With the scent of hundreds of visible wild chum salmon literally rotting in the water, we made our way from our parking spot at the mouth of the park and walked down Goldstream river. We hoped to bare witness to nature's raw spectacle of life and death- the annual salmon run.
We first visited under the bridge where we could see a handful of pale dead chum floating lifelessly in the water. However being the furthest the salmon travel upstream, there was many more living, rowdy, mating salmon than dead salmon. You see, it is the wonderful cycle of life and death that plays out here before our eyes. The male and female salmon swim up stream from the ocean to mate, lay eggs, and then die.
More downstream was a mass grave of fish carcases just floating in the water. The birds were huddled around the banks gorging themselves on this once a year buffet. Although there are a diversity of different salmon species that spawn in Goldstream, chum outnumbered all others, being the most visible and abundant of those salmon spotted. After having had enough of this interesting event. We walked back to the car and made our way to Mount Douglas.
