Thankful for Salmon and Beaver
The Joys and Gifts of the Urban Wilds
The last few weeks have been a challenge. Like many, I have been trying to balance the joy of community and friendship with the despair I feel over the people being nominated for what is better described as a junk drawer than as a cabinet. I am thankful, motivated, and encouraged by the former and dumbfounded and depressed by the latter. As I have written previously, my better path to the future is to focus on what I care about and for me that is the natural world. This week I was lucky to witness a beautiful, humbling, joyous, and energizing event: the amazing return of salmon to a small urban creek. And for that I give thanks.
I was privileged to see the salmon in Pipers Creek, in Carkeek Park in northwest Seattle. Primarily chum, the fish had been born elsewhere (and donated by the Suquamish Tribe) and brought as eggs and juveniles and reared in a small pond up Venema Creek, a tributary of Pipers on the north side of Carkeek’s main road. When old enough, the salmon, now imprinted on Venema’s unique chemistry, swam down Venema to Pipers to Puget Sound. The chum then spent the next three to four years in salt water before tracking their way home, chemically and magnetically, and spawning and dying.
I entered the park by my regular route at the upper end of the creek. The trail drops down into a ravine with many feeder rivulets and forest of alder, bigleaf maple, and black cottonwood. I passed by what I think is one of the bigger western red cedar stumps in the city (about 25 foot circumference), the Piper’s Orchard, and the Carkeek Pump Station before I saw salmon, where Venema confluences Pipers Creek. A couple of fish swam in a small pool, slowly and quietly. Nearby were a few dead ones, who I assumed had spawned. As I continued down the creek, I saw dozens and dozens of fish, most looked beat up and ragged; it’s not easy to swim up the creek, pass a massive beaver dam, under vegetation, and along the gravely, rocky creek bottom.
Alongside the creek were greater numbers of dead salmon, in places so abundant that they smelt, well, of dead fish. Only a few had been scavenged though coyotes, crows, and raccoons probably took advantage of the carcasses and I wasn’t seeing their work; I was also surprised to learn that mallards not only consume salmon eggs but also their carcasses. I didn’t mind the aroma; I didn’t smell it as a sign of death but as a sign of life, that so many salmon have weathered the challenges of the wild to return to this small, urban waterway and pass their genes onto a next generation.
At the lower end of Pipers, I found another natural history phenomenon to be thankful for: beavers, which moved there in spring 2023 and began terra forming. Their dams and lodge created a basketball court-sized pond. Or at least I could see the area where the pond had been; rain in the previous week had apparently led to a breaching of the dam. When I was at the notpond, I chatted with two biologists, who told me that the dams bothered some people because the water killed trees and altered habitat, and the dams could block the salmon. Both of them, in contrast, expressed their excitement at the beavers, noting that what some considered to be messy and chaotic was a fully-functioning healthy ecosystem rich in diversity; beavers were being the ecosystems engineers they have evolved to be.
The biologists also pointed out two beaver exclusion fences cut into the dam. They helped maintain the water level and facilitated salmon passage. Part of living in harmony and respect with nature not only requires tolerance of change but also sometimes a bit of judicial management. As the biologists observed, the record high run of salmon illustrates that beaver and fish and people can coexist. We are slowly learning to be part of, and not apart from, the natural world we inhabit.
It was clear the beaver’s presence enhanced the diversity of Pipers Creek. Rising out of the former area of the pond was a snag, drilled by Pileated Woodpeckers and resting on two downed trees were Great Blue Herons. I also saw and heard a kingfisher, crows, gulls, and treefrogs. The pond and lodge also create additional structural diversity that will benefit a host of organisms from microinvertebrates to Bald Eagles.
Seeing the return of salmon to Pipers Creek and the work of the beavers, I knew that I was watching an ongoing natural history story that stretches back thousands of years in this inland sea. These animals were illustrating the power of place, of how the DNA of a landscape can embed itself in each of us—animal, plant, human—and provide a tenacity and resilience to the challenges that we all face. And for this I give thanks.
I would be remiss if I didn’t make a note about the community of people and organizations, such as the Carkeek Watershed Community Action Project, and government agencies (local, state, and tribal), who have worked tirelessly over the years to restore and nurture habitat at the park. Their work is hopeful and inspiring.
Books for Sale: This will be the last week that I am selling books in 2024, including Homewaters, Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales, and Too High and Too Steep, through my website. Otherwise, as it gets closer to the mailing chaos of late December, the lines at the post office get too long. Rumor has it my books make great holiday gifts.
By the way, another splendid holiday thought, if you feel so inclined, is a gift subscription to my newsletter.
I miss Carleek having once lived nearby but now live in a much drier climate. I’m currently reading Braiding Sweetgrass - she speaks much of reciprocity and giving thanks. Both weave through your essay, perfect for this particular day. Thanks for sharing.
Though I catch your meaning, if only they could be as useful as a junk drawer. If they could only be half as useful as the people who came together over many years and with concerted effort to bring the salmon back to Pipers Creek, in Carkeek Park! So love knowing of this success and your telling of what you saw along the trail!