STORIES

Sunday, October 01, 2006

From Vancouver to Hope

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Community: Fraser Valley

Chasing the Sockeye, Part 1 (Part 2, Part 3)

We leave Vancouver this morning in a misty rain along a route that makes an intestine look straight.

Our first stop is Fraser River Park, where months ago Premier Gordon Campbell announced the endowment of the Living Rivers Trust Fund to Pacific Salmon Foundation and Fraser Basin Council, which in turn spawned the THINK SALMON campaign.

Monique and I take turns filming and hosting in front of the camera. We set off over the Oak Street Bridge and film a short stop at the Fraser cargo dock on the shore of the south arm of the Fraser, at the end of the Steveston Highway, on the edge of Richmond. Thousands of cars fresh from Asian manufacturing plants await their next trip to showrooms.

We go east over the Alex Fraser Bridge, barely able to discern its pillar tops through the mist dotting our windshield; through the endless suburb of Surrey/Delta; and finally on to the #1 Trans-Canada Highway. At Abbotsford we cross the Fraser again, heading north to Mission. In a bend upstream from the bridge, about forty boats bob in a flotilla, charged with fishing the waters. Are they fishing for the same salmon we’re following?

At Mission we join up with Highway 7 and follow the winding Fraser to Harrison Bay, where the grand sweep of the Harrison River arcs outward from the main stem. We cross the Harrison and pull into Kilby, which boasts an old whistle stop on the main train line to the West Coast (it’s now an historic novelty farm). A couple of older fellows are launching their jet boat from the Kilby beach, amid gulls pecking at the carcasses of dead Chinook. One of the men, bearded and wearing a Navy-ship-emblazoned baseball cap, talks with me about the end of the Chinook season and the start of the Coho run. They’re out to see what they can catch, he says.

Farther east we press, through the small town of Aggasiz and back across the Fraser once again, higher now, where the river starts to look like a mountain river, shedding its muddy, flat, valley guise. The water flows faster and darker under us. Campers have set up on the south bank and their bright tarps and tents call attention to the boats they have beached on the shore. They’ve placed their lawn chairs along the shore and sit watching their lines pass by in the current, dreaming of salmon.

Once more we join up with the #1 Trans-Canada Highway and head east. I hit cruise control and settle in to make some time. The Fraser continues to flash past us, the water as low as I have ever seen it, more gravel bars and gravel shore visible than I can remember. Sunshine lights the mountain slopes for the first time all day, and we follow the great river.

We stop in Hope, the Chainsaw Carving Capital of Canada, and are welcomed by a sign reading “Experience Hope.” Along the main street we drive. On one side, the Dairy Queen and a strip mall. On the other, a short strip of grass, a few trees, and then the bright water of the Fraser, now turning glacial in its tint, cloudy blues and greens in strips mirroring the depths of the water.

We leave Hope behind and ascend into the steep-sided mountains and churning white water of the Fraser Canyon.

• Read Chasing the Sockeye, part 2: From Hope to the Shuswap.
• Read Chasing the Sockeye, part 3: Finding the Adams River Sockeye.
• See all our photos on the THINK SALMON Flick page.