Summer has arrived in Seward. Jackets are not needed, at least not today. Kids are out in shorts and T's but they are running around so much its ok for them. Us adults are still in jeans and short sleeve shirts and it feels oh so good not to have a jacket on.
I have no tan. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. The first week of July and I'm white as a sheet. This is unheard of. Never in all my years have I seen the month of July come and me not have a tan. I don't even have a farmer's tan goin' on. Mom, I know you are laughing right now. Out loud no less and I'm tellin' you this is not funny!
So to enjoy the outdoors today I took a walk up to look at the fish jumping. Yes, you are going to be subjected to more pictures of jumping fish. Not many, but a few.
I talked with Kathy who works seasonally for the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association. This is private non-profit corporation that provides and protects the salmon resource of Alaska and more specifically, Cook Inlet.
Kathy has worked for this organization for eight seasons now and seems to thoroughly enjoy what she does and sharing her knowledge with all those who stop and ask questions.
When I arrived she was counting what I believe are called fingerlings. These are young fish that are ready to be let go to out to sea.
There is a large pool outside where the fingerlings have been for the past ten days or so. There only about a thousand left that have to be released.
Kathy explained that they are in this tank so that the young fish get use to the "smell" of the water. This will help them find their way back to the same lake they were born in to spawn in a couple of years. I'm not sure that she meant "smell" in the context as you and I think of it or if that is some kind of aquaculture terminology. She did explain that the water in the tank where they spend time before being released gets embedded into their ear bones. Some of the fingerlings will be harvested for testing in that they can tell by the ear bone if the fingerling was raised in a hatchery or in the "wild". Hell, I didn't even know that fish had ears! According to Kathy, they do,
She scoops them up with a net from an hole in the floor of the building that sit over the pools of water....
.....then each fish is counted, by hand.
I asked what the big green tubs were outside and she said to follow her and she would show me. Fish!
These fish were pulled from the ones who jumped up the fish ladder to be given to a local senior citizen centers for lunch meals and also to Meal on Wheels.
She keeps them iced down to keep them fresh until they are delivered.
When the fish jump up the fish ladder.....
(Am I gettin' good at capturing fish mid jump or what?)
.....they are held in this holding tank until they can be counted.
Yes, counted. Each one is counted here before it is released to proceed to the spawning grounds. It is also here that some females will be taken and her eggs harvested for fertilization and incubation at the fish hatchery. The goal is to get about 2000 pair of fish that will insure about 6 million eggs. The large majority of these eggs will never make it adult fish. The eggs will be eaten, the fingerlings will be eaten, they'll be eaten by bears, disease will get others and who knows what else can happen to them. Kathy knows right down to the fish how many have passed through here at any given day.
This whole operation, the pools of water, the building, the fish ladder, is called a wier. (Sounds like we're)
These little kids came to "go fishing". Because they didn't have real hooks on their lines Kathy said it was ok for them to "fish".
The fish did come and investigate their lines and the kids just got the biggest kick out of this.
The pool on the far side is where fish who are too tired to go on or have something wrong with them are kept so that they can rest and get well before going on their journey to the spawning grounds. Last year there was a problem with the bears getting in there and going after the fish. So far this year they haven't had the problem.
This complex is manned 24 hours a day, in season, because the fish keep jumping the fish ladder round the clock. Someone has to be there to count them and to open the gates to let them go through.
In addition to all of this, lots of data is taken and kept so that the habits of the fish can be better learned and therefore their needs as a crucial resource can be better protected and served.
We were supposed to go to town tonight to see the fire works from the shoreline of the bay. We didn't make it. We had heard earlier that this weekend, 4th of July weekend, is the busiest weekend of all and Seward is THE place to be. Population swells from a normal 5000 for a typical summer weekend to an astounding 40,000 for 4th of July. We just didn't want to deal with it. We've seen dozens and dozens and dozens of firework displays over the years. It isn't particularly dark here at midnight when they the display was to take place so who was to say how well they would be seen in the first place. We just didn't want to deal with the traffic. So we stayed home and that was ok with both of us.
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