Leaping Salmon

Sooke River potholes.
 The salmon require a much greater volume of water to spawn but they are pooling in the harbour.

First leaping salmon in the Sooke River estuary September 10. It was a cool day after a light rain. It's still early and may be a sign of a healthy 2012 run. We have been seeing seals patrolling the estuary for about three weeks. Then a cormorant or two showed up. Then it rained, and the one fairly large salmon came entirely out of the water.

Nature seemed to mark the event the next day, with a rare golden eagle sighting. She appeared at the west end of the harbour, languidly flying straight towards us. The huge bird approached, getting flat in the sky like a rip in the space - time continuum, soaring over the estuary and up the river.

The river, soon to be overflowing with leaping, life-giving salmon.

Summer Or Fall? Days on the Cusp

Terns and a setting moon over Sacred Mountain

Beautiful blue sky day and the heat remains, 26 degrees off the water. On the water, the summer absent ducks are returning and various gulls and terns as well. There is a shoveller and teals, the odd mallard female and the always here, common merganser. The terns are rowdy today and acting like swallows over the 'wiggly' water. 

Wiggly with what you might ask, me too. It seems a bit too early and dry for Sooke River salmon , but well, the creatures don't lie. Seals are coming into the estuary and battling something, dinner I suppose. The only missing tell-tale sign of the start of the salmon run are cormorants.

Gulls flocking and gathering on the sandbars

The farther the salmon have to go upstream, the earlier the run. Sooke River, Charter's Creek and DeMamiel Creek runs, forming in the Sooke River estuary, are so close to the ocean that they start late and usually with the rains.

While it is still summer dry on the raincoast, it was a wet spring and early summer.  I have to get my blackberries picked, and keep my eye on the estuary.

Tribal Journies Through the Sooke River Estuary

Paddlers waiting to land

The T'Souke Nation hosts a gathering of ocean canoeists in the summer. Coming off the Strait of Juan de Fuca, they bivy for a night on the Sooke River.  In July and hopefully on a rising tide, 15 - 20 traditional cedar canoes, paddled by 7 - 15 people per boat are greeted and welcomed on the T'Souke First Nation land via the river.

We sometimes hear the drumming and singing first. Sometimes the ever changing estuary pathways hang up a boat or two. Permission to land is asked and the welcome is heard along the river.

They snake in wave after wave of boats and people. Maneuvering in and out.
Tomorrow morning they will escape the estuary, negotiate Whiffen Spit and continue their journey on the Salish Sea.