№27 — Capilano Salmon Hatchery

View of Vancouver from the lighthouse park

Last week’s experience was quite international and took place in lovely British Columbia, Canada. Silia and I were visiting my sister in Vancouver and since I have already been there five years ago, I needed to do something special.

Further, I want to start a tradition to visit one weird sight every holiday. Last holiday in Armenia, it was the Armenian alphabet monument and that hand-dug cellar at some Armenian woman’s house.

Rainforest and Lynn Creek

Initially, our plan was to go night skiing at Grouse Mountain with spectacular views of the city while it slowly gets dark. Unfortunately, the weather gods were not on our side and it was cloudy with low visibility all day. Still, we decided to rent a car and see some of the more remote places of the city.

First, we went up to the Lynn Creek Suspension bridge, which is the shorter but cheaper — it is free — brother of the Capilano Suspension bridge. Walking through the woods around there reminded me a lot of the rainforests in New Zealand.

Afterwards, it was time for the potential highlight of the day — the Salmon Hatchery. For some reason, I expected it to have lots of fish and salmon swimming up a stream like in that John West commercial with the bear. But no such luck, salmon swim upstream sometime in Fall, not March.

Young salmon and trout soon to be released

Still, we saw a lot of tiny salmon soon to be released into the wild. Moreover, we learned a bit about the local environment and had a nice view of some rapids. Lastly, we also went up a little further to Cleveland Dam, which is the whole reason the hatchery even exists. Cleveland Dam itself is not anything interesting but the valley behind is a nice view.

In case you are interested: the dam blocked access for salmon to their natural breeding grounds. Initially, the government collected the adult salmon, trucked them upstream and released them in the lake. However, hardly any salmon survived the more than 50 meter fall from the lake to the lower parts of the stream via the spillway.

The spillway in the very back was too much for young salmon

While the salmon hatchery was a bit disappointing, our final view from the lighthouse park in West Vancouver made up for everything.