When I was a sullen teenager I trudged daily along side a small stretch of Victoria's Bowker Creek that ran between Oak Bay's high school and the firehall.
At that time, back in the 1970's, the creek was so polluted that it had essentially become an open sewer. And, for most of its path, it was covered over, often with asphalt. Things were so bad that one of the worst things my brothers and I could possibly imagine was being swept into the tunnel shown above that ran under the firehall grounds and the adjacent little league baseball fields.
Things have changed for the (much) better since then thanks to the work of folks like the 'Friends of Bowker Creek' and the 'Penninsula Streams Society' over the last fifteen years or so.
Which means that the time has come to try and reintroduce salmon into the waterway:
Gosh.
Victoria's Bowker Creek will host young salmon for the first time in decades thanks to the efforts of a local conservation group and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
The eight-kilometre waterway, which runs through Saanich, Victoria and Oak Bay, is mostly underground but there is an open section in Oak Bay.
The Friends of Bowker Creek Society is partnering with the Peninsula Streams Society to restore salmon to this urban watershed. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has approved the dispersal of 30,000 chum salmon eggs.
Ian Bruce, the executive coordinator of the Peninsula Streams Society, says traditional knowledge and stories suggest there were trout and salmon in Bowker even as late as the 1930s...
Gosh.
Next time I'm in town should probably head on down to that little run of the open creek in Oak Bay and take a short stroll.
And I promise to neither trudge nor be sullen.
.
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5 comments:
Off topic, slightly...
That there Bowker Creek 'running underground' is SinkHole Territory. Mind where you step. Here a link:
http://openmaps.gov.bc.ca/kml/geo/layers/WHSE_BASEMAPPING.FWA_OBSTRUCTIONS_SP_loader.kml
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And while you're out and about check out the Historical Places nearby.... a whole lot of stuff like Edwin Tracksell House or Herbert S. Lott House
https://governmentofbc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4926e2fd04b6484ba47c3a8cd14202a0
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The historical link gives a backgrounder on Kamloops's "1926 CNR Station is a large, two-storey train station, with a symmetrical front entry, hipped roof, red-brick cladding and Classical Revival detailing. It is situated at the end of Fifth Avenue, on the north side of Lorne Street, adjacent to the Canadian National Railway (CNR) tracks, just outside downtown Kamloops."
Just across the River from the Kamloops Indian Affairs Industrial School.
1,200 to go…
https://news.ubc.ca/2021/08/05/up-to-85-per-cent-of-historical-salmon-habitat-lost-in-lower-fraser-region/
Lew, do you mean like this map of all rivers and streams
'Points where a fish passage assessment has been performed on a stream crossing structure. These includes culverts, bridges, fords, etc. The assessments are carried out to determine whether fish are able to migrate through the structure.'
https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/pscis-assessments
It's visible online or download it to Google Earth
Better yet, there's a link within that opens in iMapBC
Thanks NVG. The UBC study did use that PSCIS resource.
From the study:
“Sources of barrier data include the Fish Information Summary System (FISS), Provincial Stream Crossing Inventory System (PSCIS), and Watershed Watch Salmon Society (WWSS).
NVG--
Yup that is one long concrete pipe...All kinds of legends of kids that either waded or floated through it when we were growing up - never met one of those kids though, although my brother the fireman would have if anybody did.
And while I know a bunch of those historical Oak Bay houses, at least on sight, you've got me on that Kamloops railway station though.
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Fair enough Lew--
Although the folks on South Van Isle do seem to be a little ahead of the curve.
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