Have you ever visited a fish hatchery? If you haven’t, you should.

Here in the western part of the country, you often see information signs along the highways directing you to a nearby fish hatchery. A few years ago, when Sue and I were visiting Yosemite National Park in California, we took a detour to a fish hatchery. It was a lovely day and we had time on our hands, as we didn’t really enjoy our visit to Yosemite and didn’t want to spend another day there, dealing with the large crowds attracted to the area. So we decided to take a couple of hours to visit the hatchery. What an interesting surprise, and since then we have visited a number of others.

On our last day in Seattle, Steve and Jennifer offered to show us the locks at Lake Washington and then a fish hatchery. The locks connect Lake Washington to Puget Sound and when they were constructed, fish ladders were part of the project–to enable spawning salmon to make their way back to the stream where they were first hatched. It seems that salmon spend the first part of their life in a fresh water stream or river and then swim to the ocean where they spend three or four years feeding and growing–sometimes reaching three or more feet in length.

Then some instinct tells them to return to their spawning grounds, but many of the rivers have been damned to generate electricity and control flooding and water distribution. These dams do however present a problem to the returning salmon, but the ladders facilitate, at least in part, the salmon on their return visit.

Both at the locks and at the fish hatcher, we saw an incredible number of salmon fighting with others of their species to make their way back to the spawning grounds. Each year many tourists and local residents visit the locks and the hatcheries to witness this struggle. It was a fascinating way to spend a couple of hours, and in truth, a once in a lifetime opportunity that we thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks again Jennifer & Steve for the outing and for hosting everyone on a wonderful Pacific Northwest adventure.