The Salmon Matrix, Reloaded...

Salmon furiously swimming upstream

We visited the salmon hatchery across the bay from Valdez, Alaska. The hatchery is just next to a natural gulch, the Solomon Gulch. It looks like this gulch is the natural place where the salmon hatches, goes down stream into the bay and into the sea for a year, to then return to spawn at the very place where it was born and then...die.

In order to better control the salmon in this area, the hatchery puts a special steel grid to stop the salmon on its way upstream to the gulch, and deviate them into the hatchery.

Steel barrier to divert salmon to the hatchery.

Salmon that insist on not going to the hatchery, encounter this fence

A salmon tries to jump the steel barrier to make it to the Salomon Gulch

The hatchery consists of a concrete structure called the “ladder” that is designed as a series of consecutive chambers and narrow doors where water runs downstream at different rates.

The Matrix...err..ladder of chambers

Here you can see 3 salmon struggling in one of the chambers, one is about to pass the narrow door, the 2 other, exhausted, about to get carried down stream to lower chambers.

Some chambers in the ladder look easy, but as the ladder goes up, some chambers run the water so hard that the salmon barely makes it. Most salmon get pushed back to lower chambers. Around the middle chamber, you start to see dead salmon covering the bottom of the chambers.

Dead salmon on the bottom of a chamber

As the ladder progresses, less and less salmon make it. When I finally walked to the last chamber, just before the spawning area, only a handful of salmon were there.

Last chamber before "heaven"

There was something about watching individual salmon struggling so hard against the current of the chambers that just broke my heart. I could see and feel every fiber and gene fighting for a seemingly pointless purpose...not only to perpetuate an endless cycle, but further, to struggle within a totally unnatural and artificial foreign design, serving someone else's purpose.

This is the man-made heaven that the salmon are struggling to reach. This is the hatching area.

I wanted to climb down in the chamber, close to the water and tell the salmon: “Dude...stop fighting the current. Turn around and save your awesome strength to get pass the hooks and nets, the bears and the eagles...and swim into the vastness of the waters.

Then, find your nearest salmon RV dealer and travel around the world....and if you need to winterize your lil'salmon RV check out my blog for tips."

Amazingly enough, in spite of hooks, nets, eagles, bears, steel barriers, man's strange designs, strong currents, and waterfalls....some salmon still made it all the way to Salomon Gulch, true salmon heaven.

Salomon Gulch. The dark area of the water are the salmon that made it there.

Some other sights around the hatchery...

Fishing is allowed on the area around the stream that leads to the Solomon Gulch. The salmon at this stage are not eating, and apparently not interested in any lure on a given hook...however the waters are so crowded with salmon that all you need to do is throw a bare hook and a salmon is bound to get snatched by it, usually on the upper part of its body.

Some salmon eggs that did not make it to their destination

Just another day at the office

Well, enough about this upbeat theme. I think it's starting to sound a bit like a downer, but hey...I just had a salmon sandwich with fries on the side...delicious!