Once again I am going to bore everyone by highlighting how much I love my work. On May 23rd I travelled to the Island for work and it was another one of those trips that reminds me why I get out of the office and into the field. The office becomes oppressive and the bureaucracy gets me down. Petty crap by self-important people who have lost sight of the reason they do what do they bring the morale low and depress me and make me start to look at university postings again.
And that’s when I need to get out to see some fish and the people who care for them, so a call to a site usually provides the impetus to grab my boots and go.
The people.
The fish.
The environment.
My three circles of work.
The day started with a ferry ride to the Nanaimo and a drive up to Courtenay. From there is was a short jaunt down to the Puntledge River Hatchery where I hung out for the rest of the day, chatting with staff and management, checking out the fish, enjoying a BBQ put on for the staff as appreciation from the manager, and so on.
The next day it was to the hatchery first thing and a workout netting and loading coho fry into the transport truck. From there we headed up to Comox Lake and transferred some fo the fish to a tank on a boat and zipped partway up the lake to distribute them along the shoreline. We repeated that process about four times until we’d set all the fry free into the lake.
The day was warm and sunny, but out in the middle of the lake the wind made the waters a bit rough and the ride wasn’t dry.
I can’t help but wonder how long the lake will look like this. On the top of that mountain down at the end of Comox Lake is the Comox Glacier. It’s the only glacier on Vancouver Island, as far as I know, and it’s been shrinking rapidly. In 2 years, will there be anything left of it?
I sort of doubt it.
The edges of the lake feel more like the Gulf Islands than a lake. The arbutus trees, shedding their bark for the summer, look like gnarled old souls, and the moss is already turning golden and crisp. It feels dry, like Cache Creek, but with different vegetation. BC is, I believe, the northern most habitat for any species of eucalyptus, in this case the arbutus tree. it’s always strange to me to see them on Comox lake though, because I generally associate them with cliffs along the ocean. We are very close to the ocean here, but there is no salt air up on Comox Lake, even though the landscape is so very reminiscent of the Gulf Islands.
And when the day was done, we had liberated about 30,000 fry into their new home. hopefully they will thrive in the lake and leave to the sea next year at this time.
I have a pretty fabulous job. I’ve probably mentioned that though….
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