Diem
-SaRaH