downstriMm into Ihe Imj; rivor and ihcn onto ihe ocojn. uking 

 several months to reach the mouth of the river in most cases. 

 There the httle fish, called a fingerlinj; or parr, comes to a tem- 

 porary halt while it adjusts its metabolism to salt as opposed to 

 fresh water. In some cases this may take quite a long time, 

 especially if the individual started life not too far from the sea. 



The young salmon must also gel used to entirely new food, 

 substituting crustaceans for insects. This food consists of small 

 true shrimps as opposed to prawns, which the inhabitants of 

 the east coast erroneously call shrimps— the larvae of crabs, and 

 other small animals, most especially krill or "whale food." which 

 are otherwise known as euphausiids. These come in great 

 swarms so tightly packed that they may turn the whole sea pink 

 for miles. Before the fmgerlings can get to this richest of all plank- 

 tonic or surface marine food, however, they wean themselves on 

 other crustaceans that live on the bottoms of the river estuaries. 

 such as sandhoppers or amphipods. salt-water sourbugs or 

 isopods. mysid shrimps, and so forth. Then finally they head 

 out to sea. seeking out the krill and drifting with it. Since the 

 major inshore ocean current along this coast travels northward, 

 most of the little fish go that way. Most salmon are gone for 

 about four years, during which time they slowly reach maturity 

 and graduate from crustacean food to a diet of other fish, mostly 

 anchovies, pilchard, and herrings — if they are ludcy, that is, for 

 they in turn are preyed upon unmercifully by great hosts of 

 other fish, birds, and beasts that rush up at them from below 

 and dive down upon them from above. 



Ducks, loons, grebes, and other diving birds wait for their 

 coming in huge flocks; seals and sea lions gobble them up by 

 the barrel-load; sharks, dogfish, ling, bass, and other fish chase 

 and eat them; and even sea otters get into the act. But perhaps 

 most frightening of all are the insidious lampreys, that lowly 

 relative of the fish, with an eel-shaped body and a circular 

 mouth full of rasping teeth that attaches itself to the body of 

 the salmon and then bores into its vitals. But somehow, despite 

 the toll taken on the eggs, on the fingerlings in the rivers, by 

 waiting hordes at the river's mouth, and by all these predators 

 in the open ocean, great numbers of salmon somehow survive 

 and grow into large, robust, and extremely agile fish that may 

 weigh up to a hundred pounds and be as much as five feet long. 

 And very soon they are giving as good as they take, preying on 

 other fish and even on some of their enemies. Salmon are 

 known as fighting fish, and not only on a fishing line. They have 

 strong jaws and fine teeth, and they can become quite aggressive 

 in their own environment. 



In due course when the fish are fat and filled with oil. they 

 turn homeward, and when once the urge to spawn comes upon 

 them they cease to feed and make a dash from wherever they 



may be. directly to Ihe mouth ul the river in which they individ 

 ually were hatched Ihis is perhaps the most remarkable fealuir 

 of the whole sequence, though the manner by which they sul' 

 sequently find their way up exactly the right tributary of th. 

 main river and then up a branching maze of lesser tributaries i' 

 just exactly their own home stream is little less exlraordlnar\ 

 It has now been demonstrated that they accomplish this in il; 

 fresh-water phase of their homeward travels by a complcti I 

 uncanny and to us really incomprehensible ability to distingui ' 

 from all others the exact mineral content and balance of ti. 

 waters of just one liny stream. While it seems to have bei 

 scientifically demonstrated that this is so, it is not known hms 

 the fish does it, though it is suspected that the organ concerned 

 may be the lateral line (which is a sense organ supplied with 

 nerves stemming from that basal pair to which our auditory 

 organs are attached). However, the fish do not "hear" these 

 minute chemical differences but apparently may be more prop- 

 erly said to "smell" or taste them. We really do not know; we 

 have no homologous sense organ. 



Often the last stages of this great journey are fraught with 

 all manner of mechanical difficulties — not only the multitudinous 

 nets, traps, and weirs men lay to catch them, but also waterfalls 

 and other barriers (in many cases rendered worse by artificial 

 dams — around which, however, fish ladders are now sometimes 

 constructed to aid them on their way). The jumping abilities of 

 salmon in negotiating waterfalls and rapids are known to every- 

 body, but the sheer swimming power entailed cannot be appre- 

 ciated until you try just to stand in some of the more modest 

 rapids that they negotiate. The height to which they can jump 

 is great, but more amazing is their ability actually to swim up 

 a waterfall. Many salmon have to battle a long succession of 

 such falls before they reach their appointed spawning grounds. 

 Then, once the roe is laid in the safety of the slow-moving 

 shallows, the wan and tired fish turn about and start down- 

 stream again to the sea. Among these Pacific species of the 

 genus Oncorhynchus, none of them ever makes it; spent with 

 the long journey and the effort of spawning, all of them die 

 before completing the seaward trip. The cycle is complete. 



All in all. this province is, from the point of view of wildlife — 

 apart from the Sierras of Mexico — the ridiest and most lush in 

 the whole North American continent. It is also, perhaps, the 

 least known but one of the richest in many other respects; and, 

 unless progress such as we know it stops, it seems destined to 

 become one of the great centers not only of recreation but also 

 of agriculture and other permanent human residence. The cli- 

 mate is not too rigorous even in winter today, and it is said to 

 be ameliorating. Almost anything can be grown there — even 

 wine grapes. 



