If you've driven up and down Chimacum road looking for the building that used to be at 301, you haven't gone crazy.. Wild Olympic Salmon headwaters has a totally dazzling new look. So if you do a drive by, remember to wear sunglasses and not to stare directly at it for longer than a minute.
A trillion thanks to the raw material and raw talent of Olympic Custom Interiors, North Kitsap Roofing, KJR's Charlie Brown, Mats Mats Quarry, Tom Plut Painting, Shold Excavating,Paradise Bay Construction, Lou Slagle: S&T construction, Tri area Contracting, Fred Hill Materials, Lonestar Northwest, Quilcene-Snow Restoration Team Olympic Custom Interiors, Jim Hackman, William Michel, Doug Joyce and especially to the dedicated efforts of Bill Irwin, our own human habitat restoration expert.
For those of you who thought you saw a FIN-wannabe cruising down I-5 in March, it was the one-and-only 25-foot Wild Olympic Salmon herself. FIN accompanied "Slam-Grass" band LEFTOVER SALMON on a wild rock tour of Seattle, Olympia, Spokane, Portland, Ashland, Eugene, Chico, San Francisco and the Fabulous Fillmore. Now there's no living with her ( thanks to Bruce Marston,who made her bigger than Miss Piggy).
IF YOU DON'T COME FOR THE SALMON... AT LEAST COME FOR THE OYSTERS
FRIDAY, MAY 10 5PM AT THE DAZZLING NEW HEADWATERS
What can we say, we laughed, we cried, we brought 38,000 new salmon into this world, trailered FIN 11,896 miles; restored , surveyed, or enhanced 25 miles of stream habitat ; made 36 speeches; attended 13 conferences; put 213 volunteers to work; hosted 1018 festival goers; sold 3213 quilt raffle tickets; renovated 990 square feet of building space, so...............LET'S EAT!!!
Bring yourself, a potluck dish, and an extra hand for excessive back-patting
to 301 Chimacum Road . We will provide a good-old-fashioned oyster bake, tall tales, live entertainment, and PLENTY of exciting ways for you to get in on the fun for the upcoming year.
Last newsletter we announced the arrival of two flats of Salmon Creek eggs. Salmon Creek eggs are "wild" eggs, hand-spawned in the Fall from salmon returning to their native Salmon Creek. "Wild" eggs genetically adapt to their environment, as opposed to "Hatchery" eggs, which are bred to be genetically uniform, carbon copies of each other.
The eggs were then taken to Dungeness Hatchery where they were fertilized and nursed along until they are ready to be moved back to Salmon Creek to be raised. While you were doing whatever you've been doing for the last 5 months, these baby salmonids have been lounging in stream fed trays, eating catered meals of Biomoist #3, growing big enough to be taken to Dungeness Bay saltwater rearing pen where they could feast even more, without danger of being feasted upon. (Understandably, this increases their rate of return.)
The fry are finally mature and scheduled for release on April 24 at 7:30 PM (the dark will protect them from overhead predators). A Bon Voyage party will be present, complete with Champagne, speeches, waving hankies and tears.
It would not be surprising to see a 38,000-fin salute to the generous humans who made their adventure on the high seas possible: Tom Jay, Sheri Scalf, Bruce Marston, Bob Marret, Clif Crandall, Robbie Robinson, Steve Messler, Ginna Correa, Katy Levenhagen, and Dick Rogers.
The salmon (and their human chums) are due back in the year 2000.
Several years ago, Wild Olympic Salmon set out to count the wild Chum in Chimacum Creek, the creek that drains the whole watershed that is Port Townsend, Port Hadlock and the Chimacum valley. Not one was counted. After living here 12,000 years, these salmon had gone extinct.
Wild Olympic Salmon was not about to accept this. A vision was created to bring the "ghost chum" back to Chimacum creek. Chimacum Creek's closest cousin, Salmon Creek, still had a small run of wild chum. If the number of Salmon Creek Chum returns can be increased to to a level (2000 fish or more) , these eggs could be used to reintroduce a summer Chum run to Chimacum Creek.
Since starting the Salmon Creek project, the return has more than doubled from an average of 200 fish a year, to 530 fish last year (the first year of the Salmon Creek Hatchery salmon's return)
MANY HAPPY RETURNS, LITTLE CHUMS!
On the stream side, Wild Olympic Salmon has been busy preparing Chimacum Creek for the return of the Chum and other runs that have been depleted over the years. Ongoing restoration projects like gravel cleaning, eel grass transplanting, stream and fish monitoring rely on volunteers to help. If you want to be included in this and other projects, stay tuned, there are lots of upcoming projects needing volunteers.
Most funding for Salmon Creek and other WOS restoration projects comes from North Olympic Salmon Coalition. Over the Past 5 years, NOSC has awarded over $181,000 of their funds (awarded by the Department of Fish and Wildlife) to Salmon habitat restoration and rehabilitation projects. As funding becomes more scarce, however, necessary restoration projects get turned away for lack of money. If you are interested in supporting their efforts, send a $10 membership fee to NOSC, PO Box 699, Port Townsend, WA 98368
Do you like standing up to your knees in icy cold water for hours, counting little fishies in the rain?
If you answered "NO" then you're in luck!
Wild Olympic Salmon is full of fun INDOOR projects, just waiting for the right person to breathe life into them. There are tremendous opportunities here for people who are creative, motivated, and not afraid to get their feet wet ( in the non-literal sense). So if your area of interest is listed below, please PLEAZE (pleeeeeese) come forward. You can do as much or as little as you want. Every effort counts. We have ongoing projects in the following areas:
Festivals, parades, booths, etc.
Fundraising, grant writing.
FIN, managing FIN's stellar career, We also need drivers!.
Educational programs and materials
Products: Salmon jewelry, buttons, books, etc.
Wild Olympic Women: the quilt
Spartina is a noxious weed damaging to shoreline life. (no, it is not found in health food stores) Volunteers are needed to adopt a stretch of shoreline and monitor the Spartina levels. Call Peter Bedame (Port Townsend Marine Science Center) 385-5582