The last Sunday in September has been designated World Rivers Day for the last 10 years. But the history of Rivers Day goes much further back in B.C., dating from the time Mark Angelo, then teaching at BCIT and volunteering with the Outdoor Recreation Council, had the inspiring idea to declare a B.C. Rivers Day in 1980.
With a growing public awareness of the need to protect habitat in our rivers, since then, people in B.C. have developed an increasing passion for celebrating our rivers and streams. Blessed with abundant coastal rainfall and a challenging topography that gathers this rainfall into a myriad of watercourses, we have some of the most spectacular and productive salmon rivers in the world.
The restoration of local streams has mostly been accomplished through the efforts of a number of volunteers.
These important people are our stream stewards.
COQUITLAM RIVER
A major feature in the Tri-Cities is the beautiful Coquitlam River along with a number of smaller streams.
Almost all of these watercourses have salmon runs in them thanks in large part to many hours of effort from volunteers who have enhanced fish habitat in local streams and raised public awareness.
The Port Coquitlam and District Hunting and Fishing Club was first on the scene in the 1950s. Back then, some of the Coquitlam's salmon runs had been needlessly damaged by urban development, gravel extraction and loss of braided channels in the lower river.
Members of this club have worked for years with great dedication to restore salmon runs. With considerable support from BC Hydro over the past two decades, its efforts have been hugely successful.
Some of the early leadership for this came from people such as Bill Otway and Al Grist, both now deceased.
Thanks to their hard work and the efforts of many others, the Coquitlam River now has healthy runs of pink, chinook, coho, chum and steelhead.
BC Hydro continues to support the efforts of Kwikwetlem First Nation and other stream stewards to restore sockeye to Coquitlam Lake. For the past few years, the Coquitlam River Watershed Round Table, with support from local government, has also become a champion of efforts to protect the River.
MOSSOM CREEK
Back in 1976, Rod MacVicar and Ruth Foster, teachers at Centennial secondary school in Coquitlam, wanted to provide their biology students some boots-on-the-ground experience with B.C.'s biodiversity.
Rod, with an attraction to all things aquatic, believed Mossom Creek on Port Moody's north shore had much to offer their students in terms of a natural stream that would benefit from a little study and attention.
Rod and Ruth thus started the Mossom Creek Hatchery, where innovative programs were developed to teach students how to rear salmon and restore their habitat. An impressive number of their students have gone on to productive careers in fisheries and related fields.
Last December, a devastating fire destroyed the much-cherished hatchery but, thanks to countless hours of volunteer labour over the last few months and many generous donations, the Mossom Creek rebuild is well underway.
NOONS CREEK
By the early 1990s, people in the Tri-Cities were beginning to discover there were a number of neglected urban streams - often right in their own neighbourhoods. This newfound awareness was especially timely as a rapid increase in urban development was associated with the culverting of coho-producing tributaries and loss of the riparian forests which protect water quality.
The volunteer-run Noons Creek Hatchery in Port Moody started in 1990, followed soon after by hatcheries at Hyde Creek in Port Coquitlam and Hoy Creek in Coquitlam. Today, the three societies that operate these hatcheries offer annual festivals that celebrate our salmon.
On Oct. 24, for instance, residents are invited to attend the annual Salmon Come Home festival at Hoy Creek while, on Nov. 16, the Hyde Creek volunteers host the annual Hyde Creek Salmon Festival. These fall events offer fantastic opportunities to view the large adult salmon that return to spawn in these small creeks.
OTHER CREEKS
While artificial salmon production is not the main goal of these volunteer-run hatcheries, the production of reared juveniles provides some back-up insurance that restored salmon runs in these creeks will not be accidentally eliminated by polluting spills or erosive landslides.
Other volunteers on creeks such as Maple and Como creeks have thoughtfully chosen to focus on stream restoration and public education instead of hatchery production.
Regardless of what approach is taken, it all relies on the ongoing efforts of a large number of volunteers in our community.
Still, one issue that is often raised by these seemingly tireless volunteers is a concern that new volunteers do not appear to be coming forward to help ensure these programs will continue into the future.
When we celebrate our rivers on B.C. Rivers Day, we should also be celebrating these volunteers and thinking about what we can do to ensure their impressive accomplishments will carry forward into the future.
Elaine Golds is a Port Moody environmentalist who is conservation/education chair of the Burke Mountain Naturalists, chair of the Colony Farm Park Association and a founding director of the board of the Port Moody Ecological Society.
