A battle worth winning
Salmon enhancement on Texada
By Russ Sparks
For 13 years and running, the month of April sees some 80,000 marines muster on the banks of Mouat Creek, Texada Island. These maritime troopers steel themselves to sally forth into unchartered waters on a three to five year foray. The gauntlets they face are formidable. The enemies are many and implacable. Few marines survive to return home to Mouat's bubbling creek. We are speaking, of course, of British Columbia's rich but diminishing icon, the wild salmon. In this case Chum Salmon.
The Commander for this 13-year quest is Rob Diggon. With a few aides-de-camp he soldiers on to return Mouat Creek to its glory days of being The Chum Creek, "so thick and black with chum that you could walk on the backs of salmon." Rob is a quarryman by trade and an original Texada guy. His "gotta do this" attitude and amazement at the life of the not so ubiquitous wild salmon is rooted in fishing trips with his Dad and the lazy, drifting boat talk of salmon returning to their creeks. The talk was of sea run cutthroat, Coho runs, eggs in gravel, struggling, jumping salmon surmounting log jams fighting their way back home. Maybe with Dad's nudge Rob Diggon started to walk those creeks in a serious way. Those walks enhanced his awe and his worry. The really big runs were gone. A piece of his youth was not there anymore. Rob decided to fight for the salmon.
With two other original Texada boys, Ron Akre and Mike Schroeder, who were also schooled in the love for their island and the good ole days of fishing, Rob formed a loose group to get serious about salmon enhancement and restoration of a seemingly destroyed salmon creek. The year was 1997. Others joined the group to include the Powell River Salmon Society with Phil Jantz, marine biologists, and "a whole whack of guys" on Texada. Set backs were offered up by Mother Nature and "man's-nature" with floods, lost pipe, and dams built maybe where they shouldn't have been. The project carried on undeterred. The then Ideal Cement Company provided much needed material and the Grunts grunted on Mouat Creek.
Two nursery pens or troughs of welded aluminum were constructed and intake pipes were laid up the creek to create an acclimation-imprinting environment where salmon chum fry might be nurtured and relate to the creek of their long lost brothers and sisters. Every year the vital month of April continues to see Texada volunteers feed the little fry in a scheduled routine before their release into the creek and out to Mouat Bay and the mighty Pacific beyond. Fine tuning the process never stops. For the volunteers the time spent babysitting the fry is magical with moss and ferns growing on towering maple trees, gurgling water over the creek's rocks and the smell of crisp spring air. Tough work.
Into the future Rob is keen to continue establishing credibility with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans so that they understand the Islanders' commitment to comply with requirements and get on with a job that only Texadans will do. Rob hopes that a certain trust is building with the Department of Fisheries and that they will be there with the "permissions" to carry on the works of salmon enhancement. Certainly Rob Diggon and his crew are there with the heart and the will. Thirteen years and counting is some determination. So keep the faith. With a little help the marines will return!
