We left Waterton for Kokanee Creek Provincial Park. The weather was gorgeous again and the drive, with snow-covered mountains to the south and the Alberta prairie to the east was stunning. We drove the Crow's Nest Highway most of the way including through Frank, Alberta, the site of the largest landslide in North America (Google it). We drove up the east side of Kokanee Lake and rode the free ferry to Balfour (the longest free ferry ride in North America; 35 mins.). This is a view of Kokanee Lake
Kokanee Creek Provincial Park, near Nelson, B.C. is the site of an artifical spawning stream to help the Kokanee recover. Due to the dams up-river and the closure of a couple of mines that were dumping phosphorous and nitrogen in the lake, the stock of Kokanee plummeted. The BC government is now salting the lakes weekly with phosphorous and nitrogen and the stocks are recovering. They are spawning now. They turn red, stop eating and start up the streams to spawn. During this time they absorb their scales and eventually die. They are spectacular to watch. I was surprized there weren't a lot of bears around to eat all the dead fish, but apparently bears in this part of the world are 98%
vegetarian. We also didn't see any birds of prey eating the dead fish.
In the evening we went into Nelson and listened to a good jazz band playing swing music in a bar.
The next morning, Joe, Bob and I took a short walk up Kokanee Canyon where we saw Kokanee that hadn't gone up the artificial spawning channel and were going up Kokanee Creek instead.
Eventually we reached a viewing platform at the top of the canyon. There were no Kokanee up here, but they had made it most of the way up the canyon.
That afternoon we went into Nelson and Vera and I went to the museum to learn about the history of Nelson while Bob and Joe went to an internet cafe. Nelson had a gold rush and a timber rush and was the site of numerous brothels. It is now an art center. We went out for Indian dinner and went home in the pouring rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment