As we come to the end of 2018, Patty and I have been looking back on the explorations and adventures that we have encountered in the first year of our ten year project to visit all 150 Washington State Parks.
We have visited places all over the state, starting with a naturalist's view of the park nearest our home at Birch Bay before checking out Larrabee to see the state's first park after more than a century. The ancient forests of Rockport were the perfect place for forest bathing before taking a contemplative walk at Lake Sylvia. The imposing sea cliffs of Cape Disappointment were the setting for a perspective on the arrival of Lewis & Clark and the gentler tidepools of Deception Pass were a delightful place to give back to the community as beach naturalists. Road-tripping across the state we witnessed the changing climate's fire effect on Alta Lake before contemplating the benefits and pitfalls of Grand Coulee Dam at Crown Point. Blake Island offered a window into the timeless story of Chief Seattle and the original peoples of the Salish Sea just as Mount Spokane offered a prominent lookout over the complex geology of mountains and plateaus. The struggles and accomplishments of migrants of the 1850's witnessed in the story of Willie Keil is inextricably tied to the conflicts and prejudices that culminated at Spokane Plains Battlefield. The detrimental effects of over-exploitation of resources is brought into focus in the oasis of Rainbow Falls.
Lake Sammamish, however, doesn't come with an obvious historic connection or feature of statewide significance. In fact, park planners in 2007 struggled with defining a vision to guide future management of the Washington's third-most-visited state park. Reaching out to the diverse community expanding from metropolitan Seattle to completely surround the park, staffers ultimately stated: "Lake Sammamish State Park will be Washington’s signature park for protecting and celebrating urban natural areas, showcasing regionally significant wetlands and wildlife habitat, while enriching the lives of visitors and providing a valued legacy to future generations.”
Patty and I arrived at Lake Sammamish on an unusually sunny November morning to find the picnic tables stacked for the winter and the parking lots filled with more piles of colorful leaves than cars. We wandered along a wide boardwalk path through a restored riparian area alongside Issaquah Creek toward the lakeshore. Interpretive signs and kiosks tell the story of the salmon species that find shelter in this habitat. Remarkably, the chinook, sockeye and coho salmon passing into the creek from the lake have threaded through more than 35 miles of this metropolis of 3.5 million souls to arrive at this spot from Puget Sound. Though there are residual wild stocks of these fish, most are bound for their place of birth at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, just upstream of the park.
Salmon are arguably the single most culturally significant wildlife species in Washington. All of the original peoples here have a deep and timeless connection with salmon as a foundation of life as in the Snoqualmie creation story Moon the Transformer.
We watched paired couples as their emaciated bodies, with the males' pronounced kype, or hooked snout that develops as they prepare to spawn, finished their lives with one last burst of energy to deposit and fertilize eggs. Eggs and sperm must fuse within one minute, as the sperm are dead after 1.5 minutes, and eggs are impervious to sperm after four minutes. Females agitate the gravelly nest to bury the eggs under 2-3 inches of sand and gravel, permitting a life-sustaining exchange of oxygen to the eggs. The coho salmon that we watched that day probably began their lives in one of the spawning sheds at the Issaquah Hatchery.
Fish continuing up the fish ladder without spawning naturally in the stream are struck on the head, females' bellies are cut open, and eggs and milt are collected and mixed together for fertilization, then settled in incubation trays. The eggs begin to hatch in December. From January through March, salmon fry are moved outside to rearing ponds where hatchery staff feed them for one year as they develop and mature. In mid-April coho smolts that have already stayed in the ponds for one year are released into Issaquah Creek.
Two thirds of the released smolts perish in the three-week journey downstream and downlake to the Ballard Locks, mostly in the open waters of Lake Sammamish and Lake Washington. Most succumb to predation by larger fish, especially non-native bass and walleye. Of the fish that make it past the locks, 50% more are lost before swimming out of Puget Sound through Admiralty Inlet.
Coho then spend two years in the open Pacific Ocean, mostly traveling north to Alaska, before the amazing return after more than 10,000 miles to the precise location of their birth in the waters of Issaquah Creek. An average of 15,000 returning coho pass through the fish ladders at the Ballard Locks each year. Around 1% of the fish that were released from the hatchery eventually return to spawn.
Prior to Euro-American colonization runs may have been ten times those seen today. The decline has been due to four impacts: hydroelectric dams, habitat changes, hatcheries and harvesting. Beginning in the late 19th century, industrial- scale harvesting of salmon decreased populations by the sheer overharvesting of a resource seen as infinitely abundant. By the turn of the 20th century, Washington residents recognized the decline, and sought to maintain the resource by establishing fish hatcheries. Hatcheries utilized a very limited number of genetic stocks, establishing non-native fish in depleted watersheds, further decimating the unique stocks within individual streams. In the rush to industrialization, hydroelectric facilities were built with little or no accommodation for fish passage, eliminating access to spawning beds. Road construction, urbanization and conversion of watersheds to conform to agricultural purposes diminished the habitat requirements for salmon, by removing tree shade from streams, polluting the water with silt and chemicals and impairing fish passage with impassable culverts.
The tide began to turn with the 1974 "Boldt decision," a judicial reaffirmation of tribes' treaty reservation of "the right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations." With tribes re-empowered to a partnership in the management and harvest of of salmon fisheries, the long road to recovery began. With the 1998 Washington Salmon Recovery Act, more state resources have been allocated toward those efforts.
The process continues, most recently with tribes' successful push to win a judgement from the US Supreme Court in 2018 mandating the upgrading of culverts on all state roads to facilitate fish passage. In supporting the tribes' position, King County Executive Dow Constantine said:
I believe we have a moral obligation to the region’s original residents, and to those of us who occupy their ancestral lands, to restore what has been lost and leave a legacy of healthy salmon runs for all who come after us.
A Pacific Northwest of dead rivers and empty bays would be a sad testament to our collective selfishness and shortsightedness.
Even for relative newcomers to this region, the return of salmon to streams and rivers each fall is fundamental to what we treasure about this place. We need to act as if the last sands of the hourglass were falling on our time with these amazing animals, because unless we do something now, they are.
Fish Harvest photo courtesy Museum of History and Industry