The Hatchery

On our way to find some lunch food we got side tracked. We stopped at the fish hatchery. We started inside with the ceramic replicas and harvesting tanks. The hatchery created a side stream off the river and built a canal with mini falls so that the salmon will swim up river, jumping the falls, and breed inside the holding tanks of the hatchery. The fish are eventually fed back into the river.

Outside the hatchery building you can see the holding tanks where the salmon were held while they spawned. There were SOOOO many salmon. The mini canal was full of them. The river where the salmon were coming up from was packed with salmon as well. There was a miniature falls that was blocked so that the salmon couldn't go up the river, and instead go up the canal the hatchery made. But you could watch the salmon try to swim up the falls. We took a couple of videos, it was really cool to see in real life.

Since the river flooded a few weeks ago, a lot of salmon were able to get over the barrier in the river. These were spawning in the river. After a salmon spawns, he dies. So there were a few dead salmon in the river as well. Some of the older, bigger salmon were practically decaying while swimming. These dinosaurs won't die though until they get the chance to spawn.

The hatchery was a fun stop, I could watch the salmon swim up river all day long.