STORIES

Monday, August 28, 2006

Adams River Salmon

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Community: Thompson

A. Penner, Toronto

1973 found my mother in another frontier town, Mica Creek. In these tiny communities, relations often became familial. That’s how it was with Mavis. In 1985 I was growing up along the Columbia River in Revelstoke; Mavis was living out her retirement in the Shushwap. Every fall she used to drive her pale-green whale of a car to meet us at the Adams River. Together we watched the river turn from clear to red with spawning sockeye. Now we both live in Toronto, far away from our home rivers and families. Today Mavis turns 96 and we celebrate in her apartment by remembering that shared salmon run. She leans over to me and says, “people used to tell me it was wrong to let you little ones watch the salmon die. I used to tell them bullsh*t!”