swimming upstream

from October 19, 2008

Today Paul and I went to watch the sockeye salmon swimming upstream. Bright spears of red beneath the riffling waters. Through binoculars, a jutting head - a hooked snout - a golden, prehistoric eye. Their fluid shapes exhaled both strength and exhaustion. Every movement of their bodies a great effort and a great ease.

We walked along the path flanking Cavanaugh Pond. On the pond, a faded glitter of sunlight. Widgeons paddled and dipped underwater. A kingfisher flew, rattling. We lit our small propane campstoves and cooked our canned pork & beans, drank tea, and sat on the dusty hump of the shore. Sunlight slanted through the reeds and caught in sparkles on small insects beating the water. Tiny fish hung in the water column; a heron hunched on a far log.

Volunteer docents bustled along the path, leading tours to the salmon. One gentleman, a visitor, with a small bevy of children, paused to talk to us after the children, three boys, came to ask us questions.

"Are you seeing anything?" he asked.

"Well, there's some ducks," I said. "And a kingfisher. You hear that rattling call? That's the kingfisher."

"You hear that rattling call?" said the gentleman, in a strong English accent, emphasizing the word "that". He was portly, with black hair and a moustache. We looked at him in confusion.

"You hear that rattling call?" he repeated, pointing to the smallest boy, who was scrambling back up the slope. "That's called a grandson."

We chuckled. Then we all strolled along the path toward the salmon at the end. He was talkative, the gentleman. He calls Yorkshire his native ground. He told us he had lived in South Africa for ten years before returning to England. And shortly following South Africa, he moved to the United States. I foolishly did not ask him what all that moving was for. I wanted to be quiet with Paul, on the shores of the pond watching ducks and looking for frogs, and soon turned with him off onto another side path. The gentleman and his grandsons, and the grandsons' father, I presume, continued toward the creek with its salmon.

Later, we encountered them again, returning as we arrived on the creek shore, but it was too late. We had time only for a few short words. "There are lots of them down there," said the swarthy gentleman - meaning salmon, of course. Then he and his son and his grandsons were gone.