What were we thinking?

A visit to the Salmon Spawning channel at Lang Bay this morning resulted in us returning home with 3 10 lb chum salmon, freshly caught and milked of about 3500 eggs each.

Very fascinating place.
Thankfully, Marv and Kathy wandered by just at the right time: Marv instructed me in the filleting process, Kathy assisted with bagging, and we managed to persuade them to take one home.
We have enough salmon (steaks, roasts, fillets, stock) for the winter methinks....

a walk in the woods

these little guys are about the size of a dime

Suicide Trail near Duck Lake-a beautious place despite the name-we trekked with Bensons and 2 dogs for about 2 1/2 hours(with a lunch break of course).
Millions of types of fungus, mushrooms etc and the streams were rushing after the recent rain. Spanish moss on all the trees.
Every vista was a photo-op

Thanksgiving in Fernie

For some reason we didn't have the camera out in Cochrane, but here are the Balls on a walk around a lake in Fernie. It was beautiful there-cool as you can see, by the outerwear. Lots of coloured leaves, a close encounter with 2 moose, friends for the kids.
Isn't this cute of Devon?

Our bed up in the loft in the morning.

the salmon run

Chinook and chum-look to be about 20"-30"

The monsoon season is here and the creeks are running fast. This is good because now the salmon can spawn. We went today to the Lang Bay Fish Hatchery, where the salmon are rerouted to a spawning channel, some of them are milked for their eggs and then released into the river. The Chinook and chum seem content to spawn right there and then die. The coho get back into the river and go way up about 6 miles or more to spawn.

We learned all this from one of the workers. There were a few fish up on the bank, dead. He said there is at least 1 bear there who is enjoying a captive meal.
Looks like a good run.
He said the usual chinook run here is about 1000, and there are more than 1100 and it's just started.
I guess all those fisherpeople at the mouth of the creek didn't do too much damage.

spinnakers and sea lions